Funding Programme

Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values (CERV) is the EU's funding programme for citizens' engagement and the implementation of EU rights and values. Read more about CERV here.

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Call overview

This call aims to to enable civil society organisations to establish mechanisms of cooperation with public authorities to support the reporting of episodes of hate crime and hate speech and to ensure support to victims of hate speech and hate crime.

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Call details

All forms and manifestations of hatred are incompatible with the EU values and the fundamental rights enshrined in Article 2 of the Treaty and the Charter. Hatred affects the individual victims and the groups they belong to, generates societal polarisation and silences wide sectors of the population, weakening pluralism and undermining respectful public democratic debates. The online world has amplified the negative effects of hate speech. Hate crimes are a direct violation of the victims’ fundamental right to dignity, to equality and non-discrimination. Combating hate speech and hate crime is therefore a key part of the Commission’s action to promote EU values and to ensure that the Charter is upheld.

At EU level, the 2008 Council Framework Decision requires the criminalisation of certain forms of hate speech and hate crimes. Also, the Commission adopted a Communication in December 2021 inviting the Council of the European Union to extend the legal basis for EU-level criminalisation to other forms of hate speech and hate crime beyond the racist and xenophobic grounds already covered by the Framework Decision. Civil society organisations play a crucial role in combating hate speech and hate crime, thereby safeguarding and promoting fundamental rights. Projects under this priority should aim to enable civil society organisations to establish mechanisms of cooperation with public authorities to support the reporting of episodes of hate crime and hate speech; to ensure support to victims of hate speech and hate crime; and to support law enforcement, including through training or data collection methodologies and tools. Projects should also focus on activities that tackle hate speech online, including reporting content to IT companies, designing countering narrative and awareness raising campaigns, and educational activities to address the societal challenges of hate speech online.

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Activities to be funded

• Activities to enable civil society organisations to report episodes of hate, including with a focus on specific grounds, and to contribute to the creation of data collection methodologies and mechanisms;
• Activities to ensure support to victims of hate speech and hate crime, encouraging reporting, providing practical help in seeking redress and gender-sensitive and psycho-social support;
• Activities to support the enforcement of existing legislation prohibiting hate speech and hate crime, including through training for law enforcement and justice professionals;
• Activities to elaborate national or local coalitions or action plans against hate speech and hate crime, and to establish or reinforce mechanisms of structured cooperation, particularly between civil society organisations and public authorities in the area of tackling hate crime and hate speech, including to support investigation and prosecution and to protect victims;
• Activities to tackle hate speech online, in particular to monitor the prevalence of hate speech on social media and the “ecosystems” of hatred online, to report hate speech content to IT companies, and to design effective initiatives to prevent and combat hate speech. These can include campaigns or educational activities to address the societal challenges of hate speech online.

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Eligibility

In order to be eligible, the applicants (lead applicants “Coordinator”, co-applicants and affiliated entities) must:

- For lead applicants (i.e. the “Coordinator”): be non-profit legal entities (private bodies)

- For co-applicants: be non-profit or profit legal entities (public or private bodies). Organisations which are profit-oriented may apply only in partnership with private non-profit organisations;

- be formally established in one of the eligible countries, i.e.: EU Member States (including overseas countries and territories (OCTs))

In addition:

- Activities must take place in any of the eligible countries (EU Member States);

- The EU grant applied for cannot be lower than EUR 75 000;

- The project can be either national or transnational; the application may involve one or more organisations (lead applicant “Coordinator” and co-applicants).

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Consortium

Proposals must be submitted by a consortium of at least 1 applicant (beneficiary; not affiliated entities).

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Duration

Projects should normally range between 12 and 24 months (extensions are possible, if duly justified and through an amendment).

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Budget

No limit. The grant awarded may be lower than the amount requested.

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