EU FUNDING FOR CSOs

The EU is giving voice to certain excluded groups and addressing important imbalances in the European advocacy landscape, but this function may not necessarily be unbiased. The EU only supports CSOs engaging in advocacy activities within the limits of the competences conferred by the treaties.

The EU does not give money to CSOs blindly. EU funding includes a series of requirements ensuring that CSOs respect some basic democratic features, such as autonomy and representativeness. For example, CSOs must prove that they have a formal system of representation. In some cases, the EU seems to be promoting such democratic features among CSOs. Apart from formal representativeness, the EU also requires geographical coverage. EU-funded CSOs tend to be all-inclusive and represent a wide range of EU countries, while CSOs relying on other sources of income tend to cover far smaller geographies and countries.

Up to this point, however, the promotion of CSOs’ autonomy has not been very successful. The rebalancing of the Brussels advocacy landscape may be desirable, but many EU-funded CSOs are still highly dependent on EU funds. A few CSOs are funded up to 80 per cent by the EU. Whether this funding dependency leads to a loss of autonomy is still open to question.

It is difficult to say that fund dependency is always unproblematic, but EU funded CSOs are often very critical of EU policies, and sometimes even aggressive. All in all, the potential loss of autonomy of CSOs does not necessarily require the removal of EU funds as suggested by many commentators, but it is still important to improve the existing funding rules and conditions.

Top Beneficiaries

1. European Youth Forum € 2.4 M
2. European Consumer Organisation € 2.3 M
3. AGE Platform Europe € 1.3M
4. Friends of the Earth Europe: € 1.2
5. European Network Against Racism € 1.2
6. European Anti- Poverty Network € 1.2
7. National Organisation working with the Homeless: € 1.0M
8. International LGBTI Association: € 0.8M
9. European Women’s Lobby: € 0.8M
10. European Disability Forum: € 0.8M