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PA Summit - Debate shrinking space

Better Europe1h 5min

Speaker 1

00:00

This is dominant 10 growth as low to abroad, and ensures from authoritarian crackdowns to erogluing public trust, shrinking budgets and rising archangelities complement, in this view, The MOLN highlights a concerted playbook being deployed across Europe. This includes orchestrated scandals, demanding campaigns criminalization and stigmatization, all desires to cut NGOs out from the very democratic fabric they seek to protect. Yet paradoxically, governments continue to rely on the same NGOs to execute key democratic functions, such as policy, enforcement, implementation and protection of basic human rights. The consequence of this situation is a civil society sector at a crossroads, shrinking in influence and advising hostility reduce budgets and legitimacy crisis, while governments regain unchallenged power and weaken democratic accountability. However, amidst these challenges, there is a clear and growing response from within the NGO sector across Europe, organizations are actively embracing innovative strategies of resilience, strengthening local partnerships, decentralizing decision making and deepening their commitment to community definitions. The strategic renewal seeks not only to extend political hostility and financial constraints, but to transform these obstacles into opportunities for greater inclusivity and effectiveness. NGOs are, in fact, positioning themselves not just to survive, but to play an even more vital and dynamic role in shaping the future of new governance, democracy and social justice. With this context in mind, I now turn to introduce our esteemed panelists. First of all, we have Patricia. EJ Eiger from European Patricia, will speak about the political constraints NGO's face, including recent school being attacked surrounding the Life program. Next, we have asa arakova, Asia is for the European citizen action service, and will address the geographical challenges and power dynamics between Russell Davis and local civil society Alfred joining with us. We also have Celia Cranfield from Concord Europe. Celia will discover the challenges of the planning public trust and the right to ungro narratives continue. ENVI from the European Commission, which will offer reflections of the political and inter institutional dynamics affecting EU bodies and the operational environment for non governmental organizations. Thanks a lot for being here to the public as well. So without any further ado, I think we can turn now to our first question, which is addressed to you, aksia, so the Life program has recently faced intense political scrutiny with accusations that NGOs misuse funding for lobbying, despite audits finding no evidence of misuse. So I wanted to ask you, how are environmental NGOs across Europe responding to increased political pressure and family challenges, and what strategies are essential for them to continue influencing environmental policy effectively in such a hostile context? Yeah.

Speaker 2

03:16

Thank you very much. Gabriele for the first question. Hi everybody. I'm ratricia. I'm with the European environmental Bureau, with the largest Federation of environmental citizens organizations in Europe. We represent around 200 environmental organizations, around 40 plus countries. 35 million Europeans were part of our movement. So yeah. Gabriela, I think you sum the situation pretty well, especially coming from the perspective of environmental organizations, we have been exposed to kind of a massive campaign against civil society in general, and specifically as environmental NGOs in particular, in the last year. Well, why is that happening? But it's happening because we've been quite successfully playing the role of watch jocks. We have been, you know, exposing unpleasant truths around vested interests, for instance. And we've been very successfully advocating for for change, change that everybody likes. And we've seen major achievements, for instance, a European legal commitment to climate neutrality or the commitment to nature restoration. Now, what we're now experiencing is a backlash against these kind of policies, environmental and social protections, and a backlash against those in society that have helped to bring those successes to the forefront. We indeed see these attacks on environmental NGOs as part of a much broader, you said it Gabriela, much broader authoritarian and ultimately anti democratic playbook in which different kinds of critical voices, including, of course, also scientists, journalists and civil society organizations are marginalized and eventually repressed. If we look at what's happening in some of the member states, I mean, we've seen an increasing number of repressive legislation, foreign agents, laws, for instance, new bureaucratic burdens that made it more