A recent meeting organised by the European Disability Forum (EDF) brought together European Non Governmental Organisations (ENGO's) in Brussells to discuss the ENGO's relationship with the EU. This is particularly relevant to ELSA as over the years many of ELSA's projects have been part funded by EU programmes.

Edwin J. Farr and Konrad Schaefers of ELSA attended this meeting on 8 April 2005 .

Issues such as the type of funding projects ENGO's could apply for, the potential for EU funding to move towards national funding, the benefits of partnering with other ENGOs, the size of funding, the disappointments of unsuccessful funding applications, the difficulties of follow-on after project funding, and core funding were all addressed.

One particular challenge for ELSA was the fact that most funding programmes have a minimum funding garnt of 100-120,00 Euros, this means that for a 66% grant the expenditure has to be 150-180,000 Euros and is very difficult to administer for a voluntary organisation like ELSA - especially if there is no continuity of funding in follow-on years. Many small ENGO's also felt this was a problem, the larger ENGOs were more concerned about the reduction in funding opportunities for themselves.

All these points were to be put to the EU by the EDF and we all hope they will take note and continue funding for ENGO's.