Representative Team meeting
Tbilisi, Jun 11 - 12, 2010
Minutes
Present:
Krzysztof Leonczuk – OWOP, Poland, Mate Varga – HACD, Hungary, Tatiana
Vodolazhskaja and Leonid Kalitenya - CSI, Belarus, Giorgi Meskhidze and Helen
Romelashvili – Civitas, Georgia, Petru Botnaru – Terra 1530, Moldova, Nicu Cuta – Crono,
Romania, Bojana Jevtovic – CCI, Serbia, Helmut Hallemaa – The Estonian NGO Roundtable,
Estonia, Pavel Micka – AGORA, the Czech Republic, Galina Petrenko – Interlegal, Rusia,
Ylena Shomina – CF, Russia, Dmytro Koval – RDA, Ukraine, Chuck Hirt and Anna
Karailieva – CEE Citizens Network, Slovakia
Agenda:

Welcome, presentation and information from the host
Giorgi welcomed everybody in Tbilisi and provided with the practical information.

Welcome of new members, presentation of their organizations
It was done by a brief introduction of everybody including one new Network “We the
Citizens” from Russia with whom we have just signed a new agreement.
 CCE Citizens Network – general view on current activities and new development
of the Network
Chuck informed about the main activities and achievements as well as possible new
development such as:
o CPW - in cooperation with CEBSD, Interlegal Foundation and “We, the Citizens!”
Coalition from Russia and with the Council of Europe
o Annual training - we will shift it from the training event to Citizens Participation
University
o Citizens Participation Study – we have some initial money for it from International
Visegrad Fund
o E-participation agenda - cooperation with PEP-NET, big help from our new member
from Slovenia – InePA
o We will continue our work with the Council of Europe – we played quite active role in
development of the Code of Good Practices for Civil Participation in DecisionMaking Processes, also in Forum of the Future of Democracy and ELDW
o ECON – has been an official part of our Network for two years. Mott Foundation
increased our budget to allow them to send three people to U.S. to friend and fund
raise.
o We are building partnership with several networks and most significant is cooperation
with CEBSD. We made a new connection with Balkan Civil Society Development
Network and with Interlegal.
o Development in administrative issues of the Network
o We were more active in several other projects like Neighbors´ Day.
Comments:
We should develop some closer connection with the Council of Europe’s Congress of Local
and Regional Governments
 Approval of Plan for 2010 – 2011
Present members of RT agreed that the main activities of the Network for next two years are
CPW/ELDW, CPU and Citizens Participation Study.

Update on the work of all members’ organizations
Representatives of present member organizations informed about the current situation in their
countries and organizations.
 Election of a member of Coordinating Team
Mate Varga was reelected for next three years.