difficult for non profit organizations to operate, but also restrictions on funding and factual defunding of organizations. We've seen an increasing number of court cases against NGOs and individuals to silence them, and of course, there's this very dangerous narrative that tries to question why citizens organizations like us should actually be part of the democratic decision making process, and they're trying to spread the narrative that there's something wrong with us being part of the democratic process. And part of that question is what you've mentioned gabrere More specifically funding for NGOs, especially operating France. And unfortunately, a lot of disinformation, of wrong information has been used in this narrative as well. So one, very popular one is that, apparently there have been so called Secret contracts between the European Commission and NGOs, where apparently the commission has instructed us to lobby the European Parliament. Now there's no evidence. Nobody has found any evidence of such secret contracts. We have grant agreements that we have signed after following public calls for proposals, independent audits, independent evaluation reports and so on and so forth. Still, this narrative of secret contracts is unfortunately very persistent and keeps being reproduced, unfortunately also by mainstream and quality media. Another very popular piece of wrong or false information is that, apparently, the European Commission has spent billions of euros on NGOs is that we can lobby. Nobody has seen those billions. I have an electric check with my colleagues. They haven't found her either. But again, it's very popularization, which keeps coming back, especially also, unfortunately, in quality media. So now what we're doing about that? I mean, first of all, we need to get the narrative right. We need to face the disinformation. We need to get this narrative out that there is no evidence of misuse of fraud anywhere, and yeah, and kind of unfortunately, explain the very basics, even to journalists, for instance, so And part of that is that there has been an agreement between the institutions for many decades. In our case, I think over 30 years, we've been receiving public funding through operating France because there has been a consensus between the European Parliament, the European Commission and the other institutions that there are good reasons why the public, as part of a healthy democracy, should be funding networks that bring the concerns of citizens to the European level. But unfortunately, that consensus is is under under threat, so we're working very actively with with the media, but also trying to reach broader audiences around the role of civil society. We have a very good opportunity also, with the European Commission about to release a civil society strategy, which is next week, and which is something that we've been working towards for a long time. Also trying to argue and to show evidence how kind of also public support for civil society organizations actually ensures that European laws are rooted in evidence and real life experience of people and fairness and broad public support, and not only in the interests of those who can't afford to lobby because they lobby for for profit interests also to show that well, any political system and democratic political system needs, of course, citizens trust and supporting society is essential to creating and maintaining that trust and undermining it will actually only leave The kind of the most powerful voices at the table, weakening a balance that ensures credibility and democracy. So what are we doing, apart from very active communication and advocacy work, we, of course, also have to kind of continue our work and bringing citizens concerns to the decision makers. We continue to kind of fight for our place in the democratic system. We also continue to fight for financial support for the kind of work that we do as part of the democratic process. And we're also not afraid to face this new body that now exists in the European Parliament, a scrutiny working group that has been set up in the committee, in the budgetary control committee. It's a body which, according to us, is an entirely political body, because the European Parliament already has all the instruments to scrutinize how the European Commission is using public funding, and the parliamentarians can use those instruments. So there was no need for a new body which has been set up to kind of continue this witch hunt against NGOs. But we're not afraid to face that body and to explain what we do, transparency, especially transparency, for instance, in lobbying in the European Parliament actually has started with NGOs, who have been fighting post trauma transparency rules for many decades, and we were the first to openly disclose our membership and our funders and our work programs, so there's nothing to hide, and we're ready to take

