Over the years, the European Civic Forum (ECF) has succeeded in giving a permanent framework to some important European public meetings in line with its ambitions to help developing and structuring the organised civil society across Europe and to formalise exchanges with the EU institutions.
Following the strong impact of the first “European Civic days” held in La Rochelle in 2008 in the frame of the French EU Presidency, the ECF opened the way to a series of NGO forums accompanying the French, Swedish, Spanish, Hungarian, Danish and Lithuanian EU Presidencies. These events contribute not only to bringing the European debate to the national and local level and to reach a public often remote from the European challenges, but also to feed the European policy process with national and local concerns, so as to be better taken into account in the decision making process.
In seven years, more than 2 000 organisations representatives, politicians and citizens took part in these thematic days, which contribute not only to bringing the European debate to national and local level and reach out to people often remote from current European agendas, but also to give voice to grassroots initiatives and concerns and bring them to the attention of the European leaders.