This event is online only.

Please join the Harriman Institute for a panel discussion with Nadia Shabani, Zahari Iankov, David Vig and Peter Curos. Moderated by Atanas Politov. This event is part of our Democracy in Crisis and Transformation series.

Some twenty years ago, ten of the former socialist countries from Central and Eastern Europe joined the European Union (EU). The EU accession meant that each state needed to fulfill the conditions known as the Copenhagen criteria, which require, among other things, respect for the rule of law and its corresponding freedoms, individual rights and democratic process. In recent years, governments in the region have increasingly adopted laws that create new barriers and extra burden on civil society organizations (CSOs) to operate freely and independently in pursuit of their legitimate public interest goals. One example spreading around the region, is the so called “Foreign agents acts (FARA)” which require foreign influence registries and often have labeling or other compliance requirements for those that register. These laws are frequently enacted in the name of promoting transparency about foreign influence. However, many foreign influence laws have overbroad and vague provisions, as well as excessive regulatory requirements, that have been used by governments and political representatives to burden, stigmatize, and criminalize CSOs. Other proposed governmental strategies include lobbying regulations that target CSOs and different legislative initiatives that set limitations on freedom of assembly. This roundtable will consider the implications of such laws and legislative amendments for the countries in the region that target its vibrant civil society.

Nadia Shabani is the Director of the Bulgarian Center for Not-for-Profit Law where she is developing projects in legal and financial framework of CSOs, human rights protection and good governance. She helps public officials on central and local level, lawyers, professional groups, civil society activists, parental organizations, and social service providers for developing policies, strategic documents, drafting legislation changes and impact assessments affecting civic space. BCNL pushed more than 24 legislative acts and policies to enable the civil society organizations to operate in Bulgaria, raise donations, communicate their achievements, and participate more easily in the decision-making process.

Zahari Iankov is a senior legal expert in BCNL where he works since October 2019. Zahari has LLM from the University of Sofia “st. Kliment Ohridski” and a master in Democracy and Human Rights in Southeast Europe (ERMA) with a double degree from the University of Sarajevo and University of Bologna. He is involved in the advocacy work of BCNL for improving the legal environment for CSOs as well as pushing back against restrictive legislation proposals. Since 2022 he works on analyzing and advocating against the proposed Russian-style FARA in Bulgaria.

Dávid Vig is the director of Amnesty International Hungary, one of the country’s leading human rights NGOs. He is focusing on rule of law issues, in particular the independence of the judiciary and other independent institution, and defending civic space. A lawyer and a master in international relations by training, he obtained his PhD in 2014. Before joining Amnesty, he worked on torture prevention, fair trial rights and challenging the overuse of incarceration and the erosion of the rule of law. Prior to his previous role at the Hungarian Helsinki Committee, he worked as a researcher at the National Institute of Criminology, the Human Rights Program at the Open Society Foundations and the Board of Budapest Pride. At present, he is also a part-time assistant professor at the Faculty of Law at ELTE University Budapest, where he teaches criminology, penology and penitentiary law.

Peter Čuroš is a lawyer at the Slovak expert legal organization VIA IURIS, where he focuses on the rule of law and civil society organizations. Moreover, he has published in academia on judicial reforms, democratic backsliding, legal education, judicial ethics, and critical legal theory.

Atanas Politov is Dentons’ Europe Director of Positive Impact and Pro Bono, based in the firm’s Budapest office. He joined Dentons in September 2016 to coordinate firm’s pro bono work across continental Europe. Atanas was heading Dentons Europe ESG program between 2018 and 2022. Before joining Dentons, Atanas was PILnet’s Director for Programs and was responsible for managing PILnet’s pro bono and access to justice efforts globally. Previously, he developed large-scale access to justice reform projects in Eastern Europe and the Western Balkans and oversaw the development of PILnet’s pro bono efforts in China, Hungary, Russia, Italy, Germany, Spain, France and Poland. Atanas is a Board member of international organizations PILnet and Article 19, as well as a member of the Advisory Council of AUBG’s CIDC.