Daugavpils City Council, as a lead partner, together with project partners from different EU countries and cities, has launched the DeCoDe project in the framework of the Measure “Networks of Towns” of Action 2 “Democratic Engagement and Civic Participation” of the European Union programme “Europe for Citizens”. The project involves 8 partners from 8 countries: Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Germany, Romania, Italy, Denmark and Spain. The project aims to create an international, sustainable network of European cities, which are regional centres in their countries, in order to share experiences on depopulation and return migration processes and their impact.

The EU program “Europe for Citizens” aims to bring Europe closer to its citizens by stimulating the debate on topical issues of the European Union at local, regional and international level. It is essential to create conditions that enable citizens to participate in the European Union policy-making processes, to strengthen solidarity among European citizens, and to ensure that civil society organizations, their members and any member of society are involved in the democratic life of the European Union.

A total of 156 projects were submitted from all the Member States of the European Union for the call of proposals of September 1, 2017 for Measure 2.2. “Networks of Towns” of the programme. 15 projects received funding.

By implementing this project, the participating cities will promote international cooperation and sum up proposals for the control of depopulation, which will be available for cities to use and integrate into their planning documents.

Within the framework of the project, it is planned to organize five international meetings, two of them will be held in Daugavpils, Latvia, one per each – Kaunas, Lithuania, Palermo, Italy and Lodz, Poland . The project’s kick-off meeting is planned for May, 2018, when representatives from all DeCoDe partner countries will arrive in Daugavpils.

The project is financed under the programme „Europe for Citizens”. Implementation period: 01.03.2018. – 01.02.2020.