Civil society comes together to defend political attacks on NGOs from the European Parliament
Civil society has recently been attacked by members of the European People’s Party and other right-wing Members of the European Parliament (MEPs).
Most of this directly targets the funding that many advocacy organisations receive from the European Union.
A report was recently published by the European Court of Auditors on the transparency of NGO funding, specifically under the LIFE programme. This programme provides grants to the non-profit and private sector on issues like climate, energy and the environment. The report concluded no wrong doings on the side of the NGOs, it just called for better transparency from the side of the European Commission and a better definition of NGOs.
These report results were mis-construed by some right-wing MEPs. They questioned the work done by NGOs and went so far as to call a vote on blocking funding for NGOs under the LIFE programme. On 4 April, they lost but only by 1 vote.
EASPD joined over 570 organisations that signed a statement spearheaded by Civil Society Europe (CSE) on defending NGOs and the important work we do. Even though the attack is on a programme that does not fund us, we still stand by and support civil society. We call on MEPs to shut down these false accusations against NGOs in the EU.