agreed to form a working\u00a0group within the Committee on Budgetary Control<\/strong><\/a> to scrutinise how the Commission funds non-governmental organisations.<\/p>\nMeanwhile Transparency International EU director Nick Aiossa told Euronews that the claims of NGO’s shadow-lobbying for the Commission have already been debunked.<\/p>\n
“These are already debunked stories that were circulated in February,” said Aiossa, adding, “I simply don’t understand why the German press would jump on this, unless, of course, it has a more political agenda behind it from the people who are leaking the contracts.”<\/p>\n
Aiossa said that Commission funding of civil society to participate in public debate is a good thing, that a small circle of right-wing MEPs was responsible for leaking sensitive data to the press, and that Transparency would be filing a legal complaint on the issue.<\/p>\n
The Welt allegations first surfaced in February, and in April a parliamentary committee voted down a raft of amendments from right-wing lawmakers seeking to incorporate sharp criticism of EU funding for non-governmental organisations into the discharge of the bloc\u2019s 2023 budget.<\/p>\n
The allegations concerned EU funding for environmental NGOs through the LIFE operating grants. These are part of the EU\u2019s LIFE programme, a \u20ac5.4 billion budget (2021\u20132027) aimed at financing projects related to green innovation, circular economy, energy efficiency, nature conservation, and pollution reduction. Around \u20ac15.6 million of this is allocated to environmental NGOs via operating grants and under this scheme, individual organisations may receive up to \u20ac700,000 annually.<\/p>\n
Grants are awarded through open calls with clear eligibility criteria and NGOs are evaluated not by the Commission directly but by agencies such as, in the case of LIFE , the European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency (CINEA).<\/p>\n
Advocacy through lobbying is permitted but not required or directed under the grants.<\/p>\n
Each grant includes the disclaimer that \u201cviews and opinions expressed\u201d by NGOs \u201cdo not necessarily reflect those of the European Union.\u201d Grant conditions are public, and there is no requirement that applicants align their objectives with Commission interests to receive funding.<\/p>\n
Court of Auditors described funding system as ‘opaque’<\/strong><\/p>\nIn short, NGOs retain full autonomy over how they use the money, within legal and contractual boundaries. They are subject to transparency rules, must uphold EU values, and are routinely audited. If they fail to implement their work programmes, funding can be withdrawn.<\/p>\n
While much of the oversight relies on self-reporting \u2013 one of the main pitfalls of the system \u2013 the Commission is enhancing its risk-based verification following advice from the European Court of Auditors.<\/p>\n
In April 2025, the EU auditors labelled the Commission\u2019s funding process as \u201copaque\u201d and warned of potential reputational risks. However, it found no evidence during a year-long probe of any wrongdoing by either NGOs or European Commission officials.<\/p>\n
As a result, the Commission last year issued new guidance to prevent EU funding from being used for direct lobbying of EU institutions following these concerns.<\/p>\n
J\u00e4ger told Euronews that he expected to hear preliminary responses from the two prosecutors offices within around three months indicating whether they would consider investigating.<\/p>\n
According to the TAE, separate criminal complaints have also been filed in Austria in relation to the issue.<\/p>\n
The Commission, Timmermans and Sinkevicius have been contacted for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ADVERTISEMENT An EU taxpayer interest group has filed criminal complaints with German domestic prosecutors and the EU Public…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":291207,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[2000,299,5187,2557,79162,20730,31620],"class_list":{"0":"post-291206","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-european","11":"tag-european-commission","12":"tag-european-public-prosecutor","13":"tag-european-parliament","14":"tag-frans-timmermans"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114915182088728879","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291206","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=291206"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291206\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/291207"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=291206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=291206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=291206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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