By Faustine Bas-Defossez, Policy Director, European Environmental Bureau
Not only because of polluted air, toxic chemicals, rising temperatures or collapsing ecosystems – but because the very antibodies that protect our democracies are being weakened.
Across the continent, civil society is under attack. What once appeared isolated – a hostile headline, a funding cut, a smear campaign – has become systemic. As Alberto Alemanno describes, this is “how NGOs die”: not through a single dramatic blow, but through cumulative delegitimisation, underfunding and political pressure.
Civic space is democracy’s immune system
Organisations like the EEB and EPHA speak up so children can breathe clean air. So families can drink safe water. So nature can thrive and shield us from climate chaos. We fight for a future that’s healthy, fair, and liveable – for everyone. Our work is grounded in science. Driven by people. We raise awareness. We hold power to account. We bring the voices of dozens of millions of citizens to decision-makers. The charges against us? Challenging powerful industries. Exposing regulatory gaps. Insisting that public policy should protect wellbeing over short-term profit. We have now become targets for actors seeking to muddy facts, delay action or weaken standards.
But shrinking civic space is a public-health problem: Without environmental and health groups, air pollution rises, water becomes undrinkable, ecosystems decline and climate action stalls. Without environmental and health groups, there is no more accountability, no tools for affected communities to challenge the polluters. And when civic watchdogs lose the ability to investigate and inform, corruption flourishes and trust collapses. Europe’s democratic immune system becomes compromised.
This is the story we are already living. As we, the EEB, argued in our follow-up to Alemanno’s piece, “democracies erode when accountability fades, truth becomes negotiable, and citizens lose their organised voice.” That loss translates into delayed legislation, watered-down protections and policymaking increasingly shaped by those with the deepest pockets rather than the strongest evidence.
For decades, environmental and health civil society have served as Europe’s early-warning systems – identifying risks, translating science into action, empowering communities and ensuring the public interest is not drowned out by corporate influence. When these actors are weakened, Europe becomes less resilient to every crisis it faces.
A vision for a healthier system
This is why cross-sector solidarity is essential. Environmental, health, consumer and human-rights organisations and more are experiencing different manifestations of the same structural disease. Defending one requires defending the other.
That solidarity must be practical. Coordinated responses to attacks on legitimacy. Shared strategies to counter disinformation. Joint efforts to protect funding, participation rights and regulatory independence. And a united narrative that makes clear what is at stake: cleaner air, healthier communities, resilient democracies and a Europe capable of making long-term choices in the public interest.
The Commission’s proposed Civil Society Strategy is a welcome recognition of the problem. But, as BirdLife warns, it remains a band-aid on a far deeper wound. Europe needs structural safeguards, predictable funding and political leadership willing to defend civic space rather than shrink it.
Europe is unwell and unless we protect the actors who form democracy’s immune system, the symptoms will only get worse.