Annual Report 2025

This Annual Report provides an overview of the work of the European Endowment for Democracy in the European Neighbourhood and beyond in 2025. It includes impact briefs that showcase EED’s work across six regions, demonstrating the tangible results that EED partners have achieved. This report also includes the stories of some of the civil society organisations and independent media outlets that EED has supported over the past year.

ONE STRUGGLE FOR DEMOCRACY, MANY CONTEXTS

2025 was a year of ongoing armed conflict and further declines in democracy across much of the European Neighbourhood and beyond, threatening democratic progress and regional security.

Russia’s full-scale war of aggression in Ukraine has continued for almost four years. In the Middle East, despite ceasefire agreements reached during the year, violence persists in Gaza, with Israeli attacks continuing. Sudan’s brutal civil war has intensified dramatically, creating what the United Nations describes as the world’s most devasting humanitarian and displacement crisis.

In Georgia, democracy is collapsing as the ruling Georgian Dream party systematically dismantles democratic institutions through repressive laws, mass arrests of opposition leaders, and brutal crackdowns on protests.

In Serbia, mass student-led protests throughout the year demanding accountability and an end to the president’s authoritarian rule have been met with violent police crackdowns.

In Moldova, there was better news. The country consolidated its European course when President Maia Sandu’s party secured parliamentary re-election in September 2025 despite fierce disinformation campaigns, enabling the country to advance its formal EU accession negotiations.

In Syria, the post-Assad transition period is providing unprecedented opportunities for democratic reforms and civil society engagement despite multiple challenges.

This section of the report includes the profiles of the work of EED partners from a variety of thematic areas.

Read the report here

IMPACT BRIEFS SHOWING THE BREADTH AND EFFECT OF EED’S WORK

The 2025 Annual Report has a new section with impact briefs included on six contexts— Albania, Belarus, Moldova, Syria, Turkey, and Ukraine. These impact briefs provide information on EED’s work in these regions, showing the changes that have occurred and the tangible results that EED partners have achieved. They are based on the findings of the 2025 external evaluation of EED, as well as internal evaluations carried out by EED.

The impact briefs demonstrate how EED’s flexible demand-driven support fosters democracy and empowers locally rooted activism through a human-centred approach and deep contextual understanding. They show how EED’s work contributes to the strengthening of democratic values, citizen engagement, media pluralism, and healthy information ecosystems in these contexts, helping to build the social capital and resilience that underpin stable, prosperous democracies. They also include profiles of EED partners in these regions.