On January 24, GMF’s Berlin office, in cooperation with the Friedrich-Naumann Foundation and Heinrich Böll Foundation, hosted a panel discussion "NGOs Under Control: Civil Society and Democracy in Today’s Russia," about Russia’s intentions to stiffle civil society through a new new Russian NGO law.

The discussants included Arsenij Roginskii, spokesperson of "Memorial," and Alexander Ausan, board member of the Chodorkowski foundation "Open Russia," two very prominent Russian NGOs and human rights activists, and the Moscow office heads of the two German political foundations, Dr. Falk Bomsdorf (Friedrich-Naumann Foundation) and Jens Siegert (Heinrich-Böll Foundation). Two other major German NGOs dealing with Russia, the German-Russian Exchange and the German-Russian Forum, supported the event, which was attended by more than 120 people from the policy, journalism, and activist communities. GMF Senior Transatlantic Fellow Jörg Himmelreich served as moderator.

On January 10, Putin signed the controversial draft of a law which regulates the work of Russian and international NGOs, to be implemented in April. The law is designed to prohibit activities that undermine sovereignty or weaken the Russian national, cultural, or religious heritage. The law intends to control NGOs by outlawing foreign financial aid for Russian NGOs. Russian human rights activists fear that the state bureaucracy might employ the law’s numerous stipulations to hamper and damage civil society.

Roginskii argued that the law needs to be seen in a broader context; it is the government’s attempt to channel public resentment. He pointed out that the Kremlin was shocked by the power of independent NGOs in neighboring Ukraine and Georgia, where they organized successful campaigns to allow for more popular participation in politics. Moreover, the terrorist attacks in Beslan and Kabardino-Balkaria disappointed many Russians’ belief in the state’s ability to protect them. The culmination of these events finally led the Kremlin to embark on a more interventionist policy vis-a-vis society. He mentioned that Putin is carefully considering Western — and particularly U.S. — reactions, but uses strong responses like the U.S. Congress’ resolution condemning the new NGO law immediately as an argument to support the law even more intensely.

Ausan argued that the law is not going to make NGO activities illegal; it will simply enact a host of regulations to stifle civil society with the weight of a heavy bureaucracy. He was optimistic about the difficulty Russian government will have in trying to control the whole NGO sector. "To controll all NGOs in Russia, you need a whole army, even today’s government can’t afford it," he said.

Siegert described the experiences of a German foundation working with Russian NGOs.  Bomsdorf agreed that it has become harder for Western organizations to work with Russian NGOs.  He emphasized that since the collapse of the Soviet Union, most governmental agencies had been rather supportive, and that even now, Western organizations working on the local or regional level are likely to find a lot of support among Russian officials.