Operational issues
–
Membership standard
Chuck updated people with the agreement of the CT proposal to implement the membership
standard including the membership fee and the sub- regions. The membership standard will be
sent to all members and also posted on the web site.
–
membership fees
Proposal for the membership fee:
- The minimum fee a year is 75 Euro for member organization and 35 Euro for
individual member.
- The fee must be paid first quarter of the year but no later than by the annual RT
meeting. Membership fee will be connected with voting.
- RT will decide about use of that money.
The membership fee will apply for 2010 with the deadline of payment within next three
months.
Discussion:
By this we are starting some level of sufficiency.
CEE CN will send the Request for payment to each member organization.
Benefits: CPU reduction fee, etc.
Comments/suggestions:
CT will decide about using money from membership fee.
To create a category “Friends of CEE CN”
Conclusion:
RT approved the membership fee as amended (that CT will decide about use of that money).
–
sub regions
An important issue that we like to improve by having sub-regions is CPW. There are some
other aspects that we took into consideration like natural connections, EU and non EU
members, etc.
Suggested sub-regions within the CEE Citizens Network:
1.
Albania
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Croatia
Serbia
2.
Czech Republic
Estonia
Hungary
Poland
Slovakia
Slovenia
3.
Bulgaria
Moldova
Romania
4.
Armenia
Azerbaijan
Georgia
5.
Belarus
Ukraine
Russia
Suggested duties of sub regional coordinators
1. Provide news from each of the members in the sub region at least two times a year.
2. See that news from members is posted on blog
3. Help inform and get responses from members to Network activities and initiatives.
4. Initiate discussion in sub region regarding plans for the CP Week
5. Support members promotion of CP Week and other designated activities on members
web sites
6. Help ensure that plans are prepared by each member for CP Week
7. Help get CP Week reports about activities and ensure that they are posted on internet
site (wiki)
8. Help collect and distribute materials related to Network activities such as study on
C.P.
9. Help circulate media and promotion materials including supporting translation.
10. Initiate periodic discussion within the sub-region about the condition of citizen
participation in that area and consider the possible consequences for the Citizens
Network
11. Facilitate conversation about possible joint activities within the sub-region or with
other possible partners.
Comments:
To have a major “theme coordinators” instead of sub- regional (territorial) coordinators
Issues are more important than locations
Sub-region divisions follow the EU policy as they give grants to support different subregions, joint projects with the neighborhood countries, etc.
Sub-coordinators should be not restricted to work only within the sub-region but encouraged
to look for possible sub-region cooperation. They should be more like resource people to
know what is going on in the region. They are beyond topics.
Operating in a topic working groups, there was a serious gap in our work. We feel that we do
not have enough direct contact. A lot of funding opportunities are geographically connected.
Issue oriented connection is still valid.
We should build the bank of profiles of our members – to know what personal resources we
have in our Network.
Conclusion: RT approved sub-regional division and duties of sub-regional coordinators.
Sub-regions will propose candidates and Coordinating Team will make final approval.

Meeting of the sub regional representatives
Sub regional representatives met and proposed sub- regional coordinators were as follows:
1. Bojana will check within her sub region and let us know
2. Lidija Mesaric from Slovenia. CEE CN coordinator will check with her if she agrees.
3. Nicu Cuta
4. Giorgi Meskhidze
5. Dmytro Koval

Planning on Citizens Participation Week and European Local Democracy Week
CPW:
CPW is our main event. We are trying to find more resources for it. Our proposal is to link
together CPW, CPU and CP Study. We already submitted several proposals with this idea –
International Visegrad Fund, CEE Trust, Black Sea Trust, and European Commission.
BDT is supporting us indirectly by expending the grant for CPW 2009.
CEBSD are interested in increasing their support of CPW.
Another potential development will be with the CoE: as CoE proposed as part of their
implementation of the Code they suggested creating CP Day. Chuck suggested that instead of
creating a new event they just simply could join our CPW and there is already very significant
internal support for it.
We want to focus our CPW activities this year around implementing the Code.
Discussion:
In Serbia they already started a project with a main activity to implement the Code and plan to
connect it with several activities during CPW.
We should choose a common topic for each year CPW as we did last year. In that way our
chance of getting some funds will increase.
Chuck should negotiate with CoE to have some event together during CPW in Brussels for
our 10th anniversary.
We should link some other activities with CPW, e.g. some topics from CPU to implement
during CPW.
We should write a case study how they organize CPW in Hungary.
We should fundraise during CPW: e.g. place a banner on the web site we can ask PEP-NET
how we can technically do it – to get a little money from many people.
First Monday of October – international tenant (inhabitant) day – how can we connect it with
CPW?
Connection with EU- next year theme: European year of volunteers’ activities promoting
active citizenship.
We built into our EU project some money for E-participation and also for closing event in
Brussels.
We will have a session on the CPU about CPW.
It is necessary to be more active in the planning process. Mate will distribute a tool for it – a
wiki site.
Conclusion: we will have a workshop dedicated to CPW 2010 during CPU.
ELDW:
Background: 6 years ago we launched CPW. At about two years later, we applied for CoE
participative status. We initiated some conversation with them about our CPW and their
ELDW when we learned about their event. A year later, Chuck got an invitation from Jos
Lemmers for the planning meeting of ELDW. ELDW is mostly a top- down model through
local authorities and they were interested in cooperation with CEE CN with its bottom up
approach.
Last year in Sofia, our members agreed to commit to holding at least ONE event in each
country during EWLD where there was a jointly planned activity. For the coming year, it
would be best if we can have in each member county some contact with the national
organization that CoE works with. Ideally our members could work with local authorities and
organize some event in cooperation with them during ELDW. We can give info to our
members from CoE. Possibly we can agree in the same suggestion for this year as was last
year that we will have in each country at least one common event with local authority during
that week.
Comments:
Bridging CPW and ELDW through Facebook. We need to increase the interest for this event
as ELDW is not very popular so far.
Our members do not have good experiences with national representatives/coordinators of
ELDW.
Conclusion: We should continue with our effort of attempting to hold at least one event and
most likely it will be on the local level.

