Europe for Citizens Programme, which has been available to Croatia since 2007, is one of the programmes of the European Community presenting an integrated series of activities adopted by the European Community with the aim of promoting cooperation among its member countries in different areas linked with common policies of the European Community. As a rule these programmes are intended for the EU member countries but some of them are also available to the countries in the process of accession.
The Government Office for Cooperation with NGOs was appointed as the coordinator of the Programme and functions as „Europe for Citizens Contact Point“. We are responsible for targeted and efficient dissemination of practical information about the Programme, its’ actions and financing possibilities. This Community programme is of a centralized sort - it is implemented by the
Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA) (EACEA) , which is in charge of evaluation of the applications and also as a contracting authority, the Agency monitors the projects implementation.
So far the programme has been implemented in the framework of two programming periods:
- Programming period 2007 - 2013
- Programming period 2014 - 2020
Europe for Citizens program strives to encourage the development of active European citizenship by providing financial support to organizations working on strengthening a sense of European identity and of belonging to the European Union through networking and exchange of knowledge, experiences, traditions and visions of progress. The program also seeks to strengthen intercultural dialogue at the European level by linking citizens and fostering cooperation of civil society organizations across the eligible programme countries.
The total budget of the Programme for the period from 2007 to 2013 was 215 mil €.
The funds allocated for the period 2014-2020 amounts up to 186.5 mil €.
