Carl Deconinck
Conservative MEPs looking for more transparency regarding European Union funding for activist NGOs said they had the door slammed in their faces by the European Commission.
NGO funding has become a key point in the European political debate but the EC was reportedly unwilling to be open regarding the issue.
Csaba Dömötör, a Hungarian MEP with the Patriots for Europe in the European Parliament, told Brussels Signal on April 1 that his group had submitted 86 requests for access to data of public interest to the EC over NGOs’s funding but that it had not responded adequately.
To try to ascertain to where European taxpayer money was being directed, requests for information were sent to the EC, Directorates General and several EU agencies.
According to Dömötör, subsidies from the EU worth millions of euros were being funnelled to Liberal activist groups and NGOs.
He said had questions concerning the transparency, accountability and legitimacy of those subsidies.
It was difficult to find out whether organisations received support based on their alignment with specific political agendas rather than addressing broader societal needs, Dömötör said.
He pointed out that the European Movement International, an NGO where the liberal arch-euro file Guy Verhofstadt is president, has received €15 million in EU subsidies.
The contracts signed between the EC and various Directorates-Generals numbered in the tens of thousands, indicating a vast and complex network of financial agreements, according to the Hungarian MEP.
These contracts often lacked transparency, making it difficult to track how the funds were used and whether they achieved their stated objectives, Dömötör said.
According to its own regulations, the EU should be open and transparent about its own policies and funding but Dömötör claimed that was hardly the case.
The Directorates-General rejected the claims of a lack of transparency based on three main arguments: The scope of the requests were too broad or too vague; the data requested did not pertain to an exact contract; or relevant information could be found on official websites.
Claims that some of the data was fully available online were “not true”, Dömötör said, because they only showed “partial information”.
“Some members of the Budgetary Control Committee in the European Parliament received the list of supported NGOs but only a select few MEPs had access to it,” he said.
“According to the information provided, they were asked not to make the list public and are restricted from examining more contracts. This is a clear violation of EU regulations, which stipulate that every citizen has the right to know.”
In reaction to this perceived lack of transparency, the Patriots for Europe said they would take their concerns to the recently elected European Ombudsman, Teresa Anjinho.
President Ursula von der Leyen’s EC has, though, ignored the previous ombudsman in the past over issues such as transparency on the procurement of€1.8 billion worth of Covid vaccines.
Von der Leyen has refused to release what were believed to be text messages with Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla relating to tackling the pandemic. They allegedly took place in the run-up to what has been the EU’s biggest vaccine procurement contract ever, apparently much of the annoyance of then-European Ombudsman Emily O’Reilly.
Dömötör said the Patriots for Europe group had issued a second wave of data requests, promising to take the matter to court if the European bodies again refused to give sufficient clarity on the funding.
Asked by Brussels Signal if the group was looking to work with other political parties demanding more scrutiny for NGOs, Dömötör said they were not.
He claimed other EP groups, such as the European People’s Party, were part of the “grand coalition” – the governing establishment parties – and thus were “beneficiaries of the whole NGO operation”.
Asked for a comment, an EC spokesperson told Brussels Signal the body needed more information on the specific requests for transparency and could not comment directly at present.
Secret contracts between the European Commission and “green” NGOs were reportedly part of an alleged “shadow lobbying scheme”, according to a Dutch newspaper. https://t.co/cAWxagk9TA
— Brussels Signal (@brusselssignal) January 23, 2025
Ever since the shadow lobby scheme by former MEP and now Dutch MP Frans Timmermans became public, where the EC used money from a billion-euro climate and environmental subsidy fund called the LIFE programme to push its “green” agenda, Brussels’ financial dealings with NGOs have come under scrutiny.
This all accelerated after the new administration of US President Donald Trump lifted the lid on the what it called suspicious spending of USAID, where US taxpayer money appeared to have been used to promote radical progressivism across the globe, including Europe.
In a press conference in the EP a few days ago on a similar issue, Dömötör had referred to a €2.4 million grant that the EU awarded for “fostering queer feminist intersectional resistances”.
He said the transparency norms in his home country, Hungary, were of a much higher standard.
“The Hungarian ministries are obliged to publish regularly what contracts they conclude, with whom and for how much.
“Moreover, if someone makes a data request to them, they have to provide access not only to the contracts but also to their performance within the time limits set by law,” he said.
Also present at the EP conference was Frank Furedi, director of the Conservative think-tank MCC Brussels that has already dug deep into EU and government funding of NGOs and wrote an in-depth report on the subject, published in February.
Furedi said the EU and the progressive NGO’s had a “parasitical relationship” where, due to a lack of popular support, the EU funded NGO’s to legitimise progressive policies.
András László, another Hungarian Patriots for Europe group MEP claimed: “Many NGOs are in fact an extension of the arm of governments.”
NGO Transparency International EU has criticised the European Commission candidate audit process, saying it is rushed, superficial and opaque and casting doubt on the process. https://t.co/ipYTMu1fD0
— Brussels Signal (@brusselssignal) October 24, 2024