Minutes from Representative Team meeting
connected with
Dissemination seminar of TLCD project
and
Joint meeting with CEBSD
Sofia, May 18 - 21, 2009
Present:
Liuba , Tatiana, Petru, Nicu, Mirela, Chuck, Mate, Dmytro, Jos, Helmut, Giorgi, Gleb, Igor,
Krzysztof, Anna
Agenda:
1. Welcome of a new member from Moldova
2. Relation with Council of Europe
Jos Lemmers: CPW and ELDW are two important events to promote citizens participation. It
is a way how to strengthening the local democracy. NGO and local authority link is a very
natural way of empower local democracy.
Comments:
Nicu: Even we (NGO´s) are part of the public sphere; we are fighting for our place in the
public sector.
Gleb: Using NGO is very beneficial. The network should work as a powerful institution to
influence /push decision makers.
Giorgi: Forum for Future Democracy – could it be linked to the EWLD?
Igor: It will be good if we can unify these two events otherwise it will be unclear message to
citizens. How should we present it?
Nicu: CPW as a preamble to EWLD and EWLD as a follow up of CPW. We should organize
activities within these two events in frame of economic crises.
Chuck: We try to figure out how to link these two events. We can influence but we can not
determinate the theme of the EWLD.
Helmut: Link contact points of these two events.
Conclusion: We agreed that we are interested in moving ahead and we all are willing to be
listed as a partner of EWLD. This is a long term issue that could be improved in the following
years. Proposals for linking of CPW and EWLD are very welcome by CoE. They should be
developed in cooperation with association of local government. This year we will try to find
at least one town in each country where we will implement a cooperative event between
CPW and EWLD.
Other possibilities for CEE CN with CoE:
a) Forum of the Future Democracy – everybody is invited. We will send invitation to all
members. How NGO´s could influence the process? - NGO´s have the same rights as local
parliaments on this Forum. If there are some issues that we want to include in the discussion
we have a very good chance.
b) Code of Civil Participation – it was approved at the April INGO session but with
suggestions for modification so is still not in final format. Great progress was made about
improvement of this document. We can still make comments on it.
3. Election for member of Coordinating Team
We got one nomination for Miljenko and he accepted the nomination. He was elected in
unison.
4. 2009 activities – CPW, CP study
Mate: It is the fifth anniversary of CPW. Crises could be a point that could be addressed
during CPW. Governments are more open for cooperation during crises time. Mate presented
suggestions for CPW activities from RT meeting in Kunbabony.
Chuck: Study on level of Citizens Participation – we submited a project on it where we
included survey on CP during CPW. In Croatia they are running project supported by
European Commission on this issue, so they will send us results of it. Similar in BiH – they
are doing the research very year. PEP-NET is ready to support us. We already invited CEBSD
to join us.
Tasks:

We should develop a new symbol for CPW. Mirela offered to ask their graphic
designer.

Contribute to on line discussion on the blog

Create the working group – Krzysztof, Gleb, Nicu

Submit proposal to Balkan Trust and Black Sea Trust. We will also submit to the CEE
Trust for administrative support.
5. Brainstorming for the 2010 – 2011 activities
 One week training on participation/ participatory budgeting – international training
center (Hungary, Georgia)
 NGO development project in Romania in partnership with CEE CN - 3 days training
in February. (Nicu will send us summary of the project.)
 Virtual resource center that will provide support for bridging partners technical
support for fundraising Cp in frame of local development etc
 Translation of some materials to local languages
 Bridging Europe (EU and non EU countries) – relay visits
 Publish the result of the Survey on CP
 Continue of using IT but in higher level – using it in our work, not just talking about
possibility but already using it
 Funding for networking with PEP-NET
 Joint project on story telling
6. Evaluation of the members’ survey and discussion about survey outcomes
Chuck reported on the summary of the survey. Everybody will receive the summary of the
Survey evaluation.
Giorgi: Maybe we can make adjustment of the CEE CN Internal rules in order to enlarge the
Coordinating Team and make other changes in connection of Survey outcomes.
Conclusion: We agreed to send the summary back as a questionnaire with closed questions
for members to prioritize activities for the future.
8. Other
How we will follow up with TLCD project? There is some knowledge and tools
accommodated. We should develop future projects based on this. Who from our members is
interested to continue with TLCD and to move the agenda forward? Mirela volunteered to
work with Mate on this.
Suggestion for next joint meeting with CEBSD: we should be aware of equal opportunity of
CEE CN members and CEBSD members.