Europe is currently in a democracy crisis. Yet despite several right wing party leaders campaigning on the message of ‘taking back control’, recent polls suggest that European citizens overwhelmingly support the euro and want to see a better functioning EU in areas such as migration, internal and external security, and public investment.

The project aims to improve the knowledge and debate on the European integration project and the role of citizens in it. Within a broad network of renowned policy institutes specializing in EU affairs, the partners intend to enhance (i) participatory democracy,(ii) representative democracy and (iii) accountability in the EU, and thereby strive “Towards a Citizens’ Union” (2CU).

2CU aims to foster a dialogue between the academic world, researchers and policy-makers by organizing workshops on the topics of the project, seminars for the researchers and EU decision-makers, as well as public events in the capitals of the European contries. Project partners also will prepare more than 60 research papers and proposals for shaping policies in the future.

The project is lead by Centre for European Policy Studies and is carried out by a consortium of 20 European Policy Institutes Network research organisations operating in 16 countries. Project is financed by Erasmus+ Jean Monnet programme of the European Commission.