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ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n\n Published on 07\/06\/2025 – 17:49 GMT+2\u2022Updated
\n 21:59<\/p>\n
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The European commission on Saturday denied German media reports that it had signed \u201dsecret contracts\u201d with environmental NGOs\u00a0to promote the bloc\u2019s climate policy.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201dContrary to media allegations, there are no secret contracts between the European Commission and NGOs,\u201d a commission spokesperson told Euronews. \u201dThe Commission exercises a high degree of transparency when it comes to providing funding to NGOs.<\/p>\n
The commission\u2019s denial comes after German newspaper Welt Am Sonntag claimed that the EU\u2019s Executive arm had allegedly secretly paid environmental NGOs up to \u20ac700,000 to promote the bloc\u2019s climate policy.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The paper said it got hold of \u201dsecret contracts\u201d from 2022, which involved well-known NGOs like \u201cClientEarth,\u201c and \u201dFriends of the Earth.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
In the Welt Am Sonntag claims, the former allegedly \u201creceived \u20ac350,000 \u201dand was supposed to \u201centangle German coal-fired power plants in court cases in order to increase the operators’ financial and legal risk,\u201d the paper said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
On the other hand, in a statement the Head of ClientEarth\u2019s German office Dr. Christiane Gerstetter “ClientEarth” clarified that the funding is being used “to partially support staff and operations in its German office” adding “no amount of the LIFE grant is used to fund external litigation costs.”<\/p>\n
The paper also reported that EC officials commissioned the latter to fight against the Mercosur free trade agreement between Europe and South America \u2013 \u201deven though colleagues in their own house were pushing it forward at the same time,\u201d the paper reported.<\/p>\n
In its statement to Euronews on Saturday, the European Commission underlined that \u201cNGOs play a crucial role in shaping, monitoring, and enforcing legislation. NGOs also remain fully autonomous and free to establish their own views on all policy matters.\u201c<\/p>\n
‘Inappropriate’ funding in LIFE programme conceded in January<\/p>\n
The German report comes at a time when the issue of NGO funding has become an extremely divisive political issue in Brussels. The conservative European People\u2019s Party (EPP) has claimed that the Commission instructed NGOs to lobby members of the parliament to further specific policies within the Green Deal, a central political agenda of president Ursula von der Leyen\u2019s first term between 2019 and 2024.<\/p>\n
MEP Monika Hohlmeier (Germany\/EPP), told Euronews back in January that her concerns were raised when she examined some 30 funding contracts from 2022 and 2023, as part of the parliament\u2019s annual scrutiny of EU budget spending.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In January, Budget Commissioner Piotr Serafin conceded that some financing from the EU\u2019s \u20ac5.4 billion environmental programme LIFE may have been inappropriate. \u201cI have to admit that it was inappropriate for some services in the Commission to enter into agreements that oblige NGOs to lobby members of the European Parliament specifically,\u201d he said.\u00a0But he also defended the role of NGOs in EU policy making.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In April, the European Court of Auditors (ECA) also concluded following a lengthy probe that the Commission\u2019s funding of NGOs was \u201copaque\u201d and exposed the executive to \u201creputational risk.\u201d But the court did not find any breach of EU values from NGOs.<\/p>\n
‘Further measures’ planned to safeguard transparency<\/p>\n
To overcome ambiguities, the European Commission issued clear guidance last year to streamline how it provides funding to NGOs.<\/p>\n
On Saturday, the commission spokesperson told Euronews that EU funding to NGOs was provided \u201dbased on grant agreements, which are complemented by work programmes whose preparation falls under the responsibility of NGOs.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAs per the guidance, the Commission has instructed its services not to sign off on work programmes if those contain overly specific activities directed at EU institutions or their representatives,\u201d the EC statement added.<\/p>\n
The institution will take \u201dfurther measures,\u201c the spokesperson said, to strengthen transparency and include appropriate safeguards.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have been working closely with the European Parliament and the European Court of Auditors to improve this transparency even further. Information on recipients of EU funding, including the names of recipients and amounts, is publicly available on the Commission\u00b4s Financial Transparency System website,\u201d the statement said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Published on 07\/06\/2025 – 17:49 GMT+2\u2022Updated 21:59 ADVERTISEMENT The European commission on Saturday denied German media reports that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":166333,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[2311,2000,299,5187,2557,33572,2452,24252,11587],"class_list":{"0":"post-166332","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-climate-change","9":"tag-eu","10":"tag-europe","11":"tag-european","12":"tag-european-commission","13":"tag-funds","14":"tag-media","15":"tag-ngo","16":"tag-transparency"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114644995481458120","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166332","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=166332"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166332\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/166333"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=166332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=166332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=166332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}