Welcome to our February/March 2025 Newsletter!
The freeze on almost all US government funding for work supporting human rights, democracy and press freedom around the world will affect millions globally.
Indeed, halting USAID, National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and other funding is already impacting our grantee partners at the forefront of civil society and independent public interest media in Central and Eastern Europe.
But choking financial support for organisations working to strengthen democracy, is not the only line of attack they face: smear campaigns, intimidation and disinformation are also being ratcheted up. Recently, our Romanian grantee partner, Expert Forum (EFOR) – whose painstaking, objective analysis played a crucial role in uncovering how TikTok was exploited to influence Romania’s annulled December election – came under fire from Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and senior advisor to President Trump.
This “appears to be a deliberate attempt to manipulate public opinion and undermine efforts to protect democracy in Romania,” Expert Forum responded in a statement.
Meanwhile, the speed and scale with which civic space is closing and the rule of law is being disregarded in the United States, is staggering, as a US public interest lawyer told the Civitates’ team in a call last week. Fear among NGOs, community groups, business, academia, faith groups and broader civil society is running high.
This is the time for philanthropy to step up to protect democracy, civic space and independent media.
To that end, Civitates is discussing with our foundation partners how we can provide short term support to grantee partners who are most affected by this dramatically shifting reality, and are running a short survey to assess their most pressing needs and priorities.
Every day throws up new challenges. We must continue to rise to them.
In solidarity,
ELISA PETER
Director, Civitates
Foreign interference threatened the integrity of Germany’s recent election. Our partner Democracy Reporting International (DRI) is among the civil society organisations holding big tech to account and trying to stop Germany’s information landscape from being polluted. Read full article.
Around 100 organisations have called for human rights, and social and environmental justice to be at the heart of Artificial Intelligence (AI). In advance of the week-long AI Action Summit in Paris, which aimed to strengthen international action towards AI, an initiative led by Feminists Against Cyber Harassment, VoxPublic, Amnesty International France and the Ligue des Droits de l’Homme outlined in Le Monde how human rights and environmental protection must stop being sacrificed on the altar of technological progress: “AI as it is developed perpetuates discrimination, aggravates inequalities, destroys the planet and fuels a global exploitation system,” they said.
On February 11, around 100 personalities from German media, culture and society published a call to “reclaim the internet” as part of the Save Social initiative. The manifesto outlines ten steps to counter the growing dominance of big tech companies and support alternative platforms for information and debate. “The fundamental right to freedom of opinion and information, freedom of the press and broadcasting is at risk – and with it our democracy,” they stated. “But the internet belongs to all of us… Democracy-enhancing offerings must be expanded, and platform monopolies that are harmful to democracy should lose their massive privileges immediately.” One of the first signatories was Hans Schöpflin, President and Chair of the Board of the Schöpflin Foundation.
As our Director Elisa Peter highlights in her welcome message this month, our Romanian grantee partner Expert Forum (EFOR) has come under attack by Elon Musk, on March 3. Expert Forum said in a statement: “We believe this is an increasingly dangerous attempt at intimidation, deliberately targeting Expert Forum (EFOR) and other Romanian NGOs to discredit and weaken civil society’s critical role in safeguarding democracy and holding powerful entities accountable. We stand firm and will not yield to these intimidation attempts.”
At the end of January, Andre Wilkins, Director of the European Cultural Foundation, called for Europe to urgently reclaim sovereignty over its digital ecosystem. “Much like Vladimir Putin’s control over Europe’s energy supply exposed our vulnerabilities, Elon Musk’s dominance in Europe’s digital public sphere similarly highlights an overreliance on foreign critical infrastructure that does not align with European values,” he wrote. The solution, he said, was for Europe to create its own “E”. This would be “a resilient, values-driven digital ecosystem that serves the European public interest.” It could be partly funded from levies on non-European tech giants like X, Meta, Google, and TikTok.
On February 11, the European Commission included a pledge in its 2025 work programme to introduce a Civil Society Strategy. The European Civic Forum (ECF), which along with other organisations has driven calls for this, hailed it as a “historic decision”. ECF added: “in the context of widespread attacks on the nonprofit sector, the announcement could not come at a more important time… While the announcement is a very promising step, the details will be crucial to its success.”
