Parliament’s €2 trillion budget push includes help for some of Europe’s embattled NGOs
· EUobserverClimate protestors facing off against German police (Photo: Lützerath Unräumbar)
Parliament’s €2 trillion budget push includes help for some of Europe’s embattled NGOs
Unlock article and share
By Nikolaj Nielsen,
Brussels
,
The European Parliament has proposed a €2 trillion long-term budget that also includes funding for civil society, which have come under sustained attacked over the past two years.
The budget proposal was voted through by 370 MEPs in Strasbourg on Tuesday (28 April) and sets the stage for the European Parliament to now enter into likely tough negotiations with the Council, representing member states.
And while it covers everything from defence and security to competitiveness, the seven-year budget (covering 2028-2034) also supports programmes that have riled centre-right and far-right forces upset over policies that seek to reduce fossil fuels while promoting green energy.
Among those programmes targeted was Life, which supports environment and climate action.
But rather than preserving it as a standalone initiative, the European Commission had called for it to be merged in a broader competitiveness fund — a move critics say risk diluting Europe’s green ambitions.
It did the same for the EU4Health, a separate programme launched in response to the Covid pandemic.
Concerns mounted that environmental NGOs would no longer have operating grants under the Life agreement.
But the first to see its funding stripped was actually the European Patients’ Forum (EPF), an umbrella organisation of patient organisations across Europe that relied, in part, on EU4Health.
“We were the first one to have from the commission the structural funding removed,” confirmed Solène Jouan of the EPF, noting that the EU commissioner in charge of health is Olivér Várhelyi, Viktor Orbán’s former ambassador to the EU.
Jouan said they were instructed in April last year by Várhelyi’s department to amend their contract and strip out all advocacy-related activities.
Two months later, the commission halted the issuance of grants.
Since then, the EPF has lost seven staff members.
While civil society groups working on health face less direct political scrutiny, Jouan noted they are nonetheless being hit by politically-driven funding cuts.
“Attacking patients is a little bit more difficult politically,” she said, in a nod to pro-climate NGOs that have suffered a similar fate.
Operating grants only represent €9m per year within the EU4Health programme’s original €5.3bn budget, later reduced to €4.4bn. Some 13 EU states are now demanding the EU commission re-instate operating grants in the 2026 EU4Health programme, as well as a letter sent last week signed by 70 MEPs.
An in a sign of the political expediency of defending civil society working on health, several of those same MEPs in the letter are also attacking pro-climate NGOs.
Public hearings in the European Parliament have since sought to cast doubt on civil society actors, notably through contentious inquiries into pro-climate NGO funding transparency.
The hearings have been led by Dutch centre-right MEP Dirk Gotink, who has suggested that the European Commission is financing NGOs to lobby its own departments on green climate rules.
To read this story, log in or subscribe
Enjoy access to all articles and 25 years of archives, comment and gift articles. Become a member for as low as €1,75 per week.
Become a member
Already a member? Login
Unlock article and share
Latest from Civil Society
EPP rapporteur lets slip the real reason for the NGO witch-hunt
Latest from EU Budget
100 million disabled Europeans are worried about the EU budget — here’s why
Latest from European Parliament
Patriots for Europe secretary-general under new scrutiny for alleged EU funds misuse
Orbán’s Patriots group try but fail to block rule-of-law crackdown in new EU budget
Latest from Green Economy
EU urged to face down pressure to reopen deforestation law amid review
This WEEK: MEPs decide on next EU budget, as ECB responds to Iran war
Latest from EU politics
Time to agree a Europe-wide legal definition for rape, MEPs say
Malta’s notorious gambling laws ‘incompatible’ with single market: EU court top lawyer
Climate protestors facing off against German police (Photo: Lützerath Unräumbar)
Topics
Author Bio
Nikolaj Nielsen joined EUobserver in 2012 and covers home affairs. He is originally from Denmark, but spent much of his life in France and in Belgium. He was awarded the King Baudouin Foundation grant for investigative journalism in 2010.