A spectre is haunting Europe’s social enterprise sector: the spectre of political precarity. Not everywhere, and not uniformly. But when 81% of organisations across 26 countries, operating in very different political contexts with very different relationships to government, converge on the same priority, that tells us something is genuinely shifting.
This year’s Annual Consultation draws on responses from 36 Euclid Network member organisations across 26 countries. One figure stands out above all others. 81% of respondents identified securing political support for social enterprise as their leading collective priority.
A year ago, that figure was 28%! The methodology changed between this year and last, so the precise magnitude of the shift should be treated with caution, but the direction is unambiguous. Something has changed in how EN members are reading the European political moment, and they are telling us clearly where they need the network to go.
These organisations are not crying wolf. They are experienced, sophisticated actors: national networks, support organisations, intermediaries who have spent years navigating hostile funding environments, indifferent governments, and policy frameworks that were never designed with them in mind.
Across Europe, the political conditions for social enterprise and social innovation are shifting. Not uniformly. 39% of EN members report growing political support in their national contexts, while 28% report decline. This is a story of countries pulling in different directions, in which the organisations that most need political support are often operating in the contexts where it is hardest to secure.
The funding picture sharpens this further. 58% of members report serving more beneficiaries in 2025. Only 19% report growth in their funder base, down from 50% the previous year. That is a 31-point fall in a single year. Members are extending their reach while the resources behind that reach are contracting. They are doing more with less, and the consultation makes clear this is not a sustainable position.
The funding architecture that most social enterprise support organisations depend on was not designed for the work they do. Short project cycles, heavy reporting requirements, restricted use of funds: these are not inconveniences. They are the material conditions that prevent the kind of sustained, flexible, ecosystem-level work that actually develops the sector. Members are not asking for more funding in the abstract. They are asking for structurally different funding, and that should be at the centre of how EN frames its advocacy going forward.
The three leading support needs from this year’s consultation are joint project development, EU funding insights, and policy collaboration, each cited by 44% of members. Members are asking EN to sit alongside them in the work directly, to help structure consortia, to translate EU-level dynamics into nationally actionable intelligence, to be a working partner rather than a convener.
That is a different kind of organisation than a network.
EN has built something real and valued. Member satisfaction stands at 3.89 out of 5, and the qualitative feedback from this year’s consultation is genuinely warm. But there is a gap between satisfaction with membership and perceived direct impact on organisational outcomes, and members are naming it honestly. They value what EN provides. They are now asking whether it can do more.
The answer has to be yes, because the moment demands it. The organisations in this network are building, experimenting, and sharing under significant resource constraints, often without the political conditions that would make their work easier. They are not waiting.
EN should not be waiting either.
