A joint open letter, sent by over 500 organizations to European political leaders, calls for an increase in the funding for the new AgoraEU program. The backdrop: a Europe where political recognition of the role of civil society fails to translate into adequate financial support.
On April 8, a coalition of over five hundred European civil society organizations—active in the fields of culture, independent information, fundamental rights, and democratic participation—addressed a joint letter to the Union's political leaders, from the Commission to the Parliament, the Council, and the Permanent Representatives of the Member States. Among the signatories, we too InformaGiovani ETS.
The subject is apparently technical—the financial allocation of the AgoraEU programme within the next Multiannual Financial Framework 2028-2034—but the political significance goes beyond the financial question.
AgoraEU is the new Framework Programme with which the European Commission has proposed to merge two previously distinct programmes: Creative Europe, dedicated to culture, audiovisual and media, and CERV, dedicated to the rule of law, fundamental rights, democratic participation, and the fight against gender-based violence and discrimination. This choice, according to the signatories of the letter, is correct, because "for the first time it recognizes that culture, freedom of the press, and civic participation belong to the same European 'democratic infrastructure.'"
But the letter goes beyond appreciation, calling on European policy to be consistent. It includes a specific and timely proposal: to strengthen AgoraEU's financial allocation, because—even in its enhanced version—it would represent only 0,43% of the EU's overall budget. A percentage, the coalition writes, "not commensurate with the scale of the challenges identified."
The request is based on the analysis of concrete data and facts.
Europe faces geopolitical instability, growing inequalities, coordinated and institutionalized attacks on fundamental rights—particularly targeting the most vulnerable and marginalized social groups—and an erosion of trust in institutions. All of this is also fueled by coordinated disinformation campaigns, both from foreign and domestic actors. Democratic norms and institutions are at risk, both at the European level and at various national levels.
The letter's core emphasis is on a structural contradiction within European policies: there is a growing disproportion between political recognition of the role of civil society and actual financial support. A prime example of this is the latest call for proposals for Cultural Cooperation Projects, for which 122 out of 1.663 projects were funded, a success rate of 7%. On the fundamental rights front, the European Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) itself reports that 85% of civil society organizations fear that funding shortages threaten their work.
The letter puts forward specific operational proposals:
- increase the financial allocation for AgoraEU
- allocate the proceeds from fines issued under the Digital Services Act, the Digital Markets Act, and the AI Act to the Programme. This would be a way to reinvest the funds from fines against the large technology platforms that contribute most to their erosion in support of European democracies.
- Also allocate the European funds decommitted through the Rule of Law Conditionality Mechanism to the Program. This way, the resources withheld from states that violate democratic principles are reinvested in the very instruments that uphold those principles.
This, the letter's signatories state, is a call for consistency. There can't be a huge gap between the declarations of European leaders on the value of democracy and the actual financial allocation of the instruments that should protect it.
AgoraEU is not just another budget line: it is the test of Europe's political will to transform its declarations of principle into investments.
The full text of the letter (in English) is available by clicking here.
To sign the letter, click on this link