How to better protect and enforce human rights within the EU
We want to live in a Europe that continues to protect and enforce human rights at home. RARE calls on the EU to step up its support for our fundamental rights. Read more about our vision to strengthen fundamental rights, civil society and the rule of law.
How to Better CERV the Needs of Rule of Law & Human Rights Defenders in the EU: Tweaking the Funding Tool at the Mid-Term Review
The EU’s Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values Programme has provided civil society organisations with critical funding since 2021. Resourced with more than a billion euros over seven years, CERV supports rule of law and human rights defenders promote EU values, equality, rights and gender, encourage citizens’ engagement with the Union, and fight violence. Civil society has long called for the EU’s robust support of democracy, rule of law and fundamental rights within its borders. CERV funds help make this a reality.
This paper, authored by the Recharging Advocacy for Rights in Europe alliance, which has concrete experience managing CERV projects, explores five opportunities to amend the programme in the next funding cycle. While much of the funding mechanism works well, we have found applying for grants to be unnecessarily burdensome, and propose ways to fund organisational resilience and foster stronger connections between CSOs and EU institutions.
Read the December 2023 policy paper here.
Paving the Way for More Resilient Civil Society Organisations: EU Cross-Border Associations
Recharging Advocacy for Rights in Europe welcomes the European Commission’s proposal for a Directive on European Cross-Border Associations. CSOs that operate in multiple EU member states could create one legal organisation across their “home” and “host” countries. ECBAs would enjoy the free movement of goods, services and capital, and be able to change their home country without creating a new organisational structure or losing assets.
However, the proposal does not address many of the administrative and legal complexities our organisations face. For member states to accept it, and for it to benefit CSOs as much as possible, EU legislators need to ensure the proposal supports EU values, clarifies structural issues and is fully implemented. Once adopted and transposed into national laws across the 27 EU member states, the inclusion of civil society voices in review processes will help ensure the directive is consistently applied in all member states.
We also call on the EU to adopt additional measures to protect and expand civic space, such as a directive on Common Minimum Standards for Non-Profit Organisations, measures to harmonise taxation rules for cross-border donations to nonprofit organisations, and stronger protections for human rights defenders across the EU.
Read the December 2023 policy paper.
An EU Strategy for Civil Society: Recognition, Inclusion and Protection
Civil society is one of the strongest guardians of European values and an indispensable part of our way of life. For years, we have witnessed increasing threats to democracy, shrinking civic space, and rule of law backsliding across member states. We need to rethink, and transform, how the EU connects with its citizens based on an overarching engagement strategy. Civil society in Europe is in danger and needs protection now more than ever.
This advocacy brief calls for
– policy and legislative change at the EU and national levels;
– consistent civil society access to policy debates and processes at the EU level;
– strengthened existing consultation mechanisms; and
– access to sustainable funding.
We urge the European Commission to anchor these four spheres – designed to protect and expand civic space – in an EU strategy for civil society in the form of a
Communication, within the remainder of its mandate.
Read the March 2022 advocacy brief.