A legal environment conducive to ensuring an open civic space requires a strong legislative framework that protects and promotes the rights to freedom of association, peaceful assembly and expression, in conformity with international human rights law and standards - notably Article 11 and 12 of the Charter, Article 10 and 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), and Articles 19, 20 and 21 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). The UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders, although not legally binding, contains principles and rights that are based on human rights standards enshrined in other legally binding international instruments.

Developments in the legal environment affecting CSOs vary across EU Member States. A decrease in challenges related to emergency laws is visible from 2020 and 2021 to 2022, corresponding to the gradual lifting of the emergency provisions adopted in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Other legal challenges remained similar to those encountered in previous years, with CSOs reporting issues related to accessing information (32% of respondents), legislation regarding civil dialogue (23%), and tightening of rules on assemblies and association (21%). Other issues raised included the disproportionate use of police powers and negative side effects of legislation in the areas of data protection, transparency and lobbying, tax and charitable status, counter-terrorism and anti-money laundering. A particular challenge concerns strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPPs). These are unfounded or abusive court procedures against natural or legal persons engaging in public matters whom the claimant wants to silence. CSOs sometimes face SLAPPs when they take positions on issues in their advocacy work, for example when someone claims to have been defamed by their public statements. This may have a chilling effect on their willingness to work on certain issues.

Positive developments include continued efforts in a few countries to improve the legal frameworks for exercising the right to peaceful assembly, to modernise existing rules and ease bureaucratic requirements for CSOs, and to reform registration systems and rules regarding public benefit status.

At the EU level, the European Commission dedicated its annual report in 2022 on the application of the Charter to the topic of civic space; A thriving civic space for upholding fundamental rights in the EU. The European Commission also proposed, a directive and a recommendation against SLAPPs, a directive on cross-border associations and a media freedom act.

Threats and attacks against CSOs and human rights defenders by both public and private players persisted across the EU in 2022, targeting organisations, staff and volunteers.

Threats and attacks take multiple forms. Public authorities use SLAPPS, unnecessary administrative hurdles, smear campaigns, the criminalisation of certain activities and excessive surveillance, CSOs report. About half of respondents to FRA’s consultation report receiving verbal threats offline and online, intimidation and harassment, and 5 % report physical attacks. FRA’s 2022 findings show that the patterns of threats and attacks persist across the EU, with no significant improvements from previous years.

In several Member States, CSOs and human rights defenders working in specific policy areas report they are increasingly subject to hostile environments, with intimidation, legal proceedings and smear campaigns against their work. This particularly affects migrant rights defenders, LGBTIQ+ rights defenders, women’s rights defenders, sexual and reproductive health and rights defenders, environmental rights defenders, anti-racism activists and child rights defenders, as FRA’s research for this report indicates. Surveillance was also a prominent topic in 2022. Following alleged abuses in the use of Pegasus and similar surveillance software against a variety of targets, including CSOs, the European Parliament set up a committee of inquiry.

CSOs’ work is essential for strengthening democracy, addressing complex issues, promoting innovation and encouraging local solutions. Their work contributes to building capacity, fostering collaboration and partnerships and ensuring long-term improvements in human rights. This important work needs to be adequately resourced.

Access to resources is therefore an integral part of the right to freedom of association, as defined in Article 22 ICCPR and other human rights instruments. The concept of ‘resources’ is broadly defined to include financial assistance, material resources, access to international funds, solidarity, the ability to travel and communicate without undue interference, and the right to benefit from the protection of the state.

However, in practice access to resources remains an ongoing concern for CSOs, as regards both the availability of funding relevant to their work and the accessibility of such funding due to bureaucratic requirements. FRA’s consultation shows that the major challenges for national and local organisations in 2022 were connected to difficulties in finding funding relevant to their work (67 %). Other recurrent difficulties concern applying for funding (complicated application procedures, limited administrative capacity to apply) (42 %), using the funding received (lack of core funding, lack of follow up funding, too short funding cycle) (33 %) and accessing funding (publicly available information difficult to find, overly restrictive eligibility criteria, rules on foreign funding) (32 %).

Rules on limitations to foreign funding constitute an additional obstacle to the functioning of CSOs. As the OSCE/ODIHR-Venice Commission Joint Guidelines on Freedom of Association note, “[a]ssociations shall have the freedom to seek, receive and use financial, material and human resources, whether domestic, foreign or international, for the pursuit of their activities.” Overall, donors have gradually started to adjust their funding to take into account the needs of CSOs, giving more consideration to advocacy on civic space, and capacity building particularly for security-related issues.

One significant change from previous years is that the European Commission has considerably stepped up its efforts to fund CSOs working on human rights issues, in particular through the Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values (CERV) programme. This programme is the largest to date supporting civil society in the EU, and pilots more flexible funding approaches.

The right to participation in public affairs is recognised in Article 25 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, among other documents. Civil participation is defined as “the engagement of individuals, NGOs and civil society at large in decision-making processes by public authorities”. In addition, all EU Member States have signed up to the Sustainable Development Goal targets, and Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 16.7 aims to “ensure responsive, inclusive, participatory and representative decision-making at all levels”. Moreover, under Article 11 of the Treaty on European Union (TEU), the EU – and its Member States when implementing EU law and policies - are obliged to give “citizens and representative associations the opportunity to make known and publicly exchange their views in all areas of Union action” and to “maintain an open, transparent and regular dialogue with representative associations and civil society”.

Many Member States initiated or consolidated participation mechanisms in 2022, both at national and local levels. Notwithstanding, procedures for CSOs to participate effectively in policymaking and decision making remain patchy, and CSOs are often unable to access relevant information or clear standards or guidelines to support their contribution. The quality of the consultation processes varies. Considerable differences emerge between national and EU consultations. Some 58 % of the responding organisations found the quality of EU consultations acceptable, while the percentage was 38 % for national consultations.

Other challenges that CSOs face include the limited interest of policymakers in consulting meaningfully, difficulties in accessing consultations, weaknesses in the consultation process itself, insufficient feedback on follow-up after consultations and the insufficient capacity of organisations to contribute to consultations, including due to a lack of funding for such processes. These challenges are exacerbated for organisations working with those at risk of exclusion.

However, in general the principle of cooperation between CSOs and public authorities in ensuring the implementation of laws and policies related to fundamental rights has been strengthened in recent years. The EU Strategy to strengthen the application of the Charter, and many sectorial EU action plans and strategies, call for the engagement of CSOs in the design, implementation and evaluation of relevant measures. Partly reflecting the positive experiences of  cooperation during the COVID-19 pandemic and the response to the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, Member States have developed additional initiatives promoting the more meaningful cooperation with and participation of CSOs. Nevertheless, cooperation is often ad hoc and incident-specific, as FRA’s evidence shows, for instance in the field of hate crime reporting.