Development on cooperation with other Networks and organizations
CEBSD – our Citizens Network has already submitted some proposals with them as a main
partner to cooperate on CPU and CPW. Another possibility for cooperation could be
exchanges and joint international projects. We should set up a basic framework of
cooperation/project based partnership with them.
ECON – is growing. They asked CEE CN to continue for an indefinite period of time to be
the “parent organization/fiscal agent” for ECON. RT agreed to extent our relation.
Interlegal Foundation and “We, the Citizens!” Coalition – this cooperation with the Russian
NGO Networks came from a mutual connection with CoE. We agreed on cooperation during
CPW and ELDW and put together a written basic agreement.
Balkan Civil Society Development Network – their focus is more about making some
relations with EU institutions and finding founding opportunities for their members. Miljenko
suggested to that we should explore some partnership with them as we share some members
with them. He is currently serving as President of the Board.
Baltic Sea NGO Network – this Network is not structured as our Network. Their main
mission is to influence policies. They can be a model for us if we want to be more active in
the regional strategy in the future. We agreed that this Network is not one we will be very
active in the foreseeable future. Possibility for cooperation: some training and implementing
the Code.
PEP-NET – it is the biggest European body dealing with e-participation. Our Network is one
of the founding members with them. Recently we had an on line discussion on the topic
focused on CEE region. The project ends at the end of October and it is not clear yet if they
will continue. We created within the CEE CN the e-participation group and if the PEP-NET
project continues we will suggest that it will have a CEE hub. We will also encourage them to
be active during CPW and ELDW.
ALDA – it is a group that started under the Council of Europe. They invited us to participate
in their ALL.4.EU project where we played a role in dissemination. We already agreed to
cooperate on the next 3 year project – if that project is founded we will have some core
funding for CPU 2011. They are very much project concentrated. We should ask them to help
connecting CPW and ELDW (to design proposal to connect these two events).
Eastern Partnership – it is government oriented but it might be interesting to develop some
project with them.

Relation with Council of Europe
This is not an easy time for CoE as they are experiencing many changes and cost reductions.
The INGO branch has been particularly hard hit. There are also a number of growing
questions about how effective the INGO structure currently is.
Our main role with CoE will remain focused on implementation of the Code. We will also
continue work together on EWLD.
We are invited to apply for Forum on the Future of Democracy - we will continue to be active
with this event.
It will continue to be an important relation for us with some benefits.

Planning on Citizens Participation Study
One of the ideas that came out of our strategic plan was to measure/compare the level of CP
in our region. Some documentation about that it could be a very good tool for us in the future.
We started to talk about that with Joerg Forbrig from GMF that he was very interested in it.
Joerg proposed ideas for the study and prepared it as an action study that will also describe
some best practices that we can use. Joerg talked to several possible donors that could support
this idea and he had written the original proposal that we already submitted to UNDEF and
incorporated it to several other proposals. International Visegrad Fund already approved our
project and half of that money will be used for CP Study.
Comments:
Pavel need to do some research for his PhD study so maybe it could be about CP and in that
way he could contribute to it.
Ulle Lepp from Estonia could do the same.
Yelena can ask one of her students to participate and contribute.
Interlegal can include it to their 2 years project starting in January.
In Serbia CI is going to do similar research.
We can use time during CPU to talk more about it.
We will send the project prepared by Joerg out again to everybody.
USAID announced a new program in Georgia. CIVITAS submitted several proposals in
partnership with some US organizations and two of them are short listed. There is
incorporated some research about CP in Georgia.

