From Citizen Information to
Citizen Participation,
from Local to European
NACAB’s Approach to Citizen Participation at
EU level
www.robcc.ro
NACAB Romania:
www.robcc.ro
anbcc@robcc.ro1
Citizen Information
• NACAB’s raison d’etre
• Since 2004- information campaigns on EU
Affairs
EU Level Citizen Participation—
the Way Ahead
• EPIC-The First Attempt
Citizen Participation—the Power of the Local
• Campia Turzii—a local success story
• Objective met in Bucharest neighbourhood
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Citizen Information. NACAB’s raison d’etre
• National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux (NACAB):
– nongovernmental, non profit organization, founded to support and direct the
activities of the Citizens Advice Bureaux (CAB)
– federative structure: NACAB is made up of 38 NGOs that founded CABs
– service provider for the member organizations:
» Representation in relation with public authorities
» Promotion of their activities
» Coordination of the CAB activities and training for the CAB
personnel
• Citizen information at the heart of NACAB’s activities:
– Through the CABs, NACAB ensures equal access of citizens to information and
advice services so that they are able to acknowledge their rights and duties
•
Our mission: to consolidate the Romanian society by offering services of
information/advice and by promoting the interests of all citizens in the
decision making process.
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Citizen Information in EU Affairs
•Since 2004, NACAB has
campaigns on EU Affairs:
•
•
•
been
developing
information
2004-2005, “The Citizen and Europe” project aiming at developing citizens’
capacity in order to access, understand and use the European information in
their daily life.
2007, the “Workers in the EU – Informing the Romanian Migrants about Their
Rights and Responsibilities on the EU Labor Market” initiative
2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013 the European citizenship series of
fora on civic rights in the EU (voting and standing as a candidate for the EP
elections, the ECI, engaging with the EU institutions, participating and
volunteering in the EU).
• Results:
•Citizens in over 23 urban and local milieus acquired knowledge on how the
European Union works, but they also had the opportunity to interact both with each
other and with elected representatives of the public institutions in their communities..
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Citizen Participation—
the Power of the Local
Exercising democracy in Campia Turzii,
Romania
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Citizen Participation—
the Power of the Local
Exercising democracy: evidence-based and
participatory local policy making
• Period: June 2011 – March 2012
• Goal: To organize two local advocacy campaigns for including
participatory policy proposals in local decisions in two small urban
communities in Romania: Campia Turzii (Cluj County) and
Jimbolia (Timis County).
• Financing authority: Balkan Trust for Democracy – The German
Marshall Fund of the United States.
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Citizen Participation—
the Power of the Local
Campia Turzii – The Sarat neighbourhood case
Problem description (1):
•
In Campia Turzii, the 5000 residents of Sarat neighborhood, mostly
pensioners, are isolated from the rest of the city by the railway tracks,
thus, being deprived of a wide range of public services.
•
Their only possibility to reach the center of the town, where the schools,
hospitals or any other place of interest are, is by car on an overland route.
•
The citizens should make a 3 km detour in order to reach a street with a
barrier (but which has no sidewalk). The time spent at the barrier is long
and this poses a big problem for the ambulance and the firemen.
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Citizen Participation—
the Power of the Local
Extreme sports in Sarat
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Citizen Participation—
the Power of the Local
Campia Turzii – The Sarat neighbourhood case
Problem description (2):
• In the past, there was a footbridge, but it was demolished due to
the electrification of the railway.
• Because not all the citizens of the neighbourhood can afford to
travel by car, they just cross the railway tracks by foot, risking their
lives everyday.
• At one point, the police even started to give fines to the persons
who, in order to get to work, drug store (there is no drug store in
the neighbourhood), city hall, etc., had to cross the railway tracks.
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Citizen Participation—
the Power of the Local
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Citizen Participation—
the Power of the Local
Campia Turzii – The Sarat neighbourhood case
Meeting the citizens:
• In september 2011 we organised the first meeting with 30
citizens from the Sarat neighbourhood.
• We told them about the project, about what we were trying to do
and then asked them what did they want, why and from whom.
• This represented a positive exercise and the citizens were
encouraged to speak up, to find solutions and to take action in
order to change the status-quo.
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Citizen Participation—
the Power of the Local
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Citizen Participation—
the Power of the Local
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Citizen Participation—
the Power of the Local
Campia Turzii – The Sarat neighbourhood case
• What did the citizens want?
A subway.
(A footbridge would be too difficult for the elder persons and the
children to climb the stairs.)
• Who could build it?
"The National Railway Company" CFR – the sole entity who
could access at the time, through the Sectorial Operational
Programme for Transport, grants for railway safety projects.
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Citizen Participation—
the Power of the Local
What did we do? (1)
• We identified volunteers who gathered signatures in the Sarat
neighbourhood for the construction of the subway.
• We posted messages throughout the neighbourhood for raising
awareness so that the citizens could call the authorities and
demand answers regarding the problem they faced.
• We collected letters from the citizens and sent them to CFR and
the Ministry of Transport.
• We wrote to a famous Romanian singer, born in Campia Turzii,
trying to obtain her support in our campaign.
