The Trump administration has opened a new State Department funding programme offering grants of between $1 million and $3 million for projects intended to strengthen free speech, national sovereignty, democratic resilience, and what Washington calls Europe’s ‘civilizational self-confidence’.
The notice, published on 13 July by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, makes nearly $4.93 million available from fiscal-year 2025 Democracy Funds. The department expects to award two or three cooperative agreements lasting 12 to 24 months, with projects anticipated to begin on 30 September. Applications close on 12 August, and funding remains subject to availability.
The programme, titled ‘Developing Civilizational Bonds, Democratic Resilience, and Rule of Law in Europe’, calls for research, conferences, cultural initiatives, and civil-society programmes focused on censorship, migration, national sovereignty, and ‘lawfare’, meaning the use of legal proceedings or regulation for political purposes.
Preventing ‘Civilizational Erasure’
Its first main objective is to help civil-society groups identify and respond to judicial activism and politically motivated legal pressure. Suggested activities include legal-risk training, documenting harassment, monitoring court proceedings, building support networks, and advocating safeguards against abusive prosecutions, lawsuits, or regulatory action while preserving judicial independence.
The second objective is to expand debate about EU integration, migration, sovereignty, and Western identity. The notice proposes research into the effects of mass migration on democratic institutions, fundamental freedoms, and local safety; forums comparing US federalism with EU integration; and cultural or academic programmes promoting European history, philosophy, and Western heritage.
Applicants may work alone, in consortia, or through sub-awards, but must identify the countries targeted and justify their geographic scope. The full notice lists non-profit organizations, think tanks, NGOs, educational institutions, individuals, public international organizations, and governmental institutions as eligible.
‘The second objective is to expand debate about EU integration, migration, sovereignty, and Western identity’
A separate official listing also names for-profit organizations, creating an apparent discrepancy. Organizations require active US federal registration; individuals do not. No cost sharing is required, and each organization may submit only one proposal.
The awards are cooperative agreements rather than arm’s-length grants. The State Department may help develop workshops, select participants, approve workplans and research methods, review draft publications, and conduct monitoring visits. Applications will be judged on feasibility, organizational capacity, impact, budget, monitoring and evaluation, and sustainability.
Projects must remain non-partisan, be offered fairly where political parties are involved, and must not seek to influence an election. The department says political parties themselves cannot receive the money.
Turning National Security Strategy into Policy
The new grant scheme reflects a central theme of President Donald Trump’s National Security Strategy, published in December 2025. The document warned that Europe faced ‘civilizational erasure’ caused by mass migration, declining national identity, restrictions on free speech, and supranational institutions, mainly the European Union, weakening national sovereignty.
It also said US diplomacy should defend freedom of expression and European nations’ history and character, while welcoming the growing influence of ‘patriotic European parties’.
The strategy nevertheless described Europe as strategically and culturally vital to the United States, citing transatlantic trade, scientific strength, and the need for capable allies.
EU institutions and member states, however, reacted with outrage at the time. European Council President António Costa called the NSS an ‘unacceptable threat of interference’, demanding ‘respect’ for European leaders. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz likewise called Trump’s warning ‘unacceptable’, questioning the future direction of the transatlantic alliance. Hungary was the sole exception at the time, with former prime minister Viktor Orbán explicitly endorsing the NSS.
As the NSS’s European agenda takes shape in the grant programme, moving beyond rhetorical criticism to actual support for organizations that would shape research, public debate, and civil-society networks around themes sympathetic to the administration on EU migration, civilizational defence, and free speech, European elites are unhappy this time as well.
‘Reaction so far at the official level has come from Germany’
Reaction so far at the official level has come from Germany. Chancellor Merz warned Washington against interfering in German state elections scheduled for September, stressing that foreign financing of German political parties is illegal and referring to the right-wing, anti-immigration Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), which is currently the most supported party in the country.
He said Germany did not interfere in American elections and expected the same restraint from the US government and government-linked institutions.
The State Department rejected the interference claim, saying the programme was designed to defend democracy, human rights, sovereignty, and civilizational confidence in Europe, and reiterating that the funding was unavailable to political parties.
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