We took part in the next stage of consultations conducted by the European Commission on the proposed draft of future EU programs. These consultations concern EU funds supporting cross-border education, training and solidarity, youth, media, culture and creative sectors, values, and civil society.
We welcome the European Commission’s proposal for the AgoraEU programme and other initiatives under the scope of current consultations. In our opinion they not only are in line with the European Commission 2024-2029 Political Guidelines, but also with the priority of a free and democratic Europe set out in the 2024-2029 EU Strategic Agenda. In our feedback opinion we especially focus on planned AgoraEU programme, while endorsing not only the scope of its work, which aims to support the pillars of a strong democracy, including culture, media and civil society. We are also pleased to note the positive developments regarding the value of proposed suport, as the AgoraEU proposal provides for a total financial envelope of EUR 8.58 billion, exceeding the combined allocations of the current CERV and Creative Europe programmes and thereby enabling reinforced investment in culture, the media, democracy, rights and equality. We believe that the Commission’s proposal will go a long way towards meeting the needs of European societies and recognises the role that civil society organisations (CSOs) play in meeting those needs.
In addition, we believe that for the new EU funding period, we need solutions that (1) will enable us to fully capitalise on the potential of the European civil society sector; (2) will promote greater access to EU funds for smaller organisations, including those operating at local level and (3) the shape of the future EU budget allowing also for the implementation of the provisions of bold policy documents recently adopted by the European Commission. These are, namely, the European Civil Society Strategy and the European Democracy Shield. Achieving all these goals will be possible thanks to the recommendations presented in the following sections of our opinion.
In order to operate effectively, CSOs need support that is not only adequate in amount, but also allocated on the basis of appropriate rules. The latter should enable achieving the results falling in two main thematic areas. 1. Increasing the accessibility of funds for smaller CSOs and making spending rules more flexible through: expanding the use of grant distribution by intermediaries, which independence from public authorities and compliance with the Charter of Fundamental Rights should be secured; guaranteing CSOs’ access to institutional (operating) grants in all new programmes and their individual strands; limitting OR removing co-financing requirement for non-profit organisations acting as intermediaries under cascading grants scheme, as well as for smaller CSOs; establishing, in the regulations defining individual programmes and the rules for their implementation, a minimum level of funds that must be allocated to independent civil society organisations under each programme and its every strand. 2. Introducing mechanisms that will enable the implementation of EU policies on civil society by: explicitly recognising in the AgoraEU regulation the role of advocacy as a key part of CSOs’ work and the involvement of civil society in policymaking as integral elements of strengthening democratic participation and societal resilience; transfering the current Working Group on Civil Dialogue mechanism to the AgoraEU regulation to use the experience form this already proven structure when creating a new system of civil dialogue; adding a coordination mechanism between various donors and philanthropic organisations to facilitate strategic dialogue and enable co-granting and strategic collaboration with EU programmes.
These are just the most significant solutions worth implementing in the final version of the documents defining the structure and rules for spending the future multiannual financial framework. A more detailed description of our postulates contains the attached document.
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