The working group of the European Parliament’s Committee on Budgetary Control tasked with investigating the funding of NGOs will meet for the first time on Wednesday 26 November, Dirk Gotink (EPP, Dutch) announced at a press conference on Tuesday.
At this meeting, which starts at 2.30pm and will be broadcast live, MEPs will focus on the funding of climate and environmental NGOs.
The working group will be made up of nine MEPs, including five from the EPP, one from the ECR, two from the PfE and one from Renew Europe.
The European Commission’s Environment, Climate and Budget services will be involved in these initial exchanges, as will the European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency (Cinea), whose Director, Paloma Aba Garrote, will be present.
The “scandal” - according to the EPP and the far right in the European Parliament - had erupted from the funding of NGO beneficiaries of the LIFE programme managed by Cinea, at the end of 2024 (see EUROPE 13542/10). At issue are clauses requiring NGOs to lobby members of the European Parliament.
On Tuesday, Dirk Gotink made it clear that the working group’s investigation would not be limited to NGOs or the environment.
The NGOs have repeatedly denied any interference by the Commission in their practice (see EUROPE 13571/7). However, the European Court of Auditors has noted a lack of transparency in the allocation of Commission funds to NGOs (see EUROPE 13734/19).
After analysing some fifty contracts worth around €13 million, MEPs found that the Commission’s funding of NGOs responsible for lobbying “the Commission, Parliament and the institutions” had become “a completely standard way of working”, said Dirk Gotink. These contracts gave rise to “direct lobbying, direct activism”, according to the MEP, who was however unable to rule on the existence of any infringements of EU law.
In the name of transparency, the MEP said he was in favour of making the contracts public after they had been anonymised, citing judgments by the Court of Justice of the EU to the effect that “this type of document should be published as far as possible by the Commission”.
The working group, which will hold a second meeting in January, will have six months to draw up its report. (Original version in French by Florent Servia)