Recognizing that organizations of civil society are essential strategic partners in decision making so-called "democratic", both nationally and internationally, and in all areas, the European Commission seeks to work with these stakeholders. To enhance collaboration, the commission initiated from March 2010 to May 2011 a "Structured Dialogue" (also called "Quadrilogue") with Member States, the European Parliament, local and regional authorities (LRA) and Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) about their role in European policies and development cooperation. The ultimate goal is to make recommendations to the various categories of stakeholders mentioned before, to integrate and apply them in the next European programming for 2014-2020. From the perspective of the LRA and CSOs, they consider the Structured Dialogue as a way to put forward their proposals to improve partnerships with European institutions and community programs.
Moreover, the European Commission has opened since early March a public consultation on the issue of "supporting civil society organizations in partner countries in development." At the end of this consultation, a policy will be adopted during the fall of 2012.
In parallel, LRA are interested in the role of civil society in development and governance. This is the case of PLATFORMA, the European Platform of local and regional authorities involved in development, which focused the2012 edition of its Forum (April 2 and 3) on "the evolving partnerships between LRA and civil society and their added value in the areas of local democracy, participatory democracy and access to basic services.". This Forum follows the recommendations of the structured dialogue such as strengthening of national associations, coordination between actors and between decentralized cooperation activities. Moreover, a major objective of PLATFORMA is the promotion of effective decentralized cooperation for developing partner regions, including partnership with civil society.
Eunomad was represented by the president of Sunugal, member organization of platform Italy. During the Forum, he presented the network as a public arena for multi-actor dialogue on practices linking
To participate in the public consultation of the European Commission until May 7, 2012, please download the consultation document here
You can visit the Structured Dialogue and download the statement here