Speaker 1

10:55

Thank you Patricia for these insights into these challenges, and thank you also for reminding Everybody that lobbying is a democratic tool, and as such, should be for everybody, not just entities or people with this with this in mind. Let's now turn to another fundamental challenge, and I want to turn to you. ASEAN, to you, I wanted to ask civil society, engagement in the EU often reflects a significant, significant imbalance between Brussels based NGOs and local actors across member states. So how do these geographical and power dynamics affect the effectiveness of civil society, and what strategies are essential to bridge this gap and promote more inclusive participation that strengthens civil society's overall.

Speaker 3

11:42

Thank you very much. Just for the audience, a bit to know from which perspective I'm going further with questions as well, we have about 160 members, probably or 120 of them are civil society organizations. We are very much of a citizen center organization, and our mission is to empower citizens to assess the areas. Having said that, I think that the imbalance you were talking about, it's somehow embedded in European decision making process. It has always been part of the structure. No more consumer society organization makers because there is where the constituencies are. National ones are going for national ones and Europeans while robbing European decision making, decision makers. Of course, this is the reason why we have the networks. Because the UK scenario, we need to do that based on the input our members, efficient network, however. So this is the scheme in radio world, right? And it has been like that few some years ago, when the only issue we have been discussing was our representative networks. Are they really inclusive? Are they listening to their members, or they're just self sufficient, and so on and so forth. It was quite a decent debate. Still on the agenda. However, nowadays we live in much more complicated Manuel. Why is it complicated? Because also the power struggle, which is not again something new, the struggle, where capitals are often claiming that everything good that happens to their national citizens is produced by them. And then, if there are things which, of course, are not popular, and this is because Brussels were sold, this has always been part of the journey now, however, nowadays it's taking place at a much larger scale, and also is based sometimes on just au fear wise. To this constellation, if we add the MIS and misinformation which is polluting the political and the public sphere, that it can be a result, again, of a power struggle of putting forward different narratives based on life so even, and quite massively, by the way, put peace in Central and Eastern Europe as a result of the Russian proponent and Putin's narrative, then We are living in an environment whenever it's very difficult to understand what is what and how is how this, the whole result has been from this, those recent phenomenon, which has upscale to unbelievable levels, I would say, Is the influx of mistrust and distrust among the population, citizens and our constituencies, which of course, leads to confrontation and leads to fragmentation of societies. I believe that this is the real problem, of these balances Nowadays, everyone is target, and I can give plenty of examples, as I believe everyone can Bulgarian by Origin. Bulgaria is about to adopt, hopefully, the euro as the first of January. You can't imagine what kind of narratives are walking in the public space in Bulgaria, people. RG of course, is that on the line is going to steal the money from their bank accounts on their journey in Europe. Yesterday, the Bulgarian Parliament voted to set up a commission, a parliamentary commission, to investigate the work of Jos Soros in the Open Society Foundation, which I worked for 12 years guys before coming here supporting the European integration of Bulgaria from civic society perspective. So, I mean, so yes, what could be the response? So when you try to deal with this trust, I think the anti God is building trust, building and sustaining trust. And I believe a civil society organization. This is our first obligation, media obligation. We need to generate trust with everything we do, from the simple things being meticulous in what we do much more than before. So really putting forward narratives that are fair, that are true, that involve emotions we already know facts are not sufficient. Facts are important, but not sufficient. We need to learn this new game, because we need to fight mistrust and distract on a big scale. And then my second thought is about upscaling our intelligence. We can't do things effectively in silos. We are just not self sufficient, and this is the reason why it's only important to connect to each other, to upscale across communities, across borders, across sectors as well. I can give you two example, one if negative, one is positive. Note from our because he has launched a branch, its first time. Money branch actually in Bulgaria, with with the ambition, five years ago, to have really, really very targeted intervention in certain Eastern Europe which are from the region called the region there we have these 14 cross sectoral conditions for developing this information in the individual member states. So we did it, sorry, in check in Poland, from next year, we are connecting those conventions so that they can work cross region and why? Because the narratives are one and the same. They are one and the same. They easily upscale cross borders. And also the model that is used in order to put into operation, those narratives are also similar, so response can only be collected and also because she is also very vulnerable by they cannot fight again alone against this information. So they need allies. They need allies. They need support, which is European and transsectoral. So hopefully we will try to scale information within this and then on a positive note, because everything, hopefully is quite not yet. Maybe we will reach also this point, but not yet. Just another example. We are working quite a lot on digital democracy and digital transformation. So maybe you know that in last year's Commission asked, as part of the digital decade goals, member states to develop their digital roadmaps. They report to the commission based on these digital roadmaps, actually targets, and the Commission gives back some recommendations for improvement every two years. So we have developed methodology, and we have tested it this year in five counties. We want to ensure a constant civic monitoring of how those home NAS are implemented, what extent they are also relevant and adequate in order to achieve the digital goals, especially from the perspective. So next year, we're going to cover 10 countries, and our ambition is that by 2028 we are going to have a civic monitoring covering au YON member states, following Ond the same methodology, inputting in that way, civil society perspective to the Commission before they issue their monitoring reports, communicating at national level, and hopefully because also this is our role as a new organization of showing what works as I don't really like this word, good practice, but notice that what I mean the good examples. Thank you.

Speaker 1

20:04

Thanks a lot for these words, and especially also for offering a very nice concept, which I think links very well with what was to Syria next. So I wanted to come back to that concept of mistrust, distrust implementation that you just gave and to you, Silva, I wanted to ask. So right now, European NGOs are facing a steep decline in public trust. Just imagine the same study that I signed in my introduction says that right now, political parties enjoy more trust than civil society organizations. That's the situation. And so anti NGO narratives are rising and are fueled by various political actors across the EU and beyond, as Asia just said, so how is this environment impacting civil society's legitimacy and its ability to engage effectively and also, given these challenges, what innovative approaches can NGOs adopt to appeal to public confidence and navigate growing scrutiny, especially as civic space continues to shrink.

