Czech government MPs, with the vocal support of the prime minister Andrej Babiš, have drafted a law under which virtually anyone receiving funding from abroad would have to register as an “entity with foreign ties”.
The draft law bears a number of striking similarities to Russia’s foreign agents’ law, which Moscow uses to suppress civil society and restrict democratic freedom.
The initiative aims to give the government power to arbitrarily persecute anyone, including universities, activists, media, NGOs and others. Those who opt not to register would face fines of up to €600,000.
As in Russia, sanctions would not be decided by the courts. Instead, power would rest solely with the Ministry of Justice. With proposed sanctions including multi-year bans on activities, it is easy to see how this law could be used for political, rather than legal purposes.
The government sometimes cites the US Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) as inspiration.
But if the proposal followed FARA, it would exempt international NGOs, as FARA explicitly excludes humanitarian, educational, research, academic, and religious organisations.
Recently, following a significant pushback from civil society and a demo in Prague attended by hundreds of thousands, the Czech government has partly stepped back from the proposal, but Babiš said a law to monitor foreign funding of NGOs will still be prepared and adopted.
He also suggested that ministries should determine which organisations they “do not need”, a framing that opens the door to the government targeting organisations it deems undesirable.
Crackdown on civil society
Babiš and foreign minister Petr Macinka have consistently supported such an initiative, saying it is meant to ensure transparency of “political NGOs”, a term the government frequently uses without any clear definition.
If the proposed law came to pass, non-governmental organisations would be hit particularly hard, and the wording of the draft seems to be in line with earlier statements by one of its authors, MP Jindřich Rajchl, who has stated that NGOs “need to be starved out.”
My organisation, People in Need, operates in dozens of countries worldwide, including in the Czech Republic, where our staff provide debt and social counselling, tutoring, and outreach social work. In addition to humanitarian and development assistance, we also provide protection and direct support to human rights defenders.
For security reasons, we must protect the identities of our staff working in authoritarian countries. Under a law requiring mandatory registration of employees, we would be required to disclose sensitive information, exposing our people to great risk.
But this is not about money or transparency. For example, we, like many other organisations targeted by the government, such as Transparency International or Amnesty International, publish audited financial reports containing a complete list of our donors every year.
Reinforcing Russian influence
Rhetoric inspired by Russia’s “foreign agents” laws is entering the Czech political mainstream, as language framing civil society as a potential security risk becomes part of standard political discourse.
Narratives once associated primarily with governments further east are now moving more clearly into the heart of Europe, threatening the resilience of even well-established liberal democracies.
The danger lies in the fact that in a world where the rule of law is being weakened at both national and international levels, the maintenance of democracy is a matter of security for the EU.
Even within one of the last democratic strongholds in the world, authoritarian forces exist, particularly the governments of Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán and Slovak prime minister Robert Fico.
State apparatuses in these countries follow a similar pattern. They divide society, create narratives about internal and external enemies, and foster an atmosphere of fear and mistrust.
Such societies then become highly vulnerable to genuine external malign actors, including openly aggressive ones such as Russia.
For years, Russian influence operations have sought to delegitimise independent actors in democratic societies. NGOs, media, and academic institutions are routinely portrayed as instruments of foreign influence. The goal is to erode public trust in the very idea of independent civic engagement.
Risk to EU’s resilience
Legislation that frames organisations with international ties as threatening has the potential to empower this narrative from within the European Union itself. Instead of countering disinformation, it mirrors its premise: that civil society is inherently suspect.
Attempts to introduce such laws are spreading across the EU and have now reached the Czech Republic, long seen as a stable democracy with strong institutions.
Recent developments show civil society can still act as a safeguard, as more than 200,000 people gathered in Prague to protest the proposal.
The government has since partly stepped back, but still plans to move forward with measures targeting NGOs and civil society.
Independent organisations play a crucial role in exposing disinformation, supporting vulnerable groups, and holding power accountable, and undermining them creates space for authoritarian narratives.