Planning on Citizens Participation University
This year we will do it with very limited money but we decided to take this risk and do it in
cooperation with Civil College. They already have quite rich history of organizing summer
school for their local partners.
We have some money (6 400 USD) from the BTD that left from CPW 2009 and BTD agreed
to extend the project. Costs of 18 people could be covered from this source.
CPU was designed for our membership and members of CEBSD and basically will replace
our annual training and conference. We are talking about people who are experienced in the
field of CP. It should be a place for learning as well as discussing their issues.
The main aims of CPU are:
-
To learn more about participation
-
To follow our ongoing activities (CPW, CP study, etc.) and to plan their
implementation
It is possible to come with families.
Funding:
BTD: 6 400 USD
CEE Trust:
open question
BST: waiting answer (19 000 USD covering expenses of 16 members from that area)
Hungarian National Fund: 5 000 Euro
Mott grant:
10 000 - 15 000 USD
Visegrad Fund: 5 000 Euro
Offer from Mate: he can reduce costs for accommodation and food for those who will pay
from their own budget. The travel cost from surrounding countries is not very high.
Agenda:
Afternoon of July 20 we will have a celebration of the 10th anniversary of CEE CN at the
HACD offices. Then, we will move together to Kunbabony and continue with the celebration.
CPU – see the attached CPU agenda_ the second draft.
Conclusion: CT will finalize the Agenda.

Small group discussion related to the major activities for the year and future
issues
Questions:
 What kind of activities should our Network consider in addition to those
proposed to improve the level of participation in the CEE region?
 Are there some institutions like the EU, Council of Europe etc. that we should
be trying to influence as well? What concrete suggestions?
 Is there something our Network could/should be doing to help increase the
financial resources to support this work? Concrete suggestions?
Suggestions:
To get our members more familiar with CP in different countries we can use the EU programs
(Youth in Action and European Volunteer Service) supporting volunteers to work in different
countries for 3 - 6 months.
Neighbors’ Day – we should do at least a better promotion of it.

Reports from the group discussion
Group 1:
1.
E-participation
“Useless education” – base for the further civil education
Common activity during CPW
Youth, media Neighbors Day – explore more
2.
Eastern Partnership - conference on CP with them, study on CP that would be regularly
monitored. We need to pay attention to the upcoming deadline.
Send the letter to follow up Balkan Civil Society session
Active Civil Society program
3.
To put on the web site how people could contribute to the Network and also put more
emphases on the local fundraising
Possible connection with the ethnic communities in U.S.
Group 2:
1.
Activities: we can help each other to promote participation in our projects e.g. to provide
some feedback, monitoring (to be a critical friends) etc. CEE CN - as an official partner in
member organizations projects (e.g. for mobilizing the members).
The Network – united experts from many countries in different issues. We can put together a
project in that way that we can use our collective knowledge. It will allow us to link our
members’ needs with our members’ skills.
Every year should be dedicated to some theme.
Education:
- to provide our expertise to do some training in Universities (advertise ourselves)
- CPU for students (maybe we can find some Foundation that will provide the scholarship for
them)
2.
European Social Platform
Association of municipalities – through them we can deliver some message to EU etc
Cooperation with Universities -we can provide them with some relevant data and they can
help us with some research and volunteers
British Council
Foundation for scholarship
NED
Big international companies that could provide some sponsorship for CPW
Group 3:
1.
To arrange an e-yearbook that will demonstrate our visibility and impact in CEE region.
Summer school for students – Russia will do it next year and invite partners from Ukraine and
Belarus. In two years it could be organized in the form of the International summer school
under the CEE CN in Kunbabony. We can also move the summer school from country to
country.
2.
Plan for Congress of Local Municipalities of CoE – national organizations could make a
connection
Contact Habitat – they have section of education of Local Authorities
UNESCO – education of active citizenship could be good topic for them
SIDA
LINKS:
To represent the Network and to prepare and educational publication
Summer school for students with possible scholarships
Making more publicity of the Network
Write the letter to local authorities to tell them that we have CPW and also inform them that
we want to connect CPW and ELDW – Chuck will talk with Jos Lemmers about that.