The Hungarian government continues to ramp up pressure on the country’s civil society and independent media. In the wake of US President Trump’s decision to dismantle USAID, on February 7 Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said that his government will take legal action to eliminate organisations that receive funding from the US and other international sources. “It is necessary to make their existence legally impossible,” Orbán said. If this threat is carried through, it will have a profound impact for our grantee partners.
Our Media Open call!
Our call for media proposals has just closed. We received 57 applications from our priority countries: Hungary, Poland, Italy, Spain, Bulgaria, Slovakia and Croatia. We will be distributing 1 million euros to 7 up to 8 media outlets (at least one from each eligible country) through that call. We should be able to finalise the selection process by end of June/ early July.
Working together for democratic resilience
In mid-February, Civitates Director Elisa Peter participated in a global funders’ roundtable in Ottawa on re-imagining international support for democratic resilience. About 40 representatives from bilateral and multilateral donors, as well as philanthropic foundations and scholars from across the world took part. Participants explored the lessons learned from countries where democratic renewal had recently occurred , including Bangladesh, Brazil and Senegal. They agreed that we are entering uncharted territory, which needs new approaches and deeper cooperation among supporters of liberal democracy. The Civitates Steering Committee will consider all this at its upcoming meeting in Warsaw at the end of March.
17-20 / 03 – Happening this week
The European Economic and Social Committee hosts its annual Civil Society Week in Brussels. This year the event will explore how to strengthen cohesion and participation in polarised societies, and a diverse range of civil society stakeholders from Europe and beyond will gather to engage in critical debates, share best practices, and collaborate to develop solutions that foster social cohesion and strengthen democratic engagement in these testing times. Get the details.
Calls:
- The Open Society Institute – Sofia has announced a call for proposals to provide grants for initiatives enhancing media resilience and promoting quality news journalism in Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Hungary, and Slovenia. The total amount for grants under this call is up to EUR 1,560,000, with a maximum grant per initiative of up to EUR 60,000. Information webinars relevant to this call will take place until March 21. See details on the project website.The submission Deadline is April 7. See application guidelines here.
We Recommend:
- More in Common, whose mission is to understand the forces driving people apart, has just released a series of new reports looking at public opinion on the war in Ukraine in the US, UK, France, Germany and Poland. The research was conducted in the immediate aftermath of the meeting between Presidents Trump and Zelenskyy in the Oval Office. In total, more than 7,000 Americans and Europeans were polled about the war and how to end it. Among the key findings is that bonds among Europeans have strengthened after the clash between Presidents Trump and Zelensky in the Oval Office, but those between Europe and the United States have weakened considerably. The research can be read here.
- On February 11, Philanthropy Europe Association (Philea) published an in-depth explainer exploring “the subtle nature of democratic backsliding and its causes”: 2025 Democracy Briefer for Funders: What’s Happening to European Democracy and What Funders Can Do About. It offers a comprehensive insight into a complex issue, enabling philanthropic organisations to develop appropriate strategies that address the multidimensional challenges democratic backsliding presents.
- The Civil Liberties Union for Europe (Liberties) has published a research paper examining the DSA in six EU Member States (Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Germany, Italy, and Romania). Are EU Member States Meeting the Challenge Set By DSA? analyses the role of Digital Service Coordinators (DSCs) in these states, analysing their legal independence, political interference, private sector influence, and transparency. Liberties’ research finds that there are significant challenges to these vital regulators’ independence and effectiveness.
- Hungarian grantee partner, Direkt36’s second investigative documentary uncovering the immense economic power built by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and his family, A dinasztia (The Dynasty), has been viewed more than three million times on YouTube, and is a powerful testament to how independent media can hold power to account.
- The Brookings Institution’s third addition of its Democracy Playbook, 7 Pillars to Defend Democracy in 2025 and Beyond, is published at a time when “the US faces immediate threats to its democracy, including rising autocratic tendencies, polarized governance, and weakened democratic norms.” It identifies seven foundational pillars—such as protecting elections and rule of law, combating corruption, and countering disinformation—as essential to safeguarding democracy.
