ECNL, founded on June 19th, 2003, celebrates its 10th anniversary this year. We thank all our colleagues, partners and donors who have made this decade an exciting journey and have helped us grow into a leading European research center in the field of civil society law.

In a recently released report („Wrong Direction on Rights – Assessing the Impact of Hungary’s New Constitution and Laws”), Human Rights Watch pointed to the alarming tendency of the shrinking space for the Hungarian civil society sector in policy and law making processes.

The Polish National Federation of Non-Governmental Organisations organized an international conference in Warsaw on 6 June 2013. At the event, titled “Europe: A Project for Governments or Citizens?”, Ms Eszter Hartay, ECNL's Legal Advisor participated in a discussion on the experience of Visegrad countries in terms of citizenship and participation and will provide an overview of the importance of CSO legal framework in democratic transition, sharing experience from Hungary and CEE countries.

The UN Special Rapporteur on the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association, Maina Kiai, recently released his second thematic report on foreign funding, which will be presented to the United Nations Human Rights Council in May 2013.

ECNL is working with ICNL and other partners to organize a side-event at the UN on May 31, to highlight the report and to provide information that will help both states and civil society strategize and counter restrictions related to funding.

The Open Estonia Foundation in cooperation with ECNL organised a conference “Growing accountable – conference on accountability and transparency in grant-giving relations” on the 20th of May in Tallinn, Estonia. The conference is funded by EEA Grants and organized for strengthening cooperation of and supporting mutual learning between fund operators.

As a technical expert ECNL was contracted by UNOPS to help facilitate the process of the development of policy processes and mechanisms between the public authorities and civil society in Iraq on the federal level as well as in the Kurdistan region. The first draft policy document for the Kurdistan Region was developed and is now in the process of adoption. The policy document of the Federal Parliament is currently open for consultation.

Acts on the freedom of information have recently been modified in a restrictive way in a number of countries, including Hungary, Denmark and South Africa.

The Third Sector Foundation of Turkey (TUSEV) organized an international conference in Istanbul on the topic of civil society-public sector cooperation. ECNL's Executive Director, spoke on the topic of why dialogue and cooperation are essential elements of participatory democracies. She shared practical examples from countries in Europe and spoke about policy issues that should be considered to strengthen partnership and cooperation.