SOLIDAR Foundation is fully endorsing the proposal to launch a European Agency for Citizenship Education (EACE) that was developed by Values Unite. The proposal puts the basis for an EU body that would focus solely on the promotion of a European dimension to citizenship education, ensuring that all learners have access to the opportunity to build up civic competences while also that EU values are instilled in all EU citizens, ensuring the sustainability of the European project. Values Unite emerged as an initiative in June 2020, focusing its full efforts on promoting a much-needed EACE.

The EACE is envisioned as a European, non-partisan, demand-oriented, impact-oriented and sustainable agency which is to secure equal access to citizenship education, improve the quality of citizenship education and foster innovative and digital learning methods. It will do so by performing tasks linked to research and monitoring, to capacity building, to sharing of best practices, to developing teaching materials and practices but also linked to its role as a grant-making mechanism. This month, the EACE proposal has passed its first milestone, receiving the support of MEPs Domènec Ruiz Devesa, Ibán García Del Blanco, Marcos Ros Sempere, Predrag Fred Matić, Victor Negrescu and Hannes Heide who have brought this proposal to the European Parliament via an amendment. Values Unite will continue the advocacy on this vital topic and SOLIDAR Foundation is proud to support the efforts to bring this proposal to life.

Rightfully so, SOLIDAR Foundation Secretary General, Mikael Leyi, stresses that ‘An educated citizenry forms an indispensable part of a democratic society and is a prerequisite for active citizenship’, highlighting the glaring absence of such an agency to support the democratic, European project and the need to correct this through the proposal launched by Values Unite.