Democracy needs active citizen. But there is a gap between professional politicians and citizen based on a lack of knowledge, dialogue, trust and participation. The European year of citizens 2013 and the parliamentary elections in 2014 provide opportunities to make democracy in Europe the subject of a common learning experience. Our partnership involves 4 organisations from Eastern & Western Europe, with diverse expertise in civic education, committed to empowering disadvantaged, older and young learners and such with migrant background to get them better informed and to train democratic skills. We wish to bridge the mentioned gap through learner-led creative approaches based on their experiences and concerns. Local project groups provide forums to bring small scale lives and the “big picture” of society/politics together. They work with methods they experienced – theatre, role-playing and situational games, discussion events with (local) politicians, world café, and others –, document their local inputs and show them at 4 transnational meetings. The last and 5th meeting is dedicated to the production of common results. Most of the methods are practised in common at each mtg. to train new ways of self-expression (learners) and methods to stimulate active citizenship (trainers). We focus on at least 4 aspects of the project issue: 1. perceptions of democracy, 2. political structures at EU level, 3. social conditions of democr., 4. democracy and sustainability – visions for Europe. Local and transnational activities are shared on the project blog https://democracyeu.wordpress.com to enhance virtual exchange and ICT skills. Trainers facilitate and evaluate theses processes, exchange on methods, produce visual aids on EU political structures and teaching material for civic education within Europe, and ensure broad dissemination.