Yesterday, Ursula von der Leyen highlighted the importance of boosting democratic resilience and trust during her annual State of the Union speech in the European Parliament
At ECF, we have always believed that a key pillar to resilient democracies is a strong, healthy civil society. That’s why we were (cautiously) encouraged by the Commission’s announcement of a Civil Society Strategy earlier this year.
Today, we are publishing a new briefing, outlining what we think will be essential to make the strategy a success, including concrete recommendations for how it should:
- offer a vision for civil society, recognising its crucial democratic roles,
- ensure sustained, accessible, and flexible support to civil society,
- strengthen civil dialogue and participation, and
- safeguard civic space and human rights defenders.
This short briefing draws on our work with national and European civil society over many years. Most recently, this includes working with Civil Society Europe (CSE) to help the European Commission organise targeted civil society focus groups for each pillar of the strategy, to ensure a diverse representation of needs, concerns, and expectations. It also complements the more in-depth joint contribution, developed by the CSE civic space working group, which ECF chairs.
In the coming weeks and months, we will continue working hard to ensure that the strategy will deliver on supporting, protecting, and empowering civil society.