Two weeks ago, dozens of green NGOs with headquarters in Brussels began receiving “Orbanesque emails” out of the blue. On behalf of the European Commission, CINEA, which handles funding for various environmental projects funded by the LIFE program, asked the NGOs to examine the grant contracts for 2024 that were authorized and signed earlier this year. The reasoning behind this is that EU subsidies are no longer permitted to be used for advocacy activities by civil society, according to new policy guidelines from the commission. This new policy is based on two-page guidelines that were created by the commission’s directorate-general for budget and secretariat-general on May 7 of this year. And these might have a significant impact on everyone in the civil arena of EU policymaking, not just so-called “green NGOs.”
The case against defunding NGOs
“Avoiding reputational risk” has become a new standard for EU NGOs’ funding. If a grant is used for “sending letters, arranging meetings, or providing advocacy material to EU institutions or specific members of an institution; or identifying specific members or officials of an institution to evaluate or describe their positions, or to discuss specific political content or outcome,” the commission claims that the risk is especially pronounced. Funding may be refused or suspended if an NGO crosses the ambiguously defined and widely defined border, which most certainly has no legal foundation. In addition to limiting civil society’s democratic action space and potentially chilling it, this will further tilt the scales in favor of the corporate lobby groups that now control the lobbying landscape. The European People’s Party (EPP), the conservative faction in the European Parliament, has been putting political pressure on the commission to use EU grants to stifle criticism for years. This decision is the result of their effort. The EPP demanded “greater accountability and transparency for NGOs, in particular those accessing EU funding” during the EU election campaign, according to a recent Politico article. Some EPP lawmakers have been hostile since at least 2016, when Markus Pieper, a German MEP from Ursula von der Leyen’s German CDU party, spearheaded an assault on NGOs.
Why NGOs matter in EU policy
The campaign’s “logic” was always that money should be cut off to organizations that disagreed with their policies and some EU directives. Pieper made two unsuccessful attempts to persuade a majority in 2017 and 2023 to use the prospect of a halt in EU money as a weapon against non-governmental organizations. However, his report was accepted last year. Pieper attempted to persuade his colleagues in the Budget Committee to conduct a report on the financing of civil society in 2016, when a large civil society movement mobilized against the contentious and now-defunct trade and investment pact (TTIP) between the US and the EU. Pieper criticized the EU for sponsoring NGOs that he weirdly believed were “opposing European values” in a paper he commissioned, which the EPP later withdrew. Pieper suggested that “NGOs that do not comply with the EU’s strategic commercial and security policy objectives should not receive EU funding.” Civil society protests against the Mercosur trade pact and NGOs’ lawsuits against coal-fired power plants are two examples of the current, aggressive, and critical questions concerning NGOs that were raised in the European Parliament’s Budget Committee earlier this week.
Protecting NGO advocacy in the EU
To see the terrible repercussions, one need only have a basic understanding of the political realities in the Brussels bubble: corporate lobby groups will continue to dominate the lobbying landscape, even more so than they currently do. There will be an even more catastrophic imbalance. For instance, corporate lobbyists from the energy industry are commended for their work when the commission asks yet another set of oil and gas corporations to assist with its energy plan. However, the commission goes further in its efforts to stifle green NGOs. Similar to the Qatargate controversy, which occurred in December 2022, MEPs were accused of obtaining substantial financial rewards while collaborating with ?regimes in Morocco and Qatar. The EPP was keen to take advantage of the situation to attack NGOs once more, but they were hesitant to enact strong ethical and transparency regulations. According to the EPP, “We need to talk about NGOs.” The occasionally effective campaigns by frequently underfunded and understaffed NGOs are a complete source of frustration: civil society only opposes their neoliberal philosophy and pro-corporate sector narrative.
The democratic role of NGOs
They want to prevent this from happening again and are working to suppress any critical thought by NGOs in light of Ursula von der Leyen’s second commission’s massive deregulation agenda. The new rules that have been implemented since their campaign are essentially a “gag order.” Far-right politicians’ constant interrogation and misinformation have fueled this EPP-led campaign in recent years, particularly in the lead-up to the EU elections. Their campaign and narrative against civil society may have severe repercussions. In EU lobbying, corporate interests currently far outnumber and outspend public interest groups; this issue would worsen without EU support for NGOs, lowering the standard of EU decision-making and, consequently, public confidence.
