Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) or other entities in the EU are eligible for operating grants to conduct activities related to fundamental rights and justice. Possible activities include civil rights promotion, judicial training, professional information exchange, and access to justice. The applicants must show in their application that they currently are in existence and have some experience. Applications from potential networks or future partnerships will not be accepted.

Deadline

• The application deadline is 13 November 2008.

Grant Amounts

• Individual grants are EUR 250,000.
• Organizational grants are up to 80% of the total eligible costs of the relevant financial year 2009.

Purpose
The Civil Justice Programme has the following general objectives:

• to promote judicial cooperation with the aim of contributing to the creation of a genuine European area of justice in civil matters based on mutual recognition and mutual confidence;
• to promote the elimination of obstacles to the good functioning of cross-border civil proceedings in the Member States;
• to improve the daily life of individuals and businesses by enabling them to assert their rights throughout the European Union, notably by fostering access to justice;
• to improve the contacts, exchange of information and networking between legal, judicial and administrative authorities and the legal professions, including by way of support of judicial training, with the aim of better mutual understanding among such authorities and professionals.

Eligibility: Who Can Apply?
To be eligible for an operating grant, organisations must pursue an aim of general interest or have an objective forming part of a European Union policy. More specifically, the Civil Justice Programme will only consider proposals from organisations (NGOs, voluntary associations, foundations or similar bodies) that fulfill all of the following requirements:

• The organisation is non-profit making;
• The organisation is legally established in accordance with the law of one of the EU Member States (except Denmark)1;
• The organisation pursues activities with a European dimension involving, as gene- ral rule, at least 13 EU Member States;
• The organisation carries out activities that correspond to one or more objectives

The definition of organisations that pursue activities with a European dimension is the following:

• Organisations that have a corporate or organisational structure in at least 13 EU Member States through their own offices or branches; or
• Organisations that work through a formalised cooperation with partner or member organisations in at least 13 EU Member States and whose work is coordinated either by a joint secretariat or by one of the member organisations; or
• Organisations that are active via an existing (formal or informal) network of organisations or resource persons (e.g., for research activities) that carry out work with a common objective in at least 13 EU Member States.

Award Criteria
Each criterion will be assessed against the maximum number of 100 points:

• Relevance to the programme's objectives and complementarity with other Community activities, avoiding duplication with projects funded by other Community programmes. Ability of the annual work programme to attain the desired objective(s), particularly in terms of the relevance of the expected results and practical impact (15 points);
• Quality of the proposed activities in terms of their design, organisation, presentation and expected results (30 points);
• Amount requested for Community financing and its appropriateness in relation to expected results (15 points);
• Geographical scope (European dimension) of the applicant's activities in terms of partners, participants and target group and/or its added value at European level. (15 points);
• Sustainability of the project, i.e. likely impact of the expected results, measures planned for the dissemination of the results and to ensure adequate follow-up of project outputs. (25 points).

Application
For more information, see the Justice, Freedom and Security of the European Commission: http://ec.europa.eu/justice_home/funding/intro/funding_intro_en.htm