Brussels, 12 March 2009 - Nearly forty participants from 26 Caritas Europa (CE) member organisations met in Berlin on March 9-10 to exchange ideas and begin a new strategic direction for the network by developing sustainable financial strategies.

The workshop, graciously hosted by the Hauptvertretung Berlin of DCV (Caritas Germany), was organised and led by the ESF Committee, operating under supervision of the Commission on Internal Network (CIN) and responsible for the European Solidarity Fund (ESF) and for other activities related to financing Caritas organisations.

Especially in the context of the present economic downturn, national Caritas organizations in Europe face opportunities as well as challenges with regard to their financial sustainability. For some, recent membership of their countries to the European Union has led to more access to public funding that contributes to sustaining the expenses of their national Caritas structures, but many organizations still struggle to find alternatives to replace the ESF support.  

Participants at the meeting, representing organisations that have traditionally supported the ESF as well as organisations that receive support from the ESF, agreed however that the ESF in its present format, operated since the early nineties, is unlikely to be sustainable in the longer term and therefore will need to be phased out over the coming years, while alternative strategies and mechanisms to ensure longer term financial sustainability of national Caritas organisations are being developed and implemented.