A variety of projects of a transnational and cross-sectoral dimension, directly involving citizens, can be supported under this measure. Those projects should gather citizens from different horizons, who will act together or debate on common European issues, at local and European level. Innovative methods enabling citizens’ participation should be applied.

This measure, which is new within this Programme, was tested through a call for proposals for pilot projects launched in April 2006. A small number of pilot projects are supported, which will be running until August 2007 at the latest. Emphasis was put in this call on experimenting solid and innovative methods of citizens’ participation.

Support measures are tools aimed at developing the projects carried out under this action and improving their quality, for example through exchanging best practices, pooling experiences between stakeholders and to developing new skills via training sessions. They should therefore be targeted either at town twinning projects or at citizens’ projects. They should be carried out by experts, professionals from the field, intermediary bodies, etc. which should have a broad expertise in the field and use efficient tools for improving the quality of the projects.
The European Commission will establish partnerships with relevant organizations, which will be selected through an open and transparent procedure. Within those partnerships, that should run for a period of two years, the organisations will receive co-funding from the European Commission for carrying out the support measures.