Latest Events
European Civic Academy comes to Barcelona to debate how to defend rights against the law of the strongest
On Friday 13 November, the European Civic Forum, in collaboration with NOVACT, is hosting an open day in El Prat de Llobregat on the dismantling of rights and civic space, and on how civil society can resist it. The event will be held entirely in English. Human rights, international law, labour and environmental protections and…...
From Monitoring to Protection: Building a European System to Defend Civic Space
At the European Forum on Civic Space Protection in Rome, civil society organisations, human rights defenders, and European and international institutions came together to address a growing protection gap. Hosted by ARCI Nazionale, A Sud, and the Metropolitan City of Rome, the forum concluded with the adoption of the Rome Priorities for the Protection of…...
ECF members gather in Brussels for 2026 general assembly
On 11-13 May, ECF members gathered in Brussels for our Annual General Assembly. Members of the European Civic Forum participate in a workshop on values at the 2026 general assembly At the general assembly, members discussed the activities of the previous year, a year of significant change for ECF, with the departure of long-time secretary…...
ECF launches Civic Space Report 2026 at packed European Parliament event
On 13 May, ECF launched our annual flagship Civic Space Report at a packed event in the European Parliament. 13/05/2026 – ECF Co-President Raffaella Bolini speaking at the launch of the Civic Space Report © Elio Germani We kicked off the event with a presentation of the findings, which demonstrate a clear trend: EU policies…...
REGISTER NOW: The new Brussels effect – Why the EU increasingly shapes the space for civil society, and how to respond
Join us on 13 May for the launch of the European Civic Forum’s annual Civic Space Report at a cross-party event in the European Parliament! Register now! Read the programme Europe is witnessing a dangerous and unprecedented rollback of civic freedoms, with geo-political developments having a significant impact on fundamental rights at home.…...
ECF at Civil Society Week 2026
The European Civic Forum took part in the 2026 edition of the Civil Society Week of the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) which took place from 2-5 March in Brussels. We co-hosted two sessions during the week, each gathering more than 100 participants. The first covered the topic of Building an enabling environment for…...
REGISTER: Webinars for national civil society organisations on the MFF
Civil Society Europe and the European Civic Forum are pleased to invite you to register for our upcoming MFF webinar series “From the Grassroots to the Peak: National Civil Society Organisations and the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF).” We are organising these webinars (one per macro-region) to create a dedicated space for national CSOs to coordinate…...
European Civic Academy at the Nonviolence Factory & the Unsilence Forum in Barcelona
In mid-November, ECF co-organised two important Euro-Mediterranean civil society gatherings in Barcelona, bringing together hundreds of leading activists, human rights defenders, and civil society organisations working on human rights, peace, justice, democracy, and anti-authoritarianism. The Nonviolence Factory (12-14 November), now in its third edition, convened representatives from social movements and communities under threat from across…...
ECF launches Civic Space Report 2025 at European Parliament policy roundtable
On 4 June, the European Civic Forum (ECF) launched its annual flagship Civic Space Report at a cross-party event in the European Parliament on 4 June 2025. The event brought together 25 civil society organisation representatives and Human Rights Defenders (HRDs) from across Europe, Brussels-based networks and policymakers from the EU Institutions. The event, co-hosted…...