Towards Democratic and Inclusive Europe: EP Elections and Active Citizens Participation and Contribution

2026-07-22

More than 90% of Europeans say that their voice should be taken more into account and 89% reply that democracy in the EU needs to be strengthened. The turnout of the EP elections is consistently unimpressive, with gap between women and men voter. And, the COVID-19 pandemic has presented a new mix of challenges. How to enhance citizens' understanding of the EU; broaden ownership of the European project and build trust in the EU's promise of a better future for all, with open, rights-based, democratic, equal and inclusive Union based on rule of law? We aim to engage, connect, and empower the EU citizens, especially young people. While the EP elections in 2024 are our main focal point, we want to build sustained active civic participation. We will use a bottom-up approach, involving citizens directly and giving them an opportunity to influence policies in the EU, through: conducting focus groups/gathering opinions from the youth, analysing data/drafting policies with young leaders’ involvement, organizing public large/small-scale educational and motivational debates, including e-democracy tools, carrying out a 2024 EP elections social media campaign, and introducing recommendations to EU policymakers. We foresee a direct involvement of 1500 people and more than 200 000 indirectly. Expected results include improved knowledge on the citizen’s attitudes on the EU, enhanced citizens' awareness of rights, values and EU’s achievements, improved mainstreaming of gender in citizens’ oriented activities, increased democratic participation of all citizens, higher voting turnout in the EP elections, enhanced opportunities for citizens’ cooperation with policymakers. This project has a diverse group of partners from Austria, Greece, Ireland and Slovakia and strives for equal gender participation in all activities. During the project there will be 31 activities: 28 main activities, 2 reports, 1 public campaign.

Slovakia, Austria, Greece, Ireland

2025-12-15