Speaker 4

21:06

Thank you and thank you to the good lobby for this discussion. I think it's really timely and important. So Concorde is a confederation of national platforms across the EU Member States and international NGO networks working on international cooperation and sustainable development cooperation and aid, and we've existed for more than 20 years, looking at EU policy and reading our expertise and experiences of our members and their partners and citizens who engage in issues of global solidarity into the EU policy making process. So that's my perspective feeding into this discussion. But I think before I get into the question you asked, I think it's very important to highlight that what Patricia pointed out, the attacks on the Life program, have been happening across sectors. So it's not just about environmental NGOs. It can also be about the work of organizations that feel gender equality, very extreme anti rights narratives. It can be those like our democracy, like us working on international cooperation. The list is potentially never ending, in fact. And what's extraordinary to me in all of this is this sort of weaponization of the concept of NGOs. Because when you look at what we're actually talking about, when we talk about NGOs, and this is coming from the EU's own definition in its communication, sorry, on the roots of democracy in EU external action. So this was about how the EU's courts democracy in other countries. It says they're non state, not for profit, non partisan, non violent structures through which people organize to pursue shared political or cultural, social or economic objectives, from the local level to the global level. And you just described very well what that looks like locally. And the examples are so endless, and every single one of us in our lives has come across or been involved with an NGO. You know, you have the likes of BRAC in Bangladesh, which is one of the biggest NGOs in the world, providing essential services to the people of Bangladesh. The more name recognizable ones, like Save the Children and Oxfam. But then you have others that are linked to churches like karitas. And then you have the local homework club, the local association of people looking to ensure that the streets in their neighborhood are tight tidy, or that their park is clean. The list is never ending of the ways in which people in our societies come together and organize to better the world around it, and the NGOs that have sort of come under attack versus level, they're just one part of this larger ecosystem. And so this kind of false equalizing of everybody will be paid for by everybody. Ultimately, in the end, that's my real fear, that the sort of roots of our society and social cohesion come under attack as well when we attack NGOs. But I wanted to put this in a global context as well, because this is one narrative. It's one way of attacking NGOs, this disinformation and misinformation about NGOs and EU budgets and what role we play in EU policies making, but it's part of a much bigger pattern of shrinking civic space globally. Can I pick out a few examples human rights defenders? She's worked on human rights. She's been around a long time, and I've never heard her sound so angry as last month, when she sort of called the alarm on what states are allowing around the world in terms of repression and attacks on environmental rights defenders, she really calls them out on the difference between a commitment to human rights and what it actually looks like when political repression happens. The EU itself has a really amazing project called the system for an enabling environment. It looks only at countries outside the EU, but part of this is a sort of map of the world that says it highlights when there's an opportunity to grow civic space, an opportunity just for it to stay the same. And ranks deteriorating situations down to crisis. If you look at that map, I just had a lot this morning for crisis or deteriorating situations are far, far more than those where it's going well, and I think it's very important that we understand these attacks, which are, you know, it's narrative in one case, but in other cases, and the EU has been very good at working on this and your external relations. It can be around, how do you register as an organization? It can be around, how do you get your funding? Is some a bit foreign, like you were describing. It can be any number of ways in which NGOs activities are attacked. And so I think when we start looking, then how do we counter that? Yes, we have to counteract the disinformation. We have to correct it, we have to confront it, and then we have to get back to talking about the issues that we want to put on the table in the front of place. Because the issue with all of this is we're all resource stressed. If we're spending our time justifying our existence, what impact are we still having? How are we then responding to what our members actually want us to do, which is raise issues that they work on into the EU policy agenda. So the one of the attack, attacks, one of the narratives around the aid sector in particular, has been that it has no impact, that it's a waste of taxpayers money and that citizens don't support it. Now, there is a little bit of truth to that, that when you cut aid, it's not the first thing that the person's going to go on the street will complain about. But if you ask them, do they support your country or your region being the EU supporting international aid, they will always say yes, almost always. And what we've seen this year is that when it comes to funding and cuts and what that can mean us, aid was disbanded, dismantled this year, and that has meant food stuck in warehouses, seeds not getting to farmers when they need to put them in the ground. It has meant school closures. It has meant health programs women not being able to have access to, you know, reproductive health and rights that they're and services that they need. And so the impact is very, very clear when you start taking pieces out of the picture. And I want to warn here that while USA, it's got a lot of retention for many member states that are also, at the moment, cutting into their aid budgets. And so those impacts can be felt globally, because it's not just a European issue. And so when we're looking forward, I think there are some opportunities on the table. I think civic space strategy is a very important one, and I think it absolutely has to reflect that civic space in the EU is part of civic space globally, that we can't tackle challenges, including Challenge of Democracy and civic space, without looking internally and externally, and that countries around the world will also see what the EU accepts and does internally and copy it or use it as an excuse if it goes the wrong way. But yes, the future Ralf is also an opportunity. There are important funding programs there for civil society. It is important that they are quite explicit that funding can also be used for advocacy, because if all the experience of all the NGOs in the world isn't ultimately used to also inform policymaking, I personally think that's quite irresponsible.

Speaker 1

28:55

Thanks a lot, Cecilia, for these valuable points which underscore the critical challenge of legitimacy and everything positive that non profit organizations do around the world, and not only Europe. So thanks a lot for that. And with this backdrop in mind, I would now like to broaden a little bit our view and see our institutional dynamics within the European Union shape the environment in which civil society organizations operate. So I want to turn to you and vigor and so your institutions are facing intensified political challenges that risk constraining NGO's operational and engagement spaces, as we've just seen. So how good these institutional tensions impact NGO's ability to contribute to policy debates and what concrete steps could be taken to safeguard and announce civil society's role within the evolving EU institutional landscape.

