Could the EU’s next budget shrink civil society and NGOs?

The Commission’s €1.8 trillion budget proposal does not say “we are cutting NGOs.” But, if cuts happen, they will come through structural design, fewer dedicated funding lines, weaker earmarks, and more money routed through national governments. Civil society coalitions warn it could be slow defunding dressed up as simplification.

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No clear defenders

The MFF reorganises the EU budget from 52 programmes to 16, folding cohesion, social, and agricultural spending into 27 national partnership plans. The protected headings are defence, competitiveness, and digital and green transitions. Civil society is not one of them.

“We are in a moment of changing priorities and a changing environment for the union,” says Eulàlia Rubio, Senior Research Fellow at the Jacques Delors Institute. “We have a lot of fragmentation inside the union. That makes it much more difficult and to a certain extent it is reflected in the negotiations.”

Support for democracy and civic resilience, Rubio adds, is precisely the kind of heading “in which there are no big defenders among member states, no one is really seeing major cuts there.”

A flagship with a structural gap

The Commission points to AgoraEU, an €8.58 billion programme merging CERV and Creative Europe, as proof of its commitment to civil society and media freedom. Nominally bigger than its predecessors, it has a critical omission. The draft regulation does not explicitly mandate operating grants, the multi-year funding that allows NGOs to do advocacy, watchdog work, and strategic litigation. Without a legal guarantee, future work programmes could simply drop them.

That precedent is already set. In 2025, the Commission discontinued operating grants for health NGOs under EU4Health and shifted to project-only funding. Health organisations filed a complaint with the European Ombudswoman. Civil society sees it as a template for what the MFF could formalise across the board.

The European Parliament has pushed back, calling for AgoraEU to reach €10.72 billion, 25% above the Commission’s proposal, with operating grants explicitly protected. Over 500 organisations have signed an open letter in support of the increase.

The bigger risk lies in shifting social spending into national partnership plans controlled by member states. The social earmark drops from 25% under the current ESF+ to a broadly applied 14% target.

For NGOs working on rule of law or minority rights in Hungary or Slovakia, this is the difference between accessing EU funds directly, where no government can block them, and depending on authorities that may be hostile to their work.

EU NGO funding debate

Not all analysts agree that EU-level NGO funding is the right instrument. Zsolt Darvas, Economist and Senior Fellow at Bruegel, argues the budget should focus on what member states cannot do alone. “The EU budget spends only about 1% of EU GDP, while member states spend almost half,” he says. “Supporting NGOs is more a national competency. National governments have ample fiscal power to support them if they deem it appropriate.”

That logic assumes governments will use that power to support independent civil society. In several EU member states, the evidence shows otherwise.

A Scrutiny Working Group, established in June 2025 by the EPP, ECR, and Patriots for Europe, is investigating EU funding to NGOs. Left and centre parties boycotted it. The European Court of Auditors found no financial irregularities, only fragmented data.

Rubio calls it “dangerous.” “There is a misleading approach of saying we have to control who receives the money. Entering into a logic of who is good or bad, that’s a bit dangerous.” The EU should instead target support strategically: “We have to be specifically good at supporting those in countries where the rule of law is under harm. And we have not been so good at that in the past.”

The stakes

The EU Fundamental Rights Agency found in March 2026 that 75% of civil society organisations reported barriers to their work. CIVICUS downgraded France, Germany and Italy to “obstructed” civic space in 2025.

The MFF 2028-2034 is only an opening bid. But its structural choices, fewer dedicated lines, weaker earmarks, and no explicit operating grants already shift the risk onto civil society.