Political foundations about building bridges between civil society and political parties

Details

Hits: 390

Zagreb, 2nd April 2015 – Organized by the European Network of Political Foundations (ENoP), on Monday 1st of April in the Croatian Parliament was held a round table on the topic of cooperation between civil society organizations and political parties and the special role of political foundations in building bridges between the two sides.

The round table was the last in a series of events that took place in Zagreb as part of the program of celebration of the European developmental year. This event in the Croatian Parliament was preceded by a meeting of the Working Group of the EU Enlargement / Neighbourhood and Conference on the Croatian perspective about European development aid, which was presented by a panel of experts from the public administration, science and civil society.

As a curiosity can be singled out programs of development assistance and cooperation of the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs, which include the provision of psycho-social and medical assistance to Ukrainian veterans. In this aspect, Croatia's experience and the role of associations of Croatian defenders have proved to be of crucial importance for the effect of the program.

At the final event in the Croatian Parliament, participants discussed the relation of political parties, political foundations and civil society organizations. The debate has produced a number of outstanding issues and problems regarding the cooperation of these two actors in decision making process and public policy-making. In this regard, the specific role of political foundations and organizations in strengthening policy dialogue within and between the parties and the involvement of civil society organizations and citizens in the political process was identified.

International Education Center (IEC) was presented by Goran Neralić, president of the association. IEC is a member of the European Network of Political Foundations (ENoP) and the European Liberal Forum (ELF), which supports the ALDE party at European level and gathers liberal political foundations and civil society organizations.
Except the International Education Center, whos member is Political Academy of CPP, the part of the European Network of Political Foundations are The New Society and the Foundation of Croatian National Pledge.