Speaker 5

29:49

Thank you, Gabriele and thank you for the previous speakers were very, very interesting. I think we, we need more occasions like this to interact with NGOs. We we have, of course, a lot of relations and a lot of debates with NGOs. But to us, I'm not a specialist in NGOs. I'm a specialist in policy and political environment, but I worked in the past a lot of very structured

Speaker 5

30:27

discussion and debates merging forces together and come to the institution for what I used to our comes

Speaker 5

30:39

to research to data, to facts and so on. And it related to what, what you said for the trust we need to have solid data to corroborate we do in terms of legislation. So I think we value very much this part. We very, very much also the fact that the NGOs are bringing to the attention of the commission real issues, you know, problems, awareness about socioeconomic matters that needs solution being, you know, legislation, also programs or non non legislative. So just to say that for us, we value very much in collaboration with the NGOs, and of course, civil society in particular. And of course there is we are also lo by the way, we we are very delighted to be under the umbrella of the Lud lobbying, because when it comes to defend our proposal and particularly the environment, of course, we very much appreciate the NGOs to support us, but we have also lobbying capacity to defend those ideas that are

Speaker 5

32:01

so I'm not going to talk to you in particular about the role of NGOs, because, as I said, I'm not a specialist, but just to walk you through what I consider the major changes that happened over the last years, two years, to be precise, and that affects not Only, of course, the operation of the NGOs, but also the operation of institutions. And of course, there is a lot of concern regarding these political fermentations. We heard the situation of some situation in Parliament, but we have also to look at what happened in the member space, because also the council is part of the decision making process, and there are some evolution there, so I'm just going to walk you through briefly I had some slides. So the European elections, just to recall for everyone, has brought very big changes in the balance within the European Parliament, because the first element was, has been the sort of priest of support

Speaker 5

33:12

to the two pro European groups, which were reviews, the liberals and the green so those Two political groups that were very much supporting values, adversities, Democratic agenda of EU lost in the election, and so the capacity of those pro European, pro Democratic groups to form a majority has done exposure. So we don't have any longer what we called before 24 the rainbow majority, which was composed of the socialist, the review, the left, the greens, some non attached. There was a very tiny majority that for some issues they managed to on the other hand, we had, of course, the increase of the of the far right, with the third group being Pascal's various

Speaker 5

34:20

which is the third group. So that means it's the group in the parliament that takes the floor in the third position. And then the third group is the CR which is composed as well of, I would say, not the centrist. It's relatively some are trying to be, to become, I would say, the bridge with DPP, and come back to the coalition's and some are left in the in the in the area of the ultra conservative position. And of course, DPP has won the elections was not such a big deal 26% but nevertheless, what has changed, and this is the very big changes in the European Parliament, is that they are key make a role so they can stand With the socialist and the reunion forming the platform

Speaker 6

35:22

is commission, but they can also turn to the right and to the extreme right, the

Speaker 5

35:28

so called Venezuela coalition. I would call it like this. So that means the Patriots, the CR the sovereigns, and some unattached. And this is the reality that came across with a number of votes. Recently, it was mentioned deforestation. Recently, the forest monitoring, and you mentioned that appreciate the vote in the cont committee for the establishment of this working it was much worse for the proposal. Nevertheless, this is exactly the reality we are facing so and this, of course, creates a lot of a lot of an instability, not only for the policy making, but also for the capacity of stakeholders to make their voice heard. There's not a big, I would say, majority, particular for the pro democratic initiatives there to support these ideas.

Speaker 5

36:53

But there is another reality, and the other reality is what's happening at the level of the member states. Because if you look at the difference, it's not on the map, it's not on the screen. But those slides, if you see the colors of Europe in 2019 and five, you see that 2025 is very much blue and not blue, while in 2019 it was a different color, a bit more red, and so on. So there's also, there a reality that we have to we have to bear in mind when we push forward some, some some some legislation. And so we have also to be aware that and realistic about the what we can propose. So is this going to, is this have an influence on the on the way we conduct the policy and the proposed policies? Of course, there is because, on the one hand, the council, in the council, you have a number of member states now you have two member states that are headed by patriots. That makes decision making quite difficult in some instances, in particular, when we talk about Russia and sanctions on the parliament side. We had, I had mentioned already the Venezuela majority, which is clearly breaking the usual voting practices with the so called corn Sant, which preventing some groups to be part of, I would say, the internal process of the Parliament. It doesn't seem to be the case anymore. And of course, the third element which is also important is that the commission is relying on the support of the three groups, which is close to the apartment platform, or composed of the EP, the socialist and the EU. And this platform is, of course, having difficulties. We had seen that. Of course, our president had a lot of support from in the vote in July, but you already see the increase of support for the war commission a few months later. And if you look at the recent motion or sanctuaries, of course, the absolute majority, but you have at least 180 votes which are, which are stable and against, against the commission. So it may have, you know, in the in the long term, quite a big difference. I will not come back. Maybe I'm doing my time, my time. So maybe I'll keep the my reflections for you know, the possible solutions, how the NGO might, might consider to cooperate. But I I want to recall, of course, that I understand that your margin of maneuver and the field of operation is extremely difficult and challenging. And of course, we are we are considering to have a

Unknown Speaker

40:16

high consideration

Speaker 5

40:19

to our contribution and collaboration between civil society and the communication, of course,

