Early Warning & Alert System launches to help protect civic space

The Early Warning and Alert System will provide systematic evidence on developments within the EU, report on early signs of deterioration, and urge EU institutions to act before the situation worsens.

The Early Warning and Alert System is part of the Monitoring Action for Civic Space (MACS) project, co-funded by CERV. A civil society coalition, including the European Center for Not-for-Profit Law (ECNL) has been working since March 2024 to develop a comprehensive monitoring methodology to assess both the progress and decline of civic space freedoms across six dimensions, and create and pilot a civil society-led early warning and alert system to alert EU institutions to threats to civic space, accompanied by actionable policy recommendations.

Alerts will be published on the Civic Space Watch website, which gathers data and reports on developments in civic space at the national and EU level, as well as by emails from the Civic Space Watch and partners. Urgent cases and high-risk threats will trigger advocacy efforts at EU and international levels, while regular reports and newsletters will provide a deeper analysis of emerging trends. The European Civic Forum and ECNL will coordinate country-specific advocacy at the EU level, mobilising solidarity to address the threats.

System specifics – and a webinar

The system is focused on policies and legislation that have the potential to restrict civic space and changes to the funding landscape. The ongoing monitoring based on the methodology will be piloted in seven countries: Bulgaria, Denmark, France, Hungary, the Netherlands, Poland and Romania.

MACS is hosting a webinar on 10 April to provide more information about the project, the civic space methodology and the Early Warning and Alerts System.

Police investigations into Serbian nonprofit cause concern

In related news, two NGOs in Serbia were visited by the country’s Criminal Police Administration at the end of February – the second such event in two months.

Police entered the premises of Građanske Inicijative and Trag Fondacija on 25 February, with a statement on the latter’s website saying this was “related to the financing of civil society by the US Agency for International Development (USAID)”.

Officials “entered our premises and reviewed our organization’s documentation”, according to Trag Fondacija’s statement, which adds:

“This situation is yet another attempt to intimidate civil society organizations, which are often targeted by government officials and media outlets connected to them. Such pressures are part of a broader trend of shrinking the space for organizations working on human rights protection, democratization of society, and the empowerment of citizens.

“The aim of these actions is not only to delegitimize the work of the civil sector but also to create an atmosphere of fear and uncertainty in the wake of student and civil protests that have been taking place across Serbia for the past three months.”

Additionally in January, participants from eight countries at an NGO capacity building workshop in Serbia’s capital Belgrade in January were interrogated and subsequently banned from the country. According to reporting on this by Philea, it was not made clear to those involved why this had happened.

Philea said it was “deeply concerned” by both occurrences, and commented:

“These events provoke critical questions around principles of legal security and rule of law, as well as conflicts against freedom of association, which is guaranteed by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the European Convention on Human Rights and which make it clear that states must not use repressive measures to limit the work of civil society organisations.”

Prior to this news, ECNL had published an article describing its work in the country supporting the creation of a Council for Cooperation and Civil Society Development in response to the deterioration of the relationship between Serbia’s government and civil society. This is being carried out under the framework of the Civil Society Resilience Activity (CSRA): a five-year programme funded (at the time) by USAID, along with the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), and implemented by PartnersGlobal and consortium partners including ECNL.

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