20/06/2025 (Agence Europe) – The NGO European Environmental Bureau denounced the persecution of NGOs on Friday 20 June, the day after the Conference of Presidents of the European Parliament decided to set up a working group to investigate NGO funding within the Committee on Budgetary Control (see EUROPE 13663/7). “If transparency were the goal, all beneficiaries of EU funds, NGOs and commercial entities alike, should be included in the new scrutiny taskforce”, said an astonished Faustine Bas-Deffosez, Policy Director for ‘Nature, Health and Environment’ policies at the NGO. In her view, “using institutional mechanisms to intimidate those who defend public interests, climate, the environment and human rights is a dangerous precedent – one imported straight from the illiberal playbook”. (FS)