Speaker 1

40:31

clarify. Thanks a lot. Thanks a lot for these key reflections on our institutional dynamics. Also acts NGOs operations in Europe, and you still have a space for your reflections, because I still have one last question for all of you, so I wanted to ask you, and if you could reply in 6090, seconds max, so we can open the floor to the public. So we'll explore how NGOs are holding ground other political hostility, funding constraints, also institutional constraints at this point, and speaking civic space. So as a final reflection, what I want to ask all of you is what is a first concrete step that policymakers, NGOs and citizens together must take to not only hold the line, but to expand the reports the vital role of civil society across Europe and everybody can go

Speaker 5

41:22

first well. I mean, of course, I said in the beginning that we are more ESMA lobby. We are doing because you have all, we have all to defend our ideas and proposals. But we have, of course, noticed in the that to make an idea through we cannot rely on the sort of traditional way of reaching out or creating our an interpreter. So the first reflection of the business an open question that is the fact that maybe we should think of extending, you know, our advocacy strategy. So should we widen the scope of operation? So for example, I take a very simple example. So if, if there is a reporter which is not necessarily proposing the right the right things in his report. Is it forbidden to go and see and corroborate research and fact, trying to convince that this is the wrong thing she's doing? Or should we stick to our kind of ideological attitude of saying, no, no, not with these people. So this is an open question that we are asking ourselves, because you have more and more of this group somewhere. And the thing the other consideration about the advocacy is we cannot rely anymore on, you know, reaching out the political groups as political group, you have more and more national nuances in within, within those political groups. So it's very, very important to to see within those national, national nuances, where, where we can activate some, some some good, some good knowledge. And the step, third thing is related to, to what was earlier say, is the trust. I think I mean what is very important when we provide in this world of this information, to provide, you know, data which is solid, which is based on research, and I think there is a great deal of that in the work that you

Speaker 2

43:51

do. Thank you. Well, there's a lot of things that we should potentially be doing, but I'll restrict it to like one of the ideas. I mean, I think that the most important thing is really that we all have to kind of stand our ground to keep kind of civic space open. And there's a lot of different things we can do to make that happen. We already briefly mentioned the civil society strategy, which is coming out. And I mean, I think there's actually scope beyond a strategy to really establish clear basis also in the European democratic space, of how the institution should be, kind of what kind of subject dialog we want, and to create a legal basis for that. Because at the moment, the legal basis is very, I mean, it's strong, but it's vague. It basically just says the European institutions have to remain, maintain an open and transparent dialog with with civil society. So very strong legal basis, but it's not very concrete. So I think we need a stronger legal basis on how, kind of, what's the role of civil society and how we should be taken into consideration in the decision making process. And that needs to have a legal basis of kind of, more established civil civic dialog. And the first part of my second point is that we really need the European institutions, and we have a representative of the commission with us to really stand that ground with us, because I think there is a risk that institutions, or representatives of institutions, cave into this immense pressure that is being created by the authoritarian forces to shrink civic space, and we have seen early signs of that caving in to the pressure. So it's very important that our democratically elected institutions hold the ground together with us.

Speaker 3

45:44

Thank you very much. For me, shrinking civic space is very clearly indication of shrinking democratic space and machine in demographic space for democracy based on shaking grounds, is the ultimate recipe for disaster and for failing towards autocracy and for planning. So what we need to consistently, when I say we tell me knowing the CSO, those are all the stakeholders that are interested to maintain and sustain democracy. What we need to invest into continuously is building societal resilience. Societal resilience based on disinformation and against Pascal behavior. We cannot be just observers of what's happening. We need to not only protect we need to expand the city in the democratic space, because this is how you protect the status quo.

Speaker 4

46:47

Thank you. Yeah, there are a lot of things that we could all be doing. So one is something that the OECD has actually been recommending to its member states, because it also looks at an in the environment for civil society, and it has identified that where civic space is really under pressure, national platforms, regional coalitions and platforms and international alliances and networks are essential for representation, coordination and resilience of civil society that it opens up space for organizations to learn from each other and be able to depend on each other, but they need support for that. So that is one thing that we can all be doing. And it goes to what you were saying, we also need to sometimes break down the barriers between us and really work together in much larger alliances. And when I say much larger, I'm not saying just between civil society organization. It's everybody who needs to stand the ground for what open democratic decision making and space looks like. The other thing is very small and specific. There is a concept called global citizenship education. It's a very tiny part of the EU budget at the moment, but it's somewhere where NGOs are very active, and it's about integrating into formal and informal education systems, critical thinking, a culture of engagement, international solidarity. And I think it's quite a key tool. When you're looking at countering this information, when you're looking at kind of toning down the polarization of debates, when you're looking at anti democratic trends and identifying challenges as global, not just national. And so I do think keeping that concept of global citizenship education quite alive is very, very key in these coming years.

