On September 23 the Government approved the Framework Regulation regarding the non-reimbursable financing mechanism for projects of non-commercial organisations. The regulation establishes the financing mechanism for projects of national, regional or local public interest in accordance with established priorities.. CSOs will be able to receive funding for such public interest projects from the national budget and local budgets based on the approved regulation. The changes will also allow central and local public administration to plan financial means for the implementation of the projects.
Increased transparency for state funding procedures
The regulation establishes harmonised rules and procedures for conducting project competition, evaluation, selection, settlement of appeals, concluding contracts and implementation. It comes with a series of model documents that the authorities can apply in the process of running the competitions. The adopted regulation replaces all previous provisions regulating the allocation of funds from the state budget. Accordingly, the adopted Government Decision expressly repealed the Government Decision no. 503/2019 which provided the Regulation on the way of financing cultural projects carried out by non-commercial organisations from the state budget.
An important step for European integration
The approval of the regulation is one of the measures the Government undertook in the context of the European Commission's Opinion following the request for accession and obtaining the status of a candidate country for the European Union. The initiation of this project was also conditional on the provisions of the Action Plan for the implementation of the Civil Society Development Strategy for the period 2018-2020. It was also one of the priorities identified by the 2021 CSO Meter report.
Process leading to better regulation
The development of a unified mechanism for state funding to CSOs was initiated in November 2019 by the State Chancellery, in partnership with the Association ‘Institutum Virtutes Civilis’ and ECNL. A draft regulation for the mechanism was submitted for public consultation in September 2020 but was left pending since and was reprised for approval only in the second half of 2022, as provided in the Government Action Plan 2021-2022.
Learn more about the reform process leading to this important result, and ECNL’s efforts supporting partners, here.