European Identity - Individual, Group and Society - HumanitarianNet

EUROPE, FROM THE INSTITUTIONAL REFERENT THE PERSONAL REFERENT: ... 81The strategies that the European Union is outlining, also throughsaid PAPER, with a view to participatory and motivated Europeangovernance from a grass-roots level are the following:—To improve the level of communication with the general public.—To simplify language and facilitate understanding of how the EUis structured.—To initiate a close relation of collaboration with other institutions(particularly with Local Entities).—To risk experimenting with new forms of decision making parallelto those established by the current norms.—To listen to the needs of civil society and to broaden consensusat the grass-roots.The WHITE PAPER also speaks of two innovate instruments like coregulationand an open method of coordination.The PAPER textually states that“Co-regulation combines binding legislative and regulatory actionwith actions taken by the actors most concerned, drawing on theirpractical expertise. The result is wider ownership of the policies inquestion by involving those most affected by implementing rules intheir preparation and enforcement.”“It is a way of encouraging co-operation and the exchange of thebest practices and agreeing on common targets and guidelines forstades members, sometimes backed up by national action plans, as inthe case of employment and the fight against social exclusion. Itrelies on regular monitoring of progress to meet those commontargets, thus allowing Member States to compare their own effortsand initiatives and learn from the experience of others.”Today, we cannot not move in the direction of openness andorganization at different levels of government; but this process canhardly be achieved without a relationship of collaboration and trustamong all of the actors involved: national institutions; local entities;civil society organizations; representatives of numerous social, economicand cultural categories; and responsible citizens.Furthermore, civil society should strengthen a process already infieri of responsibility and co-project management, with the certaintythat one must take a consistent qualitative step which demonstrates apredisposition in favour of constructive proposals and dialogue, as sodesired by the EU, to germinate socialization and cohesion whilerespecting diversity and democracy.This will be a cultural and political project that extends to aninternational level.