Speaker 1

48:32

Thanks a lot, Celia, thanks a lot everybody. I think it's now time to open the floor to you, to the public. We should have time for two, three questions at the city organizers. Maybe we can go, you're there. We can go on like five minutes, right? Thanks. So it will be nice if when you ask a question, you introduce yourself, and also, if you are directing the question to one of the panelists, please specify. So yeah. Floor, sir, yes, the gentleman with the DIA. RG,

Speaker 7

49:09

thank you very much. Thank you very much for this interesting conversation. I would like to build on gabriella's question and add the EU professionals the list, how could corporate work with civil society? For context, our non profit is a clearing house for Google and match civil society organizations with new firms and public health consultancies that offer their services. Pro bono publico. So even the topic of the conference, given the audience in the room, I thought it was interesting to understand your opinion on how indeed, corporate EU professionals can become allies, to use ASEAN terminology, or to take what Sally was saying to make sure that civil society voice is not missing. Thank you.

Speaker 8

50:14

Thank you for this panel. James Cantor from the media EU screen, one question for Mr. Forge, I actually take your point on the difficulty of coming forward with new legislation in the current political environment. My question is, why is the commission not enforcing existing legislation? That doesn't seem to me to be beyond the possibility of the commission to actually bring infringement proceedings against member states that are in violation and to enforce existing legislation like the Digital Services Act and the European media freedom act. That is not happening, and that is something that I think is a big question mark, another question about NGOs, the political forces that oppose life and serve and the civil society funding these political forces, they also have NGOs too. So given the trajectory of how NGOs are being treated in Europe and internationally. What is going to happen to those NGOs? Are they similarly under threat, or do they just enjoy an entirely different structure, either by virtue of funding or by virtue of the way that they operate? Thank

Speaker 9

51:57

you. Good afternoon. Andrew TINAGLI from social platform, we are European Network of social NGOs. And I would like to highlight that, similarly to what Patricia and Celia mentioned, social rights and equality organizations in Europe are experiencing similar squeezes and challenges, including reducing operating grants to advocacy activities. So my question is, what can EU institutions do, especially looking at the next multi annual financial framework to guarantee operating functioning support you?

Speaker 1

52:47

So Eric, would you like to take the institutional one? Yes, I take

Unknown Speaker

52:55

the two and a half

Speaker 5

52:56

implementation of your policy, DSA and the media FERBER might, let's not forget, I know very well the subject which I was in. Did you connect before? So I think, first of all, I think with these two pieces of legislation, we made huge progress to try and ensure an level playing field in Europe, and also to get away from the usual fight, I mean, controversy between the EU institutions and the operators, the European operators, because the focus was very much more on protecting the internal market from, I would say, big tech. To summarize it, I think that, I mean, we have, of course, the infringing procedures that are as an instrument to make sure that right, but let's not forget that those two are quite recent legislation. So it's not that we go for an infringement procedure immediately when we have a notification. I mean, it's more complex system than just going for the infringement so there is a dialog with the member states that is supposed to infringe, that is accused of infringing or not implementing these legislations. We may have member states that have difficulties or administrative difficulties to implement the legislation as well, so we have to take into consideration, I would say, a number of factors before launching. I would say atomic. Or the infringement. So the infringement is there, the commission is certainly aware that sooner or later, this has to go through, because it's part of the of the of the instruments that the commission has at this disposal. But my view, I don't, I'm not into the implementation of those two specifics, but maybe we can explore that bilateral terms. But I believe that this is just very much a dialog that is taking place in the with the national authorities about implementation on the MFS. Of course, we are the beginning of the negotiation. We have made a proposal. I mean, I don't know whether your views, what is in the MFF is sufficient for for your goals. If this is the case, please help us to support our proposal, because it's very much contested at the time, for the time being in the parliament, as you know, so it's a bit early to say any additional thing on

Speaker 6

55:52

whether you know, we are committed To defend our and then, of

Speaker 10

55:59

course, there was, we, thank you,

Speaker 1

56:07

Enrico, we still have two questions. One is, how can businesses help NGOs? And the other one is about what is going to happen to NGOs that are currently supported by far right forces, and if you

Speaker 3

56:22

want to, want to, well, I can't speak only this to our experience speakers. We work with the corporate sectors. For example, we do quite a lot of experimentation on how we can use technology. We are even now at setting up so called my colleague calls it like this, democracy tech coalition, bringing together technological innovators, companies, civil society, democratic activists as well as ethics, in order to move forward, together with the ideas of how we can innovate our democracy based effect. So we have quite little cooperation with with the ICT sector, as well as with legal professionals, for example, with the legal advice to citizens, as well as providing administration to state, administration on renewable citizens rights in member states, evolving legal experts, most of them work for legal companies, And also, we are lucky to benefit from promoting support from fresh girls as well on a regular basis. So for us, everyone who is forward looking and also who has democracy,

Speaker 3

58:02

a over time. With regard to the quasi angels, I have to admit that I don't have the answer to that, because we haven't worked with the quasi NGO, and we are not the quasi NGO. So I suppose it very much depends on how those angels behave. For example, I have seen quasi angels which have beneficial Access to Public Procurement Services. For example, the procurement rules are set in a way as to favor just specific quasi angels. I mean, those type of angels apparently will not suffer from what everyone suffers if there are quasi angels which are competing on an equal basis for open calls based on rules. Maybe they will, but I will really talk, especially so that I have no idea.

