The PES condemns the EPP’s accusations against environmental NGOs, undermining their advocacy work, funding, and crucial role in democracy.
In a recent Strasbourg Plenary debate on EU financing, the LIFE programme, transparency, and lobbying EU institutions, EPP MEPs and Commissioner Piotr Serafin took the opportunity to raise “legal and ethical concerns” and claim that environmental and climate NGOs are being funded by the European Commission to lobby the EP, other EU institutions, and MEPs.
Leading NGOs working at EU level, including the European Environmental Bureau (EEB) and WWF EU, have responded to this and their answer is clear. They rightfully argue that NGOs are not lobbyists for the European Commission or any other EU institution, they operate with full independence from institutions and corporations. Any claim that NGOs do the Commission’s bidding, or do not comply with transparency rules, are misleading, baseless, and a clear attempt to muzzle democracy.
This is part of a clear objective of the EPP to weaken NGOs, the initiatives and targets of the Green Deal, and delegitimise the crucial voices of civil society in our democracy. But this is not the EPP’s first attempt to do so.
The EPP’s campaign against NGO funding and transparency started back in 2017, when an EPP MEP, from von der Leyen’s CDU party, pushed to draft a motion from the CONT Committee for a European Parliament resolution on budgetary control of financing NGOs from the EU budget, which did not pass. Again in 2023, the EPP commissioned a report to reform EU funding to NGOs, which they later retracted.
More recently in November 2024, the CINEA, the Commission’s agency in charge of implementing Green Deal projects, which is supervised by von der Leyen’s Commission, sent letters to 30+ prominent environmental and climate NGOs, stating that NGOs who receive money from the EU’s green funds (LIFE Programme) can no longer use it for advocacy and lobbying work towards EU officials and institutions, which was previously considered acceptable. The EPP’s strategy was also illustrated in December 2024, when the S&D fought hard to defeat their attempts to water down the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), as reported by the PES in a PR last month.
We cannot accept members of the European Parliament and Commission to campaign against the funding and advocacy of NGOs. What is more questionable, less transparent, and harmful to trust in democracy, is the relation of certain MEPS with private interests, receiving money and financially benefitting from the EU lobbying activities of multinational corporations and businesses.
The PES is alarmed by the EPP’s continual efforts to undermine the EU Green Deal and our democracy, this time by targeting environmental NGOs. Our political family has always been clear – we are committed to a Green Social Deal, strong EU climate targets without deregulations, and to a healthy democracy which supports civil dialogue and NGOs.
