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In the framework of the Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values (CEMR) programme, the call “Promoting awareness of civil society organisations on capacity building and implementation of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights” has been published.

The call provides €16 million to finance national or transnational projects concerning the following topics, which represent five priorities of the programme. Each individual project proposal must cover only one of these priorities:

1. Capacity building and awareness raising on the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights (CERV-2023-CHAR-LITI-CHARTER)

Projects may address the capacity-building and awareness-raising on the Charter in general, or focus on the following issues: Charter rights and awareness of the scope of the Charter; Protection of fundamental rights in the digital age.

2. Promoting rights and values by empowering civic space (CERV-2023-CHAR-LITI-CIVIC)

Projects should promote rights and values by enabling civil society actors to work together in the areas covered by the Programme. Projects will aim to create a system to regularly monitor the environment in which civil society organisations operate in national contexts, based on the Fundamental Rights Agency’s indicators on civic space reduction and organisations’ data. Projects could also support and enhance the protection of civil society organisations and rights defenders working to protect and promote EU values.

3. Strategic litigation (CERV-2023-CHAR-LITI-LITIGATION)

Projects should, through training, knowledge sharing and exchange of good practices, strengthen the knowledge and capacity of civil society organisations, legal professionals and independent human rights bodies to operate effectively in litigation practices at national and European level and to improve access to justice and enforcement of rights.

4. Protecting EU values and rights by combating hate speech and hate crime (CERV-2023-CHAR-LITI-SPEECH)

Projects should aim to enable civil society organisations to establish cooperation mechanisms with public authorities to support the reporting of hate crime and hate speech, ensure support for victims of such crimes and support law enforcement, including through training or methodologies and data collection tools. Projects should also focus on activities that counter hate speech online.

5. Supporting an environment conducive to whistleblower protection (CERV-2023-CHAR-LITI-WHISTLE)

It is intended to support the creation of an enabling environment for reporting and reporting on breaches of Union law, in particular through capacity building for the effective enforcement of the EU Directive 2019/1937 on whistleblower protection. Projects under this priority should support and protect whistleblowers and develop the capacity of national authorities and legal practitioners to ensure adequate legal remedies for whistleblower protection.

Proposed projects must have a duration of between 12 and 24 months and can be co-financed by the EU up to 90% of their eligible costs. The grant requested may not be less than 75,000 euros.

The call is aimed at legal entities established in EU Member States (including Overseas Countries and Territories). The project proposer (or coordinator) must be a private non-profit organization. For-profit organizations can only submit projects in partnership with private non-profit entities.

The deadline for applications is 25 May 2023, 17.00 (Brussels time).

he EACEA Executive Agency has organised an online information session on this call, which will take place on 16 February. For more information and to participate, please refer to the https://www.eacea.ec.europa.eu/news-events/events

The official documentation is available here https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/

Written by: Margherita Genua