Speaker 4

58:58

Quickly on the corporate question, and I think that the bigger question to ask is, how many private sector actors we win if we continue down this line, sliding democratic standards, and then what are their responsibilities as actors, individually or together, to speak for a democratic space? But I mean, we have plenty of examples like you do of working with the private sector, there are many private sector actors who have embraced, for instance, sustainability and working with the SDGs, and are willing to stand up for wanting and expecting Member States and the EU to do the same on the operating grants. I mean, I think as far as I as far as I know, the legal basis is still there for operating grants for our sectors and our networks, but what we really need is a little more robust, I think, voice from the Commission saying they never did anything wrong, because I think there's been a bit of mixed messaging from the commissioner in debates in the parliament about how operating grants were used, which has helped foster a sense of distrust or disease about how operating grants have been operating. And for us, it's quite key. I mean, we're quite lucky that in the global Europe instrument that funds international cooperation. It's very specific. It says NGOs should be supported to take part in EU policy making on international cooperation. So advocacy is quite clearly covered by that. And I think similar language should be introduced across the funding instruments. I think it just makes sense. It doesn't make sense to be, you know, supporting NGOs, to come together just to talk to each other, we need to be talking to EU policymakers, because that's what our expertise is in. We're told over and over, it's valuable. We've been invested in by the Commission to do that, and there has never been anything wrong with that. And I think having a very clear message, communication about that would be expected.

Speaker 3

01:01:07

Can you share an opinion on the operating sorry, I mean, because maybe I will not explain the audience is familiar with those grounds. We have them, and those are not really the operating grounds. There are purely action grounds, where on the working package, one which is Manuel, we are allowed to cover part of our running costs. It is, this is, those are the operating grounds on the serve. Other than that, we have my three working passages, affection. So it's not that someone gives you money so that you can freely operate, not to mention that, yes, we win the three year grant with these 70 pages of proposal, and then each and every year, we again apply with an annual project proposal that you may win or may not win. So yeah, I mean, I don't see what what here is so beneficial, honestly, so that it's such, such a problem in the eyes of some people. But those your operating grounds look like, how are you

Unknown Speaker

01:02:20

packages of action and covering predictable office force, really, those are not operating grounds. There are action grounds, in my view.

Speaker 1

01:02:34

Thank you, organizers. Please for your attention if you want to share something

Speaker 10

01:02:42

on the Okay,

Speaker 2

01:02:49

also, just a really quick colleagues covered it, but just on the kind of the dynamics of specific kind of grant agreements. I mean, what's really interesting in the in the dynamics of the European Parliament, is that we've been saying from the beginning onwards, we don't have a problem with our grant agreements being kind of scrutinized and publicly discussed, because we have nothing to hide in them. But what we don't want is that only our contract is scrutinized, and those who set up this scrutiny working group in the parliament and made it really clear they are not interested in commission grants going to companies, commission grants going to trade associations, commission grants going to anyone else. The only thing they're interested is in commission grants going to NGOs that do not share their opinion, and NGOs, working in the environmental sphere or the social justice fair or the global justice sphere, tend not to share the opinions of the far right, and this is why they have chosen us as their target. We'd be super happy if the budgetary control committee would actually dive a bit deeper into why three digit billion euro amounts go to American companies owned by billionaires that actively sabotage our democracy. Nobody cares. Nobody looks into those contracts, but then they're scrutinizing, as you said, in the end of the day, peanuts that cover our rents for an office here in Brussels. So we'd be super interested to kind of turn around that dynamic in the European Parliament, and to look a bit more into who else gets money from the Commission, and to, yeah, scrutinize that more and actually what kind of lobby interests are behind, sorry, behind those organizations. But unfortunately, that's not what the current majority in that in the bottom wants.

Speaker 1

01:04:35

Thank you, Patricia for these final remarks. I mean, I really want to congratulate each and every one of you for for all of your interventions, we will be able to go from from challenges, and, you know, give complete solutions, going from this information and mistrust distrust to how attacks on NGOs represent attacks on the people, and how also, institutions sometimes are constrained, and this can, in Turn constrain the operations of NGOs. I know there's really a lot to discuss. One hour is really not enough, but I encourage you to keep the conversation alive with other speakers, which for sure, will be around for a little bit more. Please.

Unknown Speaker

01:05:20

Fantastic speakers and our wonderful thank you so.

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