EU Ends Anti-Racism Funding After 20 Years, 186 NGOs Warn

BRUSSELS — The European Commission has ended anti-racism funding for the European Network Against Racism (ENAR), a network of more than 140 organizations across Europe, and 186 nongovernmental organizations including Human Rights Watch warned on October 6, 2026, that the move will undermine the European Union’s democracy agenda.

According to a joint statement published by Human Rights Watch, the organizations said they are “deeply alarmed” by reports that ENAR has lost its EU operating grant after more than two decades of partnership. They warn that the loss of anti-racism funding could force the network to shut down by year’s end. Amid a growing assault on fundamental rights, the statement says, the decision would seriously damage the EU’s democracy agenda and weaken efforts to ensure an open and vibrant civic space. Human Rights Watch said the organizations warned that the decision endangers the bloc’s democratic standing at a moment when civic space across Europe is under strain. The signatories include Amnesty International, ARTICLE 19, the International Federation for Human Rights, the European Disability Forum and the European Civic Forum, alongside migrant, Roma and refugee organizations from across the continent.

A partnership built over decades

Human Rights Watch calls ENAR Europe’s largest anti-racism network, uniting anti-racist organizations across the continent since its founding in 1998. According to the statement, the network contributed to the Race Equality Directive and the Employment Directive, campaigned for the Anti-Racism Action Plan after George Floyd’s murder, and worked with the European Commission on its first Anti-Racism Strategy. The Commission’s own equality pages note that it adopted an anti-racism action plan for 2020-2025. For more than two decades, that anti-racism funding supported the network’s core work, and the organizations say the partnership’s end came as a shock.

Beyond policy work, ENAR channels money directly to grassroots groups: according to the statement, its Empowerment and Resilience Fund supports 20 grassroots organizations a year. The signatories say they have seen firsthand the essential role ENAR plays in promoting equality in Europe and the professionalism with which it works. If the core anti-racism funding ends, they argue, smaller groups will lose coordination and support that no other European body currently provides.

Brussels faces a credibility test

The organizations tie the timing to mounting pressure on fundamental rights across the continent. They say ENAR’s long track record is exactly why the decision stunned them: a partner that helped write EU equality law is now fighting for survival. Critics of the move add that the EU’s anti-racism funding choices send a signal far beyond one organization’s budget, telling civil society how seriously Brussels takes its own equality pledges when money gets tight.

The statement situates the funding cut in a wider pattern of pressure on civil society. The organizations write that in a context of a growing assault on fundamental rights, losing ENAR would seriously damage the EU’s standing as a defender of democracy and undermine efforts to ensure an open and vibrant civic space. They say the network’s professionalism and long track record made the loss of its core partnership with the Commission all the more shocking.

Supporters have begun mobilizing to fill the gap. In the statement, the organizations declare full solidarity with ENAR and urge everyone who believes in equality and justice to consider supporting its “Defend Anti-Racism” fundraiser. Without replacement anti-racism funding, however, the network faces a hard deadline: the statement says ENAR could have to close within months if the operating grant is not restored or replaced.

For the EU, the episode has become a credibility test. Brussels has spent years presenting itself as a global champion of equality and human rights, and the organizations say the future of anti-racism funding in the European capital will show whether those pledges hold. Losing the network, they argue, would mark a serious setback for the bloc’s democratic credibility rather than a quiet administrative change.

Related coverage: Human Rights Watch: EU Ending Funding for Anti-Racism Network · European Network Against Racism