What Stays After the Election Is Over? Reflections from the Robert Bosch Academy’s Festival of Ideas
Why does civic space keep shrinking? Reflections from the Robert Bosch Academy’s Festival of Ideas on bridging divides and keeping democracy strong.
Event Recap: Belonging without Othering, An Evening of Stories in Berlin
Across Europe, the question of who belongs — and on whose terms — has rarely felt more charged. Amid migration, deepening polarisation and a rising politics of us-and-them, it is a question more people are sitting with. That’s why, as part of our Berlin Hub initiative in July, in a former piano factory in Berlin, around a hundred people gathered around the following question: how do we find belonging across difference — without flattening that difference?
Statement on recent restrictions to civil society in Germany
Ongoing developments in Germany with regards to civic space have deeply concerned us at the Civil Society Forum. We have become aware of the situation of Radikale Töchter, a civil society organisation whose public funding has been halted by the Ministry of the Interior.
Pride as Democratic Practice: What Movements Can Learn from Budapest Pride 2025 Resisting Orbán
Facing declining popularity, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán introduced a ban on pride marches and LGBTQ demonstrations in early 2025. Instead of deterring resistance, the ban was met with unprecedented solidarity
Joint appeal for a Council of Europe Convention on Transnational Repression
We, the undersigned civil society organisations, call upon the Member States of the Council of Europe
to take urgent and collective action to address the growing phenomenon of transnational repression
(TNR) through the adoption of a Council of Europe Convention dedicated to preventing and combating this serious and evolving threat to human rights, democracy and the rule of law in Europe.
Multilateralism Under Pressure: Civil Society’s Response and the Future of the UN
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the situation in the UN got very difficult. Governments can barely agree on anything. The culture of consensus, when governments could just come together and decide something, is not happening anymore.
What do the recent presidential “elections” mean for Belarusian civil society?
Authoritarian regimes never have a positive attitude toward civil society, especially its institutionalised forms and civil society organisations.
Annual Conference in Berlin on “Democracies in Peril”
This year our Annual Conference focused on the theme “Democracies in peril?
Welcome our new Executive Director, Nataliya Novakova
The Board of the Civil Society Forum (CSF) is delighted to announce the appointment of Nataliya Novakova as the Forum’s new Executive Director effective from September 1, 2024, following an extensive search and selection process.
Europe Lab 2024 Explores “Changing Tides” in Jáchymov, Czechia
The historic town of Jáchymov, nestled in the Ore Mountains of Czechia, set the stage for Europe Lab 2024, an annual forum that unites young leaders and changemakers from across Europe.
