SLOVENIA: Discriminating criteria risk impeding NGOs’ access to Norway Grants and European Economic Area (EEA) Grants

– Statement by CNVOS, 2 July 2021

Head of the right-wing government Janez Janša and his team of ministers continue their revanchist crusade, delivering on their pre-election promises to destroy the critically thinking NGO sector. Just before announcing the calls under the Norway Grants and European Economic Area (EEA) Grants mechanisms with donor countries Norway, Iceland, and Liechtenstein, the ministry responsible for cohesion added discriminatory criteria to exclude the participation of nongovernmental organisations. Due to this breach, Slovenia is facing the risk of having 34 million euro blocked. This would not be the first time for funds to be blocked by donor countries – they did so to Hungary in 2014 due to excluding nongovernmental organisations.

Jansa’s government revenge on the NGOs