Originally made up of nine MEPs from the centre and right wing of the European Parliament, the European Parliament’s Committee on Budgetary Control’s working group on NGO funding saw its centrist member, Vlad Vasile-Voiculescu (Renew Europe, Romanian), walk out of the group’s first meeting on Wednesday 26 November (see EUROPE 13759/24).
The Romanian Liberal had set four conditions for the participation of his political group in this working group. Their rejection by the conservative and far-right elected representatives present compromised his participation in a working group which, paradoxically, he felt lacked transparency.
“When the process is flawed from the outset, participating in it would be tantamount to legitimising a ‘witch-hunt’. It’s a shameful process and everyone should understand by now that it’s a slippery slope”, said Mr Vasile-Voiculescu.
The MEP had called for fair scrutiny of all organisations receiving EU funds (not just environmental NGOs), full access to documents for all groups, the involvement of the European Court of Auditors as an independent body, and the invitation of all relevant European Commissioners, including former Budget Commissioner Johannes Hahn.
The working group is now made up of the chairman of the Committee on Budgetary Control, Niclas Herbst (EPP, German), the future co-authors of the report, Dirk Gotink (EPP, Dutch) and Carlo Fidanza (ECR, Italian), and elected representatives Monika Hohlmeier (EPP, German), Karlo Ressler (EPP, Croatian), Tomáš Zdechovský (EPP, Czech), Tamás Deutsch (PfE, Hungarian) and Julien Sanchez (PfE, French).
The S&D, Greens/EFA and The Left groups refused to take part in the work from the outset. (Original version in French by Florent Servia)