BRIDGE (Building Resilience and Inclusion for Democracy and participatory Governance in Europe)

The BRIDGE project is a civil society-led initiative co-funded by the Council of Europe, implemented from April 2025 to October 2025, and coordinated by Volonteurope together with national partners and regional stakeholders. It is both a political and practical intervention grounded in the lived realities, expertise and vision of civil society actors across Europe and its territories. The project is rooted in the conviction that democracy must be built with civil society, not just around it, and that inclusive and participatory governance requires structural transformation, not rhetorical affirmation.

Across Europe, including in several Council of Europe Member States, democratic backsliding is no longer a future threat, but a daily, lived reality. Civic space is shrinking. Disinformation is rising. Young people, migrants, LGBTQI+ communities, ethnic minorities, older persons and people with disabilities are increasingly excluded from meaningful decision-making. Civil society is simultaneously asked to fill the gaps left by weakening institutions, while being underfunded, delegitimised, or, in some contexts, directly attacked.

Participants across the BRIDGE process, from the hills of Zugdidi to the streets of Brussels, the islands of French Overseas Territories to the towns of Serbia, echoed this urgency. They shared testimonies of political interference, institutional inertia, performative consultation, burnout and the daily grind of trying to safeguard democratic life amid growing precarity. At the same time, they also shared practices of hope: participatory foresight, horizontal assemblies, intersectional feminist alliances, youth-led movements and transnational solidarity rooted in lived experience. These are essential components of democratic resilience.

BRIDGE aims to to enhance the capacity, resilience, and engagement of CSOs across Europe in promoting democratic values and civil participation by increasing their awareness of existing Council of Europe standards and opportunities, fostering deeper cooperation between CSOs and the Council of Europe, and strengthening their capacity

Specific Objectives: 

• to raise awareness among CSOs about existing Council of Europe standards, mechanisms, and opportunities for civil society engagement.
• To increase knowledge and capacity within CSOs to effectively utilise CoE mechanisms, such as the Reykjavik Principles, in their advocacy and operations by organising roundtable discussions to identify current challenges and parameters for the Reykjavik Principles, reaching 298 professionals across Europe.
• To create a better understanding of how the Council of Europe operates and how CSOs can actively participate in standard-setting, monitoring, and cooperation processes.

The BRIDGE project was created as a bottom-up, non-extractive, co-creative democratic space. Its aim is to empower and connect civil society organisations, grassroots movements and active citizens in their roles as key democratic actors and co-creators of governance.

It focuses on enabling safe spaces for reflection, learning and co-creation around three fundamental questions:
• What does democracy mean in our lived experience?
• What enables or obstructs our ability to participate?
• How can civil society shape the future of democratic governance?

The project has brought together voices from across the Council of Europe’s membership and territories.

Through seven national roundtables held in Belgium, France, Georgia, Hungary, Italy, Serbia and the UK (May–July 2025), and a series of regional online roundtables aimed at all Member States of the Council of Europe, in September 2025, covering all European regions and overseas territories, BRIDGE has captured and synthesised local realities and collective aspirations considering the Reykjavík Principles.

A final Futures Lab and Summit in Strasbourg (October 2025) will further define this initiative not just as a project, but a democratic act in itself: participatory, intersectional, intergenerational and transnational.

The Reykjavík Principles for Democracy, adopted by the Council of Europe in 2023, came at a crucial moment in Europe’s democratic journey. However, for many civil society actors, the initial drafting of the principles, and the proposed implementation parameters, lacked adequate bottom-up engagement. The BRIDGE process has aimed to address this gap, not simply by commenting on what exists, but by co-creating visions of what is missing, what must be strengthened and how democratic standards must evolve in practice.

Civil society organisations (CSOs), particularly those working at the grassroots level, must be recognised as not just service providers or advocacy groups, but as political actors and democratic agents in their own right. In contexts where elections are held without fairness, where consultation exists without co-decision and where rule of law is undermined, it is civil society that often provides the last infrastructure for democracy.

It is from this understanding that we are delivering the BRIDGE initiative, as collective call to strengthen, revise and expand the Reykjavík parameters to reflect the lived realities, systemic challenges and emancipatory visions shared by communities across Europe.

• 338 people directly engaged through roundtable discussions at national and regional levels and at the European summit.
• 9 national roundtable discussions conducted, each involving 20 participants, and discussion reports in English.
• 5 regional online discussions will be held, with 20 participants per roundtable, covering all geographical regions of Europe and discussion reports.
• 1 European Summit in Strasbourg, involving at least 40 participants, and Summit Report published in English and partner languages.
• At least 10,000 individuals reached through the online campaign across multiple platforms.
• Mapping at least 20 more inputs on the BePart platform from different regions of Europe.
• Pre- and post-event surveys completed by all participants to evaluate knowledge increase and the impact.
• 1 Catalogue of Civil Participation co-created and disseminated as a practical resource for civil society (also in the story map format).
• Catalogue showcasing at least 10 best practices from CSOs across Europe, and downloaded at least 100 times on project’s webpage on Volonteurope website.
• At least 5 CSOs become a member of the CINGO.
• Empowered civil society: CSOs will gain the tools, knowledge, and confidence to engage effectively with the mechanisms and bodies that exist at the Council of Europe.
• Strengthened networks: The initiative will establish resilient, collaborative networks across countries and regions, enabling CSOs to share best practices, foster cross-border cooperation, and advocate collectively for CoE principles.
• Tangible resources: Catalogue of Civil Participation will document best practices and strategies, while contributions to tools like the Social Rights Tracker will enhance accessibility and enable practical applications of CoE standards.

• Reykjavík Principles for Democracy
• Implementation of the Reykjavik Principles for Democracy
• Volonteurope’s response on behalf of the BRIDGE Project consortium to the Council of Europe’s public consultation on the draft parameters for the implementation of the Reykjavik Principles for Democracy