For those who didn't want to read my lengthy notes on the Istanbul meeting (why ever not?!), here are some notes of the decisions that were made. Again I stress that these aren't official minutes, just my notes.
cheers
Hannah


Summary of decisions made at the European Assembly of the European Social Forum held in Istanbul 16-18 April 2004

1. Axes/themes of ESF
The ESF will be based around five main axes or themes. The titles and exact composition of these axes is still to be finalised, but the main points will be:
• War, peace, terrorism, system of war
• Citizenship, democracy, rights, EU
• Neoliberalism, deregulation, work
• Environmental crisis and sustainable societies
• Racism, fascism, far right

In addition there will be some horizontal / transversal / cross-cutting themes.
These will include:
• Central and eastern Europe
• Gender
Also still up for discussion are:
• The global south
• Poverty
• Media
• Youth issues


2. European Programme Working Group
It was agreed that a European working group would be set up to facilitate the refining of these axes and to discuss the horizontal themes. This group will probably also discuss ideas for plenaries (see below).

This working group will be composed of 2 representatives from each country plus up to 4 representatives from the UK plus reps of European networks.

The working group will meet once before the next European Assembly. This meeting has been scheduled to take place in Paris all day Friday 28th may plus half day Saturday 29th may. The working group will also meet in Berlin on the (two) day(s) before the next European Assembly – ie on Friday 18th June and possibly the afternoon of Thursday 17th June.


3. Plenaries
These are the ESF sessions that are organised centrally by the groups involved in the organising of the ESF. They are generally amongst the biggest meetings of the ESF (although seminars can also be big, see below). It was agreed in Istanbul that:
• plenaries will be focussed on debate where possible;
• there will be a good balance of speakers represented on plenaries, including especially ensuring that there are speakers from central and eastern Europe, from the global south, a good representation of different races and overall 50% women;
• the number of plenaries will be fewer than last year.

Last year in Paris there were 55 plenaries and there is agreement that this was too many and that there should be a drastic reduction this year. It is undecided exactly how many there will be – various figures ranging from 8 to 30 have been discussed.


4. Seminars and Workshops
Seminars and workshops are the sessions at the ESF that are self-organised by participating groups, networks, coalitions and organisations, although still booked centrally by the ESF organisers.

Process for proposing seminars and workshops
There are some arguments, within the UK especially, about how people should propose they seminars and workshops that they want to run. This means that fewer decisions than (I) hoped were taken in Istanbul. But the essential points are:
• The process for proposing seminars and workshops will begin soon (within the next two weeks?).
• Proposals will hopefully be taken via a web site, but possibly by email - there was disagreement on this
• The final date for proposing seminars and workshops will be 15 July.
• Too many seminars will be proposed and so some merging will need to take place.
• The ESF wants to facilitate as much “self-merging” as possible in order to minimise the number of seminars that are forced to merge.
• In order to facilitate self-merging, organisations are being encouraged to submit their proposals in draft form as soon as possible. This draft from could include a call for co-hosts if you have an idea of the sort of people you’d like to run your seminar with but aren’t already in touch with them.
• Some forced merging of seminars will have to take place. Criteria will be developed to help the programme group decide which seminars should go ahead as proposed and which will be asked to merge. These haven’t been decided yet, but it seems to me (ie this is not yet decided) that if your seminar has the following features it is more likely to be able to run:
o Priority given to those proposed by a coalition of organisations, followed by those proposed by more than one organisation from more than one country;
o Are there clear outcomes?
o Does it fit clearly into one or more axes?
o Is it different from anything else being proposed?
o Will it include debate to move issues forwards?
• Workshops can be proposed and hosted by one organisation. It is unclear whether all workshops will get to run and, if not, what the criteria will be.

[here are my notes on definitions of seminars and workshops, but I have to say I'm unclear which bits are final decisions and which bit represent the direction we seem to be heading in. I'm including for information, not as a final decision]
What is a seminar?
• Seminars can be a variety of sizes, with the largest potentially being equal in size to plenaries, perhaps up to 1500 people and the smallest probably being around 200 people.
• A seminar is likely (but by no means restricted) to take the form of a panel of speakers followed by questions and discussions.
• Seminars will have simultaneous translation into several (around 4 or 5) languages (translation by Babels).
• Seminars last for 2 hours (as opposed to 3 hours in previous years).
• There is a fee for hosting a seminar. Last year this was 200 Euro but it is likely to be quite a bit higher this year.
• We don’t know how many seminars there will be space for in total, but around 200 seems likely.

What is a workshop?
• Workshops are the smallest meetings at the ESF. They can range from a very small (10- 20 people) meeting to a larger meeting similar in size to a large seminar.
• A workshop could be anything from a strategy meeting to a skill share to a traditional talk.
• Translation will not be provided unless you arrange it yourself.
• There will be a fee for hosting workshops (undecided how much).
• We don’t know how much space there is for workshops yet.


5. Next meeting of European Assembly
Will be held in Berlin on 18, 19 and 20th June.