News and updates from BCSDN and the region
Governments worldwide have been adopting surveillance measures for decades. But with the development of new technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI), they can deploy surveillance at unprecedented scale and speed and gain easy access to new sources of information, such as vast amounts of data collected by online platforms and services. The increased ability of authorities
Read more →CONCORD, together with its civil society partners worldwide, has produced several concrete inputs on civil society participation in EU international partnerships and external action decision-making wrapped in the publication titled “7 Practices for Civil Society Participation in EU Decision-Making”, aiming to encourage not only a shift to action towards meaningful, inclusive and safe civil society
Read more →The European Youth Forum and the European Trade Union Confederation, as well as activists and EU lawmakers, gathered in front of the European Parliament in Brussels on 10 November, International Interns Day, to demand more rights for trainees. The goal of the event was to highlight the value of young people’s work and to ask
Read more →The sixth edition of the Women’s Rights in Western Balkans Report (2022) serves as a benchmark for the six Western Balkan accession countries regarding women’s rights and influence for comparisons over time. The four areas included in this benchmark are women in politics, gender-based violence (GBV), security of women human rights defenders (WHRDs), and women
Read more →On 19 October 2022, the European Parliament adopted a report on the draft general budget of the European Union for the financial year 2023. Two worrying amendments were added to the report, criticizing the European Commission for allegedly financing campaigns promoting the hijab and radical religious and political organizations and is calling on the Commission “to
Read more →The guide reanimating Civil Society introduces that across the world, authoritarian governments and non-state actors are restricting civic space and trying to silence critical voices or those that challenge the status quo. Governments are launching smear campaigns to taint the work of CSOs and human rights defenders. This guide supports activists, CSOs, and social movements
Read more →European Citizens’ Panels (ECPs) is a proposed form of consultation ahead of key legislative proposals. As a first concrete follow-up to the Conference on the Future of Europe (CoFoE), beginning next year, the European Commission plans to make European Citizens’ Panels (ECPs) a regular form of consultation ahead of key legislative proposals. This paper makes
Read more →BCSDN has published the 2021 Civil Society (CSOSI) Sustainable Index for North Macedonia. The report is a part of the latest edition of the Civil Society Organization (CSOSI) Sustainability Index for Central and Eastern Europe and Eurasia, prepared by USAID and FHI 360, covering developments during the last year, which will be published in the
Read more →The “Berlin process” aims to promote the rapprochement of the Western Balkans countries with the EU. Its goal is to improve the economic situation in the region and improve good-neighborly relations. The meeting of foreign ministers in the “Berlin process” format will focus primarily on efforts to create a common regional market. The current German
Read more →ECNL and PILnet have teamed up with law firms to provide guidance for CSOs on bank practices in European countries. The tool helps the practitioners compare the conditions of how nonprofits can open and manage an organizational bank account in different countries. The tool covers 25 countries, and new profiles are uploaded on a rolling
Read more →A report by a group of CSOs working on gender equality issues in the Western Balkans aims to present an independent assessment of achieved results and recommendations to inform the future planning of the Coalition toward addressing Gender-based Discrimination (GBD) and furthering women’s labor rights. Regional cooperation is assessed as a successful model for further
Read more →In an open letter, BiH CSOs have expressed concern to the officials regarding the Belgian company Green Invest activities. The company is the sole owner of the BUK d.o.o. with headquarters in East Sarajevo, which manages a small hydroelectric plant on the Kasindol river and plans to build two more. BUK d.o.o. recently filed three
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