Lars Josephsen, Editor

Welcome to all readers of this CINEFOGO Newsletter #5.

The CINEFOGO Network of Excellence is now entering into its fourth project year, which is the last period as regards financial support from EU’s Framework Programme 6 (FP6). The Network’s activities in the third project year were reviewed and discussed at the Network Council’s 3^rd meeting in Kaunas in May this year. At that occasion overall guidelines for next year’s work were laid out. The Network Council is presently preparing some special arrangements, that will mark the final stages of the project.

In spring 2009 two conferences will be arranged in Brussels, both winding up important isssues from CINEFOGO’s research field, and both aiming at stimulating the ongoing dialogue and debate between scholars, civil society organisations and policy makers at the EU level. The first conference addresses the issues ’Social rights, active citizenship and governance in the European Union’, whereas the second will focus on ‘Citizenship, governance and social quality’. More details on the two conferences can be found in this issue of the Newsletter.

A new source of information has recently been introduced for those interested in development of CINEFOGO’s activities: The weekly CINEFOGO E-letter. This E-letter contains information on upcoming CINEFOGO events, such as conferences, workshops, seminars, summer schools, and other interesting CINEFOGO-arrangements. It also conveys news from CINE-FOGO related networks, projects and institutions. The E-letter keeps track of all up-coming events announced to CINEFOGO Secretariat at Roskilde University. Subscription to the E-letter can be obtained by writing to the Secretariat (cinefogo@ruc.dk). The E-letter information can also be found at http://cinefogo.org.event. General documentation on research outcome from CINEFOGO activities can as hitherto be found at the website (www.cinefogo.org) and in CINEFOGO’s on-line ‘Library’ - the Outcomes Database (http://cinefogo.cuni.cz ).

The Dialogue and Debate section in this issue, is devoted to the theme: ‘European governance and civil society’. We bring an essay by Carlo Ruzza on this topic. The author illustrates some distinctive ‘modes of action’ applied by civil society organizations and civic groups in relation to European governance processes. The author points out, that “civil society has come to play a central and multi-dimensional role in the European system of governance”. In this context, civil society is conceptualized in a way, that reflects “the values of European policies, for which a thriving civil society is a means to promote active citizen-ship, and modify citizens’ preferences in the direction emerging from the process of European construction”.

The author also touches on the important role of civil society in providing legitimacy for the EU system. ”As a weak decision-making context, EU institutions need to rely on deliberation and agreement more than states do, and need access to organizations that can facilitate this. They have historically relied on business lobbies for information and consensus aggregation in specific policy communities. This reliance on lobbies can now be extended to civil society organizations in areas such as environmental policy where substantial expertice is necessary and expensive to acquire”. – And further: “The participation of civil society in policy making also addresses well known preoccupations within the EU system. It redresses the criticism that the EU is too responsive to vested interests, particularly business interests. In addition, it can be argued that civil society is useful in providing legitimacy for the EU system of gover-nance because it can be framed in a way to improve the the long chain of representation from communities to the supranational level”.

In the last years, the European Commission has launched a series of initiatives, in response to the rapid pace of social changes in Europe - - new family and working patterns, changing values, weakening bonds between generations, demands for new skills, mobility and diversity, etc. Recently (July 2008) the Commission adopted a Renewed Social Agenda: Opportunities, access, and solidarity in 21^st century Europe. - No one can doubt, that civil society will play an important role in the implementation of this new agenda into practical policies.