“Our work was very pragmatic and we discussed practical things. We had participants from the European Union, the European Commission, the European Fund for Democracy and civil activists. I’ll make just a few general comments.

“Many participants mentioned that the rolling back of democracy is not just a Russian problem: it exists in many countries in Europe and also in the US. To rephrase what was said, there aren’t enough attractive preachers of liberalism. The second thing we discussed in our group… well, in fact the main subjects for discussion were the areas in which the Russians would like to have deeper contacts with the EU and what kind of projects should be supported.

“Recently the organisations that offer support to NGOs have become more flexible, the European Fund for Democracy, for example. With regards to the European Commission, the situation is a bit worse, but still they are moving in the direction that means it is easier to receive funding because of the worsening situation in Russia, with regards to civil society.

“What needs to be supported? We talked about the effectiveness of support. The European Commission said they see no effect of their investment. But we should not be looking at public activity as a business or at indicators such as return on investment. In the current situation we need to be working with emerging projects. Yevgeniya Chirikova actually had something to say about the efficiency or inefficiency in support of civil society in Russia: many new public initiatives are emerging and protest in Russia is more social than political. People come up with various social welfare demands etc and this will become the basis for future political protest.

“What the European Commission finds difficult is the division between political and non-politcal projects. Many social projects are perceived as political, so do not receive funding from the European Commission, whereas the European Fund for Democracy is
extremely flexible and is prepared to finance any kind of project.

Visas and visa facilitation. It was suggested that a visa-free regime could be offered to people under 25 to enter the EU for a few days. In fact the number of rejections for Schengen visas for Russians is very low, about 1%. People from the European Commission said that if Russia complies with the Minsk Agreement, talks on a visa-free regime could be renewed.

“We also discussed the anti-corruption initiative and support for it, including cross-border initiatives and the need to investigate the activities of Western companies in Russia because they are integrated into this corrupt system. Yevgeniya Chirikova mentioned this.

“In the area of science, although there are no sanctions, the effect of the deterioration in relations makes itself felt, and Russian scientists are much less active and engaged in international projects. They asked us that, despite the worsening inter-country relations, we should not create barriers for scientific cooperation between the EU and Russia. There was an interesting suggestion that we should include Crimean scientists in the global scientific community, who have become very isolated after the annexation, which is extremely harmful for the development of science in the region.

“Arts and culture. We said that in Russia protest is not exactly political but more cultural in nature. It is expressed via modern arts, which are in a difficult situation in Russia and it was suggested that support should be given to arts projects. One of the participants actually cautioned that if European organisations begin to move their focus away from traditional civil institutions to pay more attention to cultural and arts projects, then those civil institutions will cease to exist.

“I think I’ve covered everything, though I’m not sure. But almost everything and I’m out of time.”