EU: ‘Funding civil society advocacy isn’t just legitimate – it’s a legal duty’
CIVICUS discusses the European Union’s (EU) Strategy for Civil Society with Giada Negri, Deputy Secretary General and Director of Advocacy and Programme Management at the European Civic Forum, a civil society network that works to protect civic space, strengthen civic participation and promote dialogue.
After around a decade of civil society advocacy, the EU has adopted a Civil Society Strategy that recognises supporting and funding civil society as a democratic obligation. It sets clear guidelines for structured, inclusive dialogue between European states and civil society. But enforcement is a critical gap, and with right-wing parties in the European Parliament targeting civil society funding and a major EU budget negotiation on the horizon, pressure to realise the Strategy must be sustained.
What’s the EU E for Civil Society, and how ambitious is it?
It’s a framework for action on civil society at the EU, national and local levels. It aims to bring coherence to EU policymaking by integrating civil society through civil dialogue and legislation and ensuring EU law doesn’t negatively affect civil society. Protecting civil society funding is another key element. After almost a decade of advocacy, we now have a document that brings these elements together.
But first we need to understand the current context of shrinking civic space at the national and EU level. Legislation is becoming increasingly restrictive, and a strong push for deregulation is dismantling many past achievements. For example, we see the EU is building a surveillance-driven deportation system against migrants similar to that in the USA, legitimising racial profiling, discriminatory policing practices and surveillance, targeting migrants and those standing in solidarity with them.
Against that backdrop, the framing of the Strategy is relatively ambitious. It treats civil society participation in advocacy, policymaking and public life as qualities of a functioning democracy, and therefore frames funding and protecting civil society as a state duty. This is particularly important at a time when vested political interests seek to delegitimise civil society advocacy and funding to curtail its resources and weaken its watchdog role.
The Strategy requires EU states to establish civil dialogue that is inclusive, long-term, topic-specific and result-oriented. It also requires protection strategies for activists and civil society organisations (CSOs) under attack, including condemnation at the highest level.
The process was genuinely open to participation, and the team in the European Commission behind the Strategy worked hard to involve civil society.
Its main weakness is enforcement: the Strategy has no mechanism to ensure EU states will respect its framework at the national level, and only hints that the Commission will explore a protection mechanism for human rights defenders under attack in the future. We are pushing to connect it to enforcement and sanction mechanisms that already exist in the EU rule of law toolbox.
Timing matters too: the implementation of many of these measures requires a budget, and the negotiations for the next Multiannual Financial Framework for 2028 to 2034 are already underway.
What impact do you expect the Strategy to have?
It’s hard to say, because this is a strategic document, but we have allies inside EU institutions who want to stand up for civil society and make the most of this process.
The key opportunity is national-level implementation. We need state champions that show what the Strategy looks like in practice.
When it comes to impacts on EU legislation, right now, inside the Commission, the Strategy is treated as a thematic area, meaning it sits with the unit working on fundamental rights. We want it to be seen as cross-cutting, shaping discussions on budget, digital issues, energy, environment, fiscal rules, migration, security and everything else. In the current Brussels climate, we see a paradox between the commitments in the Strategy and European policies emerging with weakened safeguards for fundamental rights.
The Commission also needs to stand much more firmly behind civil society against the attacks now coming from the European Parliament, where some parties openly target public funding for civil society advocacy and try to silence critical voices. The Commission needs to be clear that funding advocacy isn’t just legitimate. Article 11 of the Treaty on European Union requires institutions to maintain civil dialogue with European associations. Funding participation and advocacy is a way to implement that treaty obligation.
What form are attacks taking?
In June, the far right and centre right voted to set up a scrutiny working group on CSO funding, running until mid-2026, to review Commission grants to CSOs to ensure they don’t cover advocacy activities. The narrative they are spinning is that the EU Commission is dictating civil society advocacy. And they are questioning whether advocacy is legitimate, and whether funding advocacy is legitimate when it’s from public authorities.
The working group has summoned the EU Commission and the European Court of Auditors. The hearings are attended only by far-right and centre-right parties, with prominent roles for Hungary’s Fidesz and Italy’s Brothers of Italy. Transparency is clearly not the point here, and the result is the legitimisation of their attacks against civil society in their countries.
What’s the timeline for the Strategy’s implementation, and how is civil society involved?
The first element to be implemented will be participation. The Commission has committed to creating a civil dialogue platform where civil society can engage with EU policymakers on how to respond to democratic backsliding, rule of law erosion and the rollback of fundamental rights. But this is just the beginning, as we are calling for something much more ambitious: a framework for civil dialogue with rules governing how institutions involve civil society throughout the EU policymaking cycle, bringing coherence across different policy areas.
Other agencies and institutions will play a role in implementation. The Fundamental Rights Agency will be leading on the monitoring work, and it will be essential that any monitoring model developed is linked to enforcement mechanisms. The United Nations Human Rights Office is also involved in the Strategy’s protection aspects, bringing together multiple stakeholders.
National organisations can also use the Strategy to advocate for national strategies for participation, funding and protection of civil society.
CIVICUS interviews a wide range of civil society activists, experts and leaders to gather diverse perspectives on civil society action and current issues for publication on its CIVICUS Lens platform. The views expressed in interviews are the interviewees’ and do not necessarily reflect those of CIVICUS. Publication does not imply endorsement of interviewees or the organisations they represent.