Brussels: The EU’s CERV programme is pushing a fresh wave of grants toward civil society this year, even as the Commission’s own findings warn that civic space is under strain across the bloc. The European Education and Culture Executive Agency published the first 2026 calls under the Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values programme in December 2025, and more openings are following on the EU Funding and Tenders Portal.

The CERV programme bankrolls groups that defend rights, promote equality and draw citizens into democratic life. Its 2026 rounds spread across several strands, from gender equality to the protection of the EU’s founding values, and target organisations working at local, national and cross-border levels.

• The gender equality call, CERV-2026-GE, opened for submissions on 29 January 2026 and closed on 28 April 2026.
• A call to strengthen national Roma consultation platforms, CERV-2026-NRCP, ran from December 2025 to April 2026.
• Further strands cover citizens’ engagement, town twinning, European remembrance and action against violence under the Daphne heading.

The funding lands at a delicate moment. The Commission’s 2026 Rule of Law Report, published on 17 July 2026, found that civil society groups in several member states still report limits on funding and on peaceful assembly, even as many governments keep supportive frameworks in place.

Civil society actors in several EU countries “continue to report challenges, including limitations to funding and peaceful assembly,” the Commission noted in its rule of law assessment.

Rights groups argue the two threads should be tied together. They want the EU to link respect for the rule of law more firmly to how it hands out money in the next long-term budget, so that public funds do not flow freely to governments squeezing independent voices. CERV grants, they say, offer a lifeline to organisations that national budgets increasingly overlook, particularly smaller watchdogs and legal-aid groups operating far from national capitals and mainstream media attention.

The programme runs for the 2021–2027 period and channels support to civil society organisations, informal groups and other stakeholders. Applicants can find the full list of calls and deadlines on the executive agency’s 2026 CERV announcement and on the Commission’s CERV programme overview.

For background, the CERV programme grew out of earlier EU rights and citizenship funds, and it has become one of the bloc’s main tools for supporting democracy from the ground up. It backs everything from cross-border remembrance projects to shelters helping victims of domestic violence, reaching groups that rarely feature in national spending plans. With civic space narrowing in parts of Europe and a new budget under negotiation, the programme’s scale and its link to rule of law conditions look set to stay firmly in the political spotlight, and campaigners promise to keep pressing member states to protect it.