This month, the European Commission published its 2025 work programme, the first of a five-year period. It claims to respond to the challenges facing the European project and to meet the needs and aspirations of Europeans, in line with the values enshrined in the Lisbon Treaty.
The work programme notably pledges a “strategy to support, protect, and empower civil society”, which would, if delivered, be a huge step in the right direction — one that the European Civic Forum has campaigned on for years. The claim that the “driving force” of this work programme would be safeguarding “our European values, fostering democracy, solidarity and equality, and ensuring a socially fair continent where no one is left behind” is also, on the face of it, positive. However, beyond these words, all the other measures announced make no reference to this objective, and many appear to be dictated by very different objectives.
The gap between the Commission’s supposed “driving force” and the priorities it says it will pursue is evident in the word count. “Competition” and related words are mentioned 31 times, “business” appears 21 times, “simplifying” 26 times and “threat” 14 times. The numbers are dramatically lower for words which relate to EU values, like “democracy/democratic” (11 mentions), “clean” energy (7), “equality/equal” (4), and “anti-racism” (1). If this work programme is implemented without putting people’s needs and expectations at its heart, it will make things worse, not better.
In fact, the Commission’s work programme rolls back several protections including those related to the environment, public health, and working conditions, many of which were put in place following popular mobilisations.
The work programme also outlines a minimal application of the protections only recently adopted in the Artificial Intelligence Act. This is exactly the opposite of what a coalition of associations and NGOs, including ECF, argued in Le Monde this month. In the article, the group called for a change in the approach to regulating AI, shifting from one which puts industry and financial interests first to one which places human rights and environmental justice at its heart. What this work programme tells us is that the values proclaimed by the European Union can no longer be protected from international competition by regulation. Instead, we should rely on the willingness of investors and developers to regulate themselves.
The same approach of “simplifying regulations” is put forward for agriculture, the use of clean energy, and many other areas. Yet regulating to ensure the short- and long-term protection of the population is the essential responsibility of institutions. If they fail to do so, the “laws” of competition between producers and for profit will prevail over everything else.
Both with the arrival of Trump in the White House and Putin’s war in Ukraine, the Commission’s programme should have been designed in a way that would challenge the issues that are already affecting the European Union — by, indeed, fostering “democracy, solidarity and equality, and ensuring a socially fair continent where no one is left behind”.
That said, the work programme’s inclusion of two key elements related to civil society: the Civil Society Strategy and the Democracy Shield, are cause for hope, and also caution.
For the first time, the work programme includes a pledge to introduce a Civil Society Strategy — a decision that follows years of campaigning by the European Civic Forum and organisations across the EU. In the context of widespread attacks affecting the space for civil society in Europe, including hostile legislation, funding restrictions, smear campaigns and harassment, and SLAPPs, the announcement could not come at a more crucial moment.
While the announcement is a very promising step, the details will be key to its success. ECF is ready to work closely with the institutions to ensure that this strategy lives up to its potential and delivers on its promise. The way the challenges are understood will be decisive.
The “Democracy Shield”, which the programme describes as aiming to tackle the “evolving nature of threats to our democracy and electoral processes”, will only succeed if is based on the understanding that, more often than not, the threats to our democracies come from policies decided internally, rather than from “foreign interference”. Tackling the issues at requires a broad understanding of what makes democracy desirable for the people. Indeed, ECF’s approach to protecting democracy is based on one essential principle: in the face of attacks, democracy will be stronger and better defended if people see that it delivers on their needs and expectations. In our societies, the concentration of wealth, the growth of inequality and the spread of insecurity are the main causes of the weakening of democracy. It is public policies that are the first tool to address these phenomena.
When organised civil society contributes, in every possible way, to guaranteeing everyone’s access to their economic, social, cultural, environmental, civil and political rights, it is directly defending what underpins people’s aspiration to democracy. Every time it increases this, it strengthens democracy.
Recognising this role in all its facets must be a core aspect of the “Democracy Shield’. Implementing Article 11 TEU must be part of this.
At ECF, we are optimistic that genuine dialogue with the European Commission is on the agenda. The European treaties remain formidable in that they describe a European project that is driven by access to rights, all rights, and which leaves no one behind.
This work programme reflects only a partial approach to these responsibilities, with a clear imbalance in favour of policies that, in practice, contradict them. We are ready, together with all organised civil society that supports these objectives, to take up the challenges that come both from the pressures exerted by “business” and by the rise of the far–right; to address the promises of the European project that have been left aside. The concrete proposals that will follow on from this work programme will undoubtedly be the arena for this confrontation.