• EU funding in general
• EU funding of civil society

EU FUNDING IN GENERAL

From 2000 until 2006, EU support to the Western Balkan countries was channelled through the Community Assistance for Reconstruction, Development and Stabilisation (CARDS) programme whose wider objective was to support the participation of these countries in the Stabilisation and Accession Process (SAP).

Since 2007, EU pre-accession funding to all countries has been directed through a single, unified instrument, i.e. Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance (IPA) designed to deliver focussed support to both candidate and potential candidate countries. IPA funds are divided into five components geared to main accession needs of the beneficiary countries:

1. Transition Assistance and Institution Building;
2. Cross-Border Co-operation (with EU Member States and other countries eligible for IPA);
3. Regional Development (transport, environment and economic development);
4. Human Resources Development (strengthening human capital and combating exclusion),
5. Rural Development.

* Components 1 & 2 are available to all pre-accession countries (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Kosovo under UNSCR 1244, Serbia and Turkey), while components 3-5 are open only to candidate countries (Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Croatia).

EU FUNDING OF CIVIL SOCIETY

In the past, support to civil society has been applied under a number of instruments. In the Western Balkans, the EU funding of national and regional programmes in the period 2005-2007 totalled to 27 million euro. This has been supplemented by additional assistance under cross-border cooperation programmes as well as the European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights (EIDHR).

Under IPA, the importance of assisting civil society to engage more fully in the EU integration process has been marked by the establishment of a special resource to promote civil society development and dialogue - the Civil Society Facility (CSF).

The CSF concentrates intervention in three areas:

• Support to local civic initiatives and capacity building enforcing the role of civil society at both the local and national level;
• “People 2 people” or visitor programmes to EU institutions and bodies for groups with influence on decision making and society to exchange know-how, experience and good practice between beneficiary and EU CSOs (and also individuals such as students, young politicians, teachers, journalists etc);
• Partnership activities carried out between CSOs in the beneficiary countries and the EU leading to a transfer of knowledge and networks.

The CSF consists of national components falling under individual country IPA allocations and a multi-beneficiary component, managed directly by the DG Enlargement. The national components are administered mainly through calls for proposals and will correspond to locally identified needs, while the latter, will provide multi-country and exchange opportunities.

TACSO is funded through IPA 2008 Multibeneficiary programme .