Brussels: On paper, the European Union is about to spend more than ever on rights, equality and democracy. The Commission’s blueprint for the next long-term budget folds civil society funding into a new umbrella programme called AgoraEU, worth 8.6 billion euros over the 2028 to 2034 period and bringing culture, media and civic-values money under a single roof. Within it, the strand that succeeds the current Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values programme would receive 3.6 billion euros, roughly double the 1.55 billion the existing programme commands today. For organisations that defend gender equality, minority rights and the rule of law, a doubled budget should be unambiguously good news.
Many of those organisations are not celebrating. Their anxiety is about structure rather than size. By merging a dedicated civil-society instrument into a larger fund alongside culture and the audiovisual sector, the proposal raises the prospect that money intended for rights groups could be reallocated through broad horizontal calls that carry no earmarking for civil-society actors. A pot that is larger in total can still deliver less to any particular community if the guarantees that once protected its share disappear into a more flexible design. The fear is dilution by consolidation.
The concern is sharpened by who relies on this money. Across several member states, non-governmental groups working on judicial independence, press freedom and the rights of migrants and minorities have come under political pressure, sometimes from their own governments. For these organisations, Union funding is not a convenience but a lifeline that keeps a watchdog independent of the very authorities it scrutinises. Predictable, ring-fenced grants are part of what protects civic space. Replace them with discretionary calls and the protection weakens, even if the headline allocation rises.
The Commission’s case for merging is not frivolous. Years of complaints about fragmented programmes, overlapping calls and bewildering application rules created genuine pressure to simplify. A single framework, its defenders argue, can reduce administrative duplication, make the offer legible to small organisations that lack grant-writing departments, and let funding flow more coherently across the cultural and civic sectors that often overlap in practice. Simplification and protection are not inherently opposed; the question is whether one is being bought at the expense of the other.
Why this matters is bound up with the Union’s own self-image. The bloc lectures candidate countries on the rule of law and brands itself a community of values. The instrument that funds the domestic groups upholding those values is a quiet but real expression of that identity. How the Union treats civic funding in its budget sends a signal about whether the rhetoric is backed by durable commitment or subject to the same trade-offs as any other line item.
The negotiations are live. Council working parties have been meeting since late 2025, a presidency compromise text circulated early in 2026, and the design is still open to amendment as the Parliament prepares its position. Civil-society coalitions are lobbying for explicit earmarking inside AgoraEU, so that the civic strand cannot be raided to fund unrelated priorities. Whether they succeed will not be measured by the impressive total the Commission can advertise, but by the small print that decides how much of it is guaranteed to reach the organisations the programme was built to defend.
