Project ICE enters new phase: capacity-building for advocacy

Last week, team members from Project ICE took part in a 2-day training course in Berlin, Germany, focused on improving understanding and application of the EU/UK Withdrawal Agreement (WA) and the EU Charter on Fundamental Rights in legal advocacy work.

Delivering the training directly to the team of volunteers based around the EU, will further strengthen ongoing efforts to protect and enforce the rights of WA beneficiaries in the EU.

With Project ICE entering a new phase, the specialist sessions led by Fiona Godfrey, Jane Golding and Anthony Valke, and moderated by Tamsin Rose, focused on how aspects of the WA and the Charter can be applied in practice to support the needs, concerns and cases faced by UK citizens across the EU.

“The WA and Charter are weighty, and somewhat abstract legal documents.” said Jane Golding. “One lays out the rights of UK citizens post Brexit, and the other bolsters those rights.” Experiences shared by participants during the training, showed that in practice, there can be gaps and inconsistencies in the way these rights are understood and applied. As Fiona Godfrey pointed out, “It is these inconsistencies, amongst other factors, that can lead to, and indeed have led to serious consequences for individuals and families.” she continued, “Building knowledge and capacity within the team is therefore vital at this stage of the Project and also as we move forward.”

Building capacity for impact

Ensuring the team is equipped with a solid understanding of the WA and Charter also provides more opportunities to share and apply collective knowledge. As Jane Golding notes, “It's important that we share knowledge and raise awareness within the Project, so that the participants can then distribute that further in their respective networks and, ultimately, support the UK citizens who approach them for help.”

The lived experiences of UK citizens featured prominently throughout the training and has since been highlighted in a recent article on Europe Street News. A range of case studies, recent country-level experiences and legal insights were used throughout the session to illustrate how the WA and Charter can be used to strengthen argumentation, advice and guidance in legal cases."

Advocacy in action

The second day of the session was dedicated to highlighting the importance of, choices in and approaches to advocacy.

“Any UK citizen living in the EU, whether they are studying, working, married, single, with or without dependents, starting out or retiring, will inevitably be faced with some aspect of the WA that has the potential to upend their plans.” said Fiona Godfrey. “Naturally, we hope that that won’t be the case. But experience tells us that advocating and raising awareness on potential issues before and when they occur, can go some way to alleviating the physical and mental turmoil.”

It is anticipated that the grassroots survey currently being run will also contribute to gaining a clearer understanding of how and where ProjectICE can provide closer advocacy and additional support.

As Project ICE enters its final year, it remains on track to achieve its mission and to become an action as well as a research project.

About the Project

Project ICE is an EU-funded project designed to investigate the implementation of the Charter through how the EU/UK Withdrawal Agreement is applied to over 1.2 million UK citizens living in the EU. Click here to read more about the project, and here to complete the survey.