Being de-listed from the lobbying database could mean no longer being eligible to sit on expert groups convened by the European Commission to discuss key files or in committee hearings held by the European Parliament, the message adds.<\/p>\n
The suspension from the Transparency Register comes after the Corporate Europe Observatory lodged<\/a> a complaint alleging that MCC Brussels failed to disclose its funding sources. It also accused the think tank of \u201cspreading Orb\u00e1n regime propaganda<\/a>.\u201d While MCC Brussels says no financial irregularities were found, during the investigation triggered by that process the secretariat disputed technical details of how it had been registered, leading to the suspension.<\/p>\n Launched in 2022, MCC Brussels received more than \u20ac6 million in 2024 according to a funding disclosure<\/a> \u201cto acquaint and influence European policy makers with its distinct approach towards the political, socio-economic and cultural issues of our time.\u201d Almost all of that funding came from the Budapest-based Mathias Corvinus Collegium educational institution controlled by close political allies<\/a>\u00a0of Orb\u00e1n.<\/p>\n In a statement, MCC Brussels\u2019 founder and executive director Frank Furedi said it \u201chas faced relentless attempts to marginalise, isolate and silence our work because we challenge prevailing orthodoxies.\u201d The group describes itself as taking a critical stance on EU climate change policy and last year hosted an event in the parliament entitled \u201cThe Trans Ideology Threat<\/a>,\u201d hosted by Fidesz MEP Andr\u00e1s L\u00e1szl\u00f3.<\/p>\n MCC Brussels communication director John O\u2019Brien branded the decision as \u201cpolitical from the beginning\u201d and insisted the complaint \u201ccame from an activist organization that has campaigned against MCC Brussels, has received support from networks associated with George Soros\u2019s Open Society Foundations, and openly opposes the ideas we defend.\u201d<\/p>\n The Transparency Register maintains a list of more than 17,500 organizations campaigning and lobbying on EU policy, obliging them to make regular financial disclosures and abide by a code of conduct. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Being de-listed from the lobbying database could mean no longer being eligible to sit on expert groups convened…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21730,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5],"tags":[18,1409,1937,475,57],"class_list":["post-21729","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brussels","tag-brussels","tag-lobbying","tag-meps","tag-transparency","tag-viktor-orban"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@be\/116760285473764313","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21729"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21729\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}