In its 2007 Enlargement Strategy, the European Commission for the first time identified civil society development and civil society dialogue as a core priority of the enlargement process in the Western Balkans and announced setting up of a Facility to support it.

The priority has been translated to benchmarks for most of the countries under the Political criteria for it to advance in the EU integration process. The challenge and debated remains on how useful and effective are the benchmarks are to the work by the local CSOs in advancing civil society dialogue and development and how much emphasis and priority both the EC and the Governments are giving to these benchmarks. A challenge remains whether a civil society Acquis would help in furthering and complement the work of local CSOs.

The Civil Society Facility (CSF) set up to support achieving the above priorities and benchmarks, with a budget of up to 18 million Euros yearly, is significantly determining the shape of the further development of civil society in the Western Balkans. Local CSOs have not been significantly involved in the design and are to some extent involved in the implementation.

Local CSOs should be included as partners in further design of support under the CSF, its monitoring and should build capacities to become familiar better with functioning of the EU institutions and involvement in policy-work at the EU level.