EU policy/Funding/2020

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Transparent Policy Work

In line with our movement's values, Wikimedia is committed to full transparency when it comes to our public policy activities. The money we spend on our EU advocacy efforts is sourced from our European chapters. This page provides information about the current year's budget, plans and how we intend to make sure that money is well spent. For historical funding overviews, please take a look at 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019.

Annual Priorities Plan 2020

I. Public Policy Goals

Digital Services Act: This builds on the new online platforms liability rules of the Copyright in the Digital Single Market Directive and the Terrorism Regulation. It will aim to create horizontal rules for all types of platforms on how to deal with all kinds of illegal and harmful content (child abuse, terrorist propaganda, copyright infringements, defamation, harassment, privacy breaches, hate speech)
Terrorism Regulation: This file was voted on before the Eu elections in the European Parliament. In 2019 the EP will vote on the mandate and the file will move to the Trialogue stage throughout 2020.
National Transpositions of Copyright Reform: The copyright reform will need to be transposed by all EU/EFTA countries. We will actively engage, help, advise and, where necessary, lead on these national processes.

II. Strategic Goals

“Wikimedia is at the heart of copyright transposition work nationally.” We see a need to share the knowledge we accumulated over the past five years of copyright reform with national free & open knowledge communities. Knowing why a Directive article has been written in a certain way is advantageous in advocacy work. We are also redistributing approximately 330K USD from the OSF to create the necessary knowledge resources, provide training and give national communities small grants to help them with this work. Furthermore, we are working on getting other foundations to join the effort and top up the available funds for European digital civil society.

“Wikimedia is seen as a knowledge expert.” Throughout the copyright debates and the Wikipedia blackouts our image as a neutral expert has declined with some policy makers. We want to make use of the fact that ⅔ of the European Parliament is made up of newly elected MEPs and focus on providing top level expert knowledge through studies, information materials and events.

“Wikimedia is a strong voice of the non-tech/non-rightholder group" Throughout the debates over the past five years one problem has been persistent: European digital civil society has been easily painted as part of “Big Tech” and defending its interests by rightholders. We need to change that and make sure civil society is clearly seen a third major stakeholder voice (next to right holders and technology companies) by policy makers. For this we are focusing a lot of energy on securing non-tech funding for European civil society organisations and fine-tuning our and others’ messages to be vaguely equidistant from the other two stakeholder groups.

Proposed Budget 2020

Non-WMDE Budget Contributions 2020 (in €)

WMAT - 6000
WMCH - 8800
WMFR - 8000
WMIT - 5000
WMNL - 8000
WMNO - 3000
WMUK - 1200
WMCZ - 800
WMPL - ???
WMSE - 5000
Amical - ???
WMCAT - ???
WMBE - ???

NB All Wikimedia chapters and thematic organisations are contributing only own funds sourced in Europe, such as membership fees and local donations.

Indicators 2020

Wikimedia is part of the platform liability discussions and has made constructive proposals on what a European Notice&Action System should look like.
Wikimedia is working on the national transposition of the Copyright in the Digital Single Market Directive in at least 22 Member States. This includes: drafting national legislation proposals, contancting national policy makers and setting up national coalitions.
Wikimedia has secured additional third-party funding for digital civil society organisations across Europe.
Wikimedia is a central part of the effort to give digital civil society across Europe a strong voice in policy debates, independent of big tech companies and rightholders.