Shrinking Civic Space in the European Union

For a long time, the European Union has presented itself as a pluralistic, rights-based, open social and political space which is intrinsically oriented towards the expansion of freedoms: this is what the “European way of life” should mean. The EU has also been labelled as a “regulatory power” being able to promote rights on a global scale: in 2012, Columbia Law professor Anu Bradford coined the term “the Brussels effect” to depict the Union’s “unique power to influence global corporations and set the rules of the game”.

Today, those promises are being hollowed out from within, weakening the rights of Europeans and the EU’s regulatory influence abroad. The use of the term “European way of life” reflects that drift over the years: when it first appeared in the mandate letter of a European Commission VicePresident Margaritis Schinas – during Ursula von der Leyen’s first term – its meaning was swiftly reframed in an exclusionary and security-oriented direction, already signalling a shift in the EU agenda and discourse. During von der Leyen’s second term, “competitiveness” became a passe-partout to dismantle rules and rights from within.

The European Union is increasingly adopting policies that narrow civic space, marginalise dissenting voices and erode the very freedoms it claims to defend. The exclusion of civil society from decision making processes goes hand in hand with corporation-oriented politics triggered at the expense of the vulnerable, reducing inalienable rights to privileges of a few. However, it would be misleading to consider this a Brussels top-down trend only: for years now, national governments have concurred with the criminalisation of NGOs and humanitarian aid, widely attempting to repress dissent and silence protest, as well as attacking the right to strike and eroding media freedom.

Although many of these attacks were first systematically tested in countries with autocratic tendencies, they have increasingly been replicated in major EU countries: Italy, France, and Germany have recently joined Hungary in the deterioration of civic space. Chapter One offers an analysis of the repression of civil society as a pan-European trend decision-making processes; on the contrary, corporate actors gain more and more influence. This is what Chapter Three points out: a new imbalance in the way the EU is being redesigned.

What was previously considered a playbook typical of autocratic and illiberal leaders has become part of the political mainstream. An informal alliance between the traditional conservative right and far-right parties has crystallised through policy convergence and coordinated voting, both in the European Parliament and within member states. This alignment has not only normalised far-right participation in power but also marginalised progressive forces and critical civil society actors. Chapter Two identifies key political tactics and narrative strategies that have been deployed to scale up attacks on civil society at a European scale.

Fast forward to late November 2025. Members of the European Parliament to the left of the EPP (Renew, S&D, Greens and The Left) walked out of a meeting in protest when the newly created “Scrutiny Working Group” (SWG) of the Parliament’s Budgetary Control Committee – pretending to scrutinise EU funding to civil society organisations (CSOs) – was convened for the first time. The SWG case was only the latest peak in a growing series of pressures directed at European civic space. The ongoing delegitimisation of civil society is mirrored by the increasing exclusion of CSOs from EU decision-making processes; on the contrary, corporate actors gain more and more influence. This is what Chapter Three points out: a new imbalance in the way the EU is being redesigned.

Faced with such a harsh scenario, in which the return to power of Donald Trump and the so-called “broligarchs” is further accelerating the trends described above, civil society’s counter action can only be cross-sectoral, pan-European, and political in the broadest sense.

Those rights that made us proud as Europeans have now been reduced to a scarce resource, triggering competitiveness at the expense of the vulnerable. Civic space is shrinking – and this, ultimately, is what really puts our European way of life at risk.

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