“We have never received orders from the Directorate-General for Environment [of the European Commission]”, insisted Ariel Brunner, of the NGO BirdLife, at a press conference on Monday 3 February, regarding the funding of environmental organisations through grants from the European Commission’s LIFE programme.
Funding contracts between environmental organisations and the European Commission were recently criticised by the EPP group in the European Parliament (see EUROPE 13564/15) and by the European Commissioner for Budget, Piotr Serafin (see EUROPE 13542/10), for encouraging lobbying practices vis-à-vis the European institutions.
Crying foul, the EPP MEPs denounce a manoeuvre by the Commission’s Directorate-General for Environment to push its proposals on other departments of the EU institution, but also on MEPs who are opposed to them.
Several NGOs, including CAN Europe, WWF Europe, the European Environmental Bureau and Transparency International Europe, attempted to clarify the situation at a joint press conference on Monday 3 February.
The very existence of this funding stems from the European Commission’s desire “to ensure a more level playing field, enabling any entity representing citizens at EU level (...) to receive funding to make its voice heard in the debate”, explained Ariel Brunner. Obtaining European funding is accompanied by a contract that describes the NGO’s activities, but “describing my activities does not mean that the Commission is paying me to carry them out or that it has asked me to carry them out. These are activities that I myself proposed”, defended the Regional Director of BirdLife Europe and Central Asia.
The NGOs were keen to point out that the process of applying to a call for proposals does not take place “directly with the Commission, but via an agency”, explained Patrizia Heidegger of the European Environmental Bureau. This system has been put in place “to ensure that there is no political influence”, she added.
All the participants in the press conference also pointed out that they regularly criticise the European Commission’s proposals on the environment. “This is the nature of democratic debate”, said Ariel Brunner.
Nicholas Aiossa, from Transparency International EU, saw a certain irony in the current debate, recalling that a few years ago the same political groups were criticising NGOs for “being too critical to receive funding”. (Original version in French by Florent Servia)