CIRENA

Have you ever felt that decisions made in Brussels happen in a “bubble,” far removed from your daily reality? You are not alone. Whether you live in a bustling city or a quiet rural village, the European Union can sometimes feel like a distant relative—important, but hard to talk to.

Project CIRENA was born from a simple but powerful belief: Solidarity isn’t just a word for politicians; it’s a practice for neighbors.

We noticed a gap. Citizens living on Europe’s borders—like the Greek islands seeing migration firsthand—often feel overwhelmed and unheard. Meanwhile, citizens in “inland” regions—perhaps in a small town in Poland or Germany—might feel disconnected from these challenges or unsure how they fit into the bigger picture. CIRENA exists to bring these different worlds together to write a new chapter for Europe, by the people who actually live in it.

What We Are Doing (And How It Works)

We aren’t just writing reports; we are building a movement. Over the next two years, we are rolling out three main types of activities:

1. Listening Roundtables: Instead of asking you to fill out boring surveys, we are setting up tables in your communities. We are traveling to border regions, cities, and towns to sit down and ask: “What does solidarity mean to you?”

2. Civic Skills Gyms: Have you ever wanted to change a rule but didn’t know where to start? We are running workshops that act like a “gym” for your democratic muscles. We’ll show you exactly how the EU works and give you the tools to draft real policies.

   • Everyday Example: Imagine you are a student who wants better support for young volunteers across Europe. Our workshops will teach you how to turn that wish into a formal proposal that politicians have to read.

3. The #SolidarityIsUs Campaign: We are collecting real stories from across the continent. We want to move beyond statistics and show the human face of our communities through videos, photos, and personal interviews.

Our Main Goal: The Citizens’ Solidarity Pact

All our conversations and workshops lead to one major destination: The Citizens’ Solidarity Pact.

This isn’t just a document that will gather dust on a shelf. It is a set of concrete, citizen-written laws and recommendations. At the end of the project, we will take this Pact and formally present it to the European Parliament and Commission. It is our way of saying, “Here is the Europe we want to build.”

The Role of CRN: Finding Common Ground

Here at the Comparative Research Network (CRN) in Berlin, we have a very special job within this project.

While other partners are listening to specific local issues, our task is to connect the dots. We are organizing the “Common Values Roundtable” here in Germany.

Think of us as the translators of experience. Our job is to bring together the volunteer from a Greek island and the community organizer from a Polish town. These two people might lead very different lives, but they likely share the same hopes for safety, fairness, and community.

Our specific tasks include:

• Hosting the Dialogue: We are bringing people from “frontline” border regions and “inland” regions together in one room.

• Finding the Glue: We will facilitate deep conversations to discover the shared values that connect us all, regardless of our postal code.

• Creating the Charter: We will summarize these findings into a “Shared Civic Values Charter.” This document will serve as the moral compass for the rest of the project, ensuring that the final Solidarity Pact is built on principles we all agree on.