There is potential for the European Union to increase the support offered to Moldovan civil society, Jerzy Pomianowski, the executive director of the European Endowment for Democracy, stated in an interview for IPN.
“Sometimes I am saying to my colleagues from the European Commission and other European institutions let’s move from the money to the methodology how the money is spent. […]My proposal is to have the same amount of money, but to have hundreds of smaller projects each of them 30.000 EUR. This will be much more beneficial for Moldovan civil society,” said Jerzy Pomianowski.
He considers the assistance provided for fewer projects, but with higher amounts advantages the established nongovernmental organizations. “A threshold of a project of minimum 300.000 EUR - I don’t think that it’s good for Moldova because then only 5 or 6 organizations with a huge capacity can really prepare applications for such projects,” he stated.
The expert noted that even if Europe can do more for the NGO sector of Moldova, the Moldovans must do the job themselves.
“Definitely, we can do more in Europe. But at the same time we should never expect that somebody will do the job for us. In that sense, we should also be very careful regarding the logic that the civil society will work only if it receives support,” said the executive director of the European Endowment for Democracy.
He also said that the European Union did not provide in nearly 90s that much support to civil society. “Today, within Eastern Partnership programs Europe invest more in civil society. But it also has a danger that is about a part of the civil society looks more like a professional consultancy than a real civil society that talks to people,” Jerzy Pomianowski stated in the interview for IPN.
