Congress Vice-President Leen Verbeek (Netherlands, SOC) led, on 7 November 2014, a working session on encouraging active citizenship entitled “Why do we do politics? To improve the quality of life in our communities”. Organised at the Council of Europe headquarters, it gathered participants from the Council of Europe schools of political studies from Albania, Bulgaria, Republic of Moldova, Montenegro, Romania, Turkey and Ukraine, who were in Strasbourg for the 2014 World Forum on Democracy. M. Verbeek underlined that local officials, believing in what they were doing – could do much to improve and energise local life, starting with small and modest initiatives in their own communities without waiting for external funding.