The European Fund for the Balkans (EFB), through its Common Ground Program (CGP), received nearly 850 applications for the first open call of the CGP’s Core Programmatic Support Grants, with submissions from civil society actors across the region, including Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia.
Given the exceptionally high demand and the year-end period, the CGP team will continue with logging and screening applications through January 2026. In line with EFB’s guiding values of transparency and fairness, we will allocate the time required to assess each application carefully and consistently.
All applicants who submitted before the deadline (December 19, 2025, 5:00 p.m. CET) will receive a confirmation email once their application is processed.
Due to volume and holiday schedules, we kindly ask for your patience as our staff logs and screens submissions against the published criteria. If an application was sent via WeTransfer or a similar service and the link has expired, the CGP team will reach out to request an updated link.
The full review includes eligibility and due diligence checks, scoring of strategic fit, dialogue and bridge-building practice, feasibility and proportionality, and resilience and ethics, followed by several decision panels.
The strong response to CGP’s first open call underscores the need for regional civil society actors to receive core support, and our responsibility to meet that need transparently and fairly. This will require more time than initially anticipated.
EFB and the CGP team thank all applicants for their trust and interest. Your work to strengthen dialogue, solidarity, and social cohesion inspires us and is the reason why the Common Ground Program exists. We will share the next steps once the initial review stages are complete.
