Development organizations in the European Union’s newest member states know they have some catching up to do with their counterparts in “old” Europe — a fact that’s made more difficult by the cumbersome procedures to gain access to awareness-raising funds from the European Commission.
Further, such procedures make these nongovernmental organizations feel they are somehow being penalized.
In a letter to European Commissioner for International Cooperation and Development Neven Mimica seen by Devex, development NGO platforms from all 28 EU member states have complained about the “indirectly discriminating principles” that affect funding for organizations in the newest 13 member states — the so-called EU-13 — that acceded to the bloc in 2004, 2007 and 2013. The message was delivered by the European development NGO confederation Concord and Trialog, a network of development NGOs from the new member states.
About the author
Diederik Kramers @DiederikKramers
Diederik Kramers is a freelance correspondent in Brussels covering EU and NATO affairs. A former spokesperson and communications officer for UNICEF and UNHCR, he previously worked as foreign desk and Eastern Europe editor for the Dutch press agency ANP and as editor-in-chief of the Dutch quarterly Ukraine Magazine.
