REPORT: Towards vibrant European civic and democratic space – The case for a European civil society strategy  

Report by the European Civic Forum (ECF), released on 24/05/2022

While most of the monitoring and research on shrinking civic space has focused on the obstacles emerge at national level, there are European drivers and implications as well.  

The new European Civic Forum report “Towards vibrant European civic and democratic space – The case for a European civil society strategy and preliminary reflections on the gaps, challenges and opportunities to be addressed” looks at the role that civil society plays at the European level to build a European public space and upscale participatory democracy at the EU level in the context of the multifaceted crises the EU faces internally and globally.  

Second, it points at gaps and challenges in the European legislative framework regulating activities that affect the operations of civil society.

Finally, the paper builds on broadly shared proposals for a way forward for a vibrant European civic space through a European civil society strategy. 

Check the ECF report overview out in its factsheet here