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Citizen Participation—
the Power of the Local
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Citizen Participation—
the Power of the Local
What did we do? (2)
 With the support of Campia Turzii City hall we sent open letters
to: Cluj Regional Railway Company, the National Railway
Company "CFR", the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure, the
Government, the Ministry of European Affairs.
Both the "CFR" and the Ministry of Transport rejected the
proposal and placed the responsibility for resolving the problem
on Campia Turzii City hall.
 We obtained a meeting with the representatives of the Ministry of
Transport in order to find a solution to the problem, but they still
refused the initiative.
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Citizen Participation—
the Power of the Local
What did we do? (3)
• In 2012 we organised a Candidates’ Forum in order to bring
together the citizens of the Sarat neighbourhood and the
candidates for the local elections.
Some mayoral candidates promised to resolve the problem of
the Sarat neighborhood, but unfortunately they were not elected
in the end.
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Citizen Participation—
the Power of the Local
Hopes for the future
• Although our project ended in 2012, we haven’t stop monitoring
the situation of the Sarat neighbourhood.
• We are waiting for the 2014 - 2020 structural funds to be
available in Romania and we hope that either the local
authorities from Campia Turzii or the National Railway
Company "CFR" and the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure
will be willing to access them.
• Even though the problem hasn’t been yet solved, the citizens
still learned how to make their voice heard and the
authorities were reminded to about their responsibilities.
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Citizen Participation—
the Power of the Local
Fetch the Councillor,
Here's the Citizen!
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Citizen Participation—
the Power of the Local
Exercising democracy: a successful story on the
Sunrise street in one of Bucharest’s neighborhoods
• Period: December 2009 – November 2010
• Goal: To strengthen the capacity of the NGOs to monitor the
activity of the Local Councils (LCs) and to mobilize the
community with regards to capacitating the LCs in order to
represent the interests of citizens.
• Financing authority: Financial Mechanism of the European
Economic Area (EEA), NGO Fund, Romania
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Citizen Participation—
the Power of the Local
What we wanted
• Check on what Local Councils (LCs) did so far for the citizens
(and especially what they didn’t): monitoring their activities and
relation with the citizens
• Identify a mistreated local problem and a community that can
‘adopt’ it and work towards finding solutions for it
• Engage the citizens and the authorities so that the problem can
be solved
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Citizen Participation—
the Power of the Local
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Citizen Participation—
the Power of the Local
What we did (1)
• Decided to work with the local councilors from the Bucharest
City Hall’s LC (BLC)
• Based on Law No. 544/2001 (free access to public interest
information) we’ve asked for documents regarding their 2009
activity…
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Citizen Participation—
the Power of the Local
…
-
Citizens suggestions, proposals and opinions sent to the LC
for their normative acts (no personal data);
Petitions and heads up from the citizens that they’ve received;
Individual activity and commission’s reports of the local
councilors, as well as those of the Mayor and of the Hall itself;
Local development strategy;
Summaries from the public debates they’ve organized with
the citizens;
LC’s decisions;
Other ways of dialogue with the community (local referendums,
public forums etc).
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Citizen Participation—
the Power of the Local
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Citizen Participation—
the Power of the Local
What we did (2)
• Analyzed all the documentation received from the BLC and the data
from the mistermayor.ro website: biggest problem: streets’
infrastructure
• Decided to pick one such street that is under BLC’s administration
but that wasn’t included in their local development strategy
• Worked with our Bucharest Citizen Advice Bureaux (CAB) to find
the street and a community for it: Sunrise Street, 6th District and 2
active families that had some attempts to solve it until this point
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Citizen Participation—
the Power of the Local
Action Plan
• Have the BLC acknowledge the street is really under its
administration and have it repaired, even though it wasn’t included
in their Modernization Plan (that was due until 2012)
• Mobilize as many citizens from the community and have them
support our initiative: raising awareness campaign (flyers
distributed in their post office boxes), gathering signatures for the
petition and sending to the LC postcards with pictures of the street
and special messages (photo voice method)
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Citizen Participation—
the Power of the Local
Gathering signatures
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Citizen Participation—
the Power of the Local
‘Special’ postcards send to BLC
Street of the lost hopes…and of the lost wheels!
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Citizen Participation—
the Power of the Local
‘Special’ postcards send to BLC
A pitfall that will make history and become a crater!
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Citizen Participation—
the Power of the Local
Results
• More than 100 citizens have sent to the BLC their special
postcards
• An official petition has been signed and advanced to the BLC
• Sunrise Street has been included in the Modernization Plan and
was repaired one year later
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Citizen Participation—
the Power of the Local
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EU Level Citizen Participation—the Way Ahead
EPIC-The First Attempt
•EPIC: European Participation Initiatives for Citizens
– Aim: enhancing citizens’ ownership and usage of their rights as
European citizens by promoting and increasing knowledge on four EU
level participation tools:
• European elections,
• petitioning to the European Parliament,
• complaining to the European Ombudsman
• the European Citizens Initiative.
– Partners from Romania (NACAB), Hungary (CCF), Belgium (ECAS)
– Co-Funded by the European Commission, Europe for Citizens
Programme
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Maria Antica
Andreea Barbulescu
Alina Iosifescu
Thank you for your attention!
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