A lively debate took place on Wednesday 22 January on the lobbying of EU institutions by NGOs funded by the European Commission through the LIFE programme.
At the root of the debate is the European People’s Party endorsement of the European Commission’s ban on lobbying activities by NGOs receiving grants from the LIFE programme.
The new European Commissioner for the Budget, Piotr Serafin, reported to the European Parliament’s Committee on Budgetary Control in December 2024 (see EUROPE 13542/10) that contracts with NGOs under the LIFE programme included clauses obliging “NGOs to carry out very detailed and specific activities aimed at specific MEPs or specific Commission departments”. Although not illegal, according to the Commission, these clauses are “inappropriate”, according to Piotr Serafin, and cannot be continued.
The conclusions and recommendations of the European Court of Auditors’ audit on the transparency of NGO funding is expected to be published in the first half of 2025.
A rather angry Monika Hohlmeier (EPP, German) described these lobbying clauses as a “manipulation of legislative procedures”. The contracts awarded by the CINEA agency, under the responsibility of DG Environment, are said to have encouraged lobbying “against farmers, authorities, companies and infrastructures” as well as “the fight against free trade agreements such as Mercosur”. The NGOs are also said to have been required “to organise mass protests, mass e-mailing actions to put pressure on MEPs who defended a different point of view”, summarised the German MEP. Parliament must be able to monitor the use of funds, and the contracts in question have to be audited by the Internal Audit Service, according to the MEP. When approached, the European Commission did not respond.
Members of the Greens/EFA, S&D, The Left and Renew Europe have asked Commissioner Serafin to reconsider his decision. On behalf of the Renew Europe group, MEP Martin Hojsík explained that farmers’ NGOs, such as Copa-Cogeca, and industry NGOs also receive funding “to put pressure on the European institutions” and promote their results, all the while defending this system.
Several MEs, such as Jean-Marc Germain (S&D, French) and Marie Toussaint (Greens/EFA, French), pointed out the imbalance between the billions spent by industry on lobbying and the few million euros in subsidies invested in the LIFE programme. Marie Toussaint added that Monika Hohlmeier was leading “a parallel battle (...)” to “remove these funds [from the LIFE programme]”.
Ironically, the rapporteur responsible for examining EU funding of NGOs, Ms Hohlmeier, is also paid €75,000 a year by the agricultural trader BayWa, a company that is a beneficiary of the LIFE programme, pointed out Jonas Sjöstedt (The Left, Swedish), following revelations by the NGO Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO). When contacted by Agence Europe, Ms Hohlmeier stated that she was not involved in “any day-to-day operational decisions” had no knowledge of LIFE funding for BayWa and had not sat on any “committee in which BayWa had a direct interest”.
Her team told Agence Europe that The Left had contributed to the funding of Corporate Europe Observatory. Funding from 2022 amounted to €6,500 out of an annual total of just over €1 million received by the NGO. (Original version in French by Florent Servia)