European Union

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Written by Silvia Kotanidis.

Background

In her political guidelines for 2024-2029, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen paid special attention to the role of citizens in our democracy as she pledged to strengthen citizens’ voice in the EU and to step up engagement with civil society organisations (CSOs). Following up on this, the Commission announced a comprehensive strategy on CSOs in its 2025 work programme. This initiative was praised by a number of CSOs and stakeholders and EU bodies such as the European Economic and Social Committee. Many stakeholders have in fact been voicing concern about shrinking civic space, which has sparked a range of recommendations, including calls for policy interventions. The European Parliament, too, in a resolution from March 2022, recognised the stress under which CSOs increasingly operate and called for a range of interventions such as an EU alert mechanism, a statute for European cross-border associations, enhanced monitoring to ensure that civic space is not negatively affected, including the use of infringement procedures, a coherent policy framework to foster inclusive participation, and ‘long-term predictable, adequate and enabling financing for CSOs’, in addition to a reduction in red tape.

The strategy

On 12 November 2025, after a public consultation which attracted a significant number of contributions from CSOs, including ones from third countries, the Commission issued a communication outlining the EU strategy for civil society. This document builds on existing frameworks and sets out concrete actions at EU and national level, in order to protect CSOs within and outside the EU. The strategy is addressed to CSOs covering a broad set of organisations: non-state, not-for-profit, independent, non-partisan, non-violent organisations, through which people pursue and defend shared objectives and ideals, including human rights defenders (HRD). The protection offered is aimed at those CSOs that are accountable, independent, transparent and respect EU common values of democracy, dignity and respect for fundamental freedoms.

The strategy is based on three main pillars.

The first pillar focuses on strengthening effective engagement with CSOs as partners in governance. The strategy recognises that CSOs contribute by providing advice and expertise in many fields and that they help shape EU policies. In addition to the existing tools (e.g. Have your say, better regulation tools, local councillors, civil society dialogues, consultations), the strategy identifies 10 guiding principles that must be observed in the dialogue with civil society: partnership; comprehensiveness; predictability and regularity as to the dialogue; transparency; representation; inclusivity; accessibility; accountability; resourcing; and safety. The strategy also emphasises the importance of Commission Recommendation 2023/2836 on promoting the engagement and effective participation of citizens and civil society organisations in public policy-making processes, which calls on Member States to enable CSOs to participate. The Commission, to enhance the role of CSOs as partners in policymaking, made a number of commitments: to establish a Civil Society Platform and to organise an annual summit of the Platform; to promote the 10 guiding principles mentioned above; to engage with civil society through existing or newly created toolssuch as the Youth Advisory Board, the Youth Stakeholders Group, the Youth Dialogue and policy dialogues; to engage with citizens’ panels as a way to create a bridge between CSOs and citizens; to support national capacity-building; and to institutionalise and standardise in-country consultations of CSOs.

The second pillar highlights the need to support and protect CSOs. In this respect, the Commission acknowledges the difficulties faced by CSOs, such as an increasing range of threats, from attacks on their staff to smear and disinformation campaigns. Both preventive and reactive measures are therefore proposed, together with increased engagement to monitor the challenges faced by the civic space. Further to existing tools (its annual rule of law reports, SLAPP legislation (strategic lawsuit against public participation), the Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values programme (CERV) and the European fact-checking network), the Commission committed to: creating an online knowledge hub on civic space, to document existing civic space monitoring initiatives, reports and protection resources; exploring ways to strengthen CSOs and HRDs at risk in the EU; supporting training for justice professionals on SLAPPs that target CSOs, and litigation on rights derived from the Charter; supporting national capacity-building in implementing Recommendation 2023/2836; and strengthening the EU’s warning system where civic space is shrinking in enlargement countries.

The third pillar of the strategy focuses on ways to provide ‘long-term, predictable and sufficient funding’. Funding can be of a public or private nature. In the latter case, it is necessary to create a favourable environment for private donors in which philanthropic freedom is protected. The EU already supports CSOs financially through programmes like CERV, Agora EU, Erasmus + and the EU Solidarity Corps. For the future, the Commission will explore possible funding gaps, work to connect communities and pro bono lawyers with CSOs across sectors, and explore possibilities to extend financial support to third-party schemes across relevant EU funding programmes.

Finally, the strategy highlights the need to support civil society in EU external action. To that end, the Commission committed, among other things, to strengthening dialogue with CSOs in all policy areas, including through EU delegations; consulting CSOs in the preparation of the EU action plan on human rights and democracy; and strengthening CSOs’ participation in multilateral fora.

Reactions to the strategy

While there is an overall consensus that such an initiative was long overdue, reactions to the strategy have been mixed. The Good Lobby and La Strada International considered the strategy to be a good starting point, but that it is not enough and needs consistent follow-up by the Commission; other commentators highlighted the contradictions with the Commission’s approach to policymaking, which often sidelines CSOs. Civil Society Europe considered the strategy to be a positive signal overall, while the European Civic Forum and the European Centre for Not-for-profit Law emphasised the importance of implementation. Liberties lamented the lack of concrete actions, while the European Movement International considered the strategy to be a significant step in embedding democratic resilience.

Read this ‘at a glance’ note on ‘An EU strategy for civil society‘ in the Think Tank pages of the European Parliament.

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Source : © European Union, 2026 - EP

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