False alarm: fake news and the right fuel attack on NGOs

In late November 2024 it was revealed that the European Commission was moving in on civil society groups (CSOs) that had received financial support to do advocacy work on environmental policies. Several DGs – among them DG Environment – had received new instructions from the top of the European Commission, the Secretariat General that answers directly to Commission President von der Leyen, intended to bar CSOs from using EU funding to do advocacy work in the European Parliament and the Commission. In effect, the Commission even seemed to be insisting on changes to the contracts for funding it had already granted earlier that year. 

What or who made the Commission take this unprecedented step, has hitherto not been uncovered in public. But based on documents released via freedom of information (FOI) requests, Corporate Europe Observatory can now shed new light on a case that could have dire consequences for political life in the EU institutions and for democracy in Europe, as it touches on the conditions for hundreds of NGOs and the space they can enjoy in areas such as environmental policies, climate policies, development, consumer rights and more. It shows how easy it was for certain MEPs to turn the head of the Commission, and it shows how fake news is spreading in Europe and being weaponised to affect the content of crucial political proposals. 

Conservatives and far right on the attack

For months now, front bench conservatives in the European Parliament have made two claims about breaches of fundamental principles in the contracts concluded between the Commission and civil society groups. Currently the claims are all over proposals made in Parliament’s Budgetary Control Committee (CONT), currently working on the so-called budget discharge procedure. 

The discharge procedure – which involves oversight into whether EU citizens taxpayers’ money is being spent correctly – is one of the most important tasks and powers the European Parliament has. So when MEPs discover potential problems they can decide to ask the other institutions or EU agencies to improve certain practices or controls, and if not, the parliament’s plenary can refuse “to grant discharge” until things have improved. 

What conservative MEPs are trying to do now – in cahoots with far-right politicians – is to introduce strong language about NGOs in general, and environmental organisations in particular, in parliamentary reports of the discharge procedure, to prevent them from obtaining funding from the European Commission or shrink their room of manoeuvre. 

Two myths

The main fuel of the attack is the false assertion that fundamental principles and rules were breached when the Commission funded advocacy work by NGOs vis a vis the European Parliament and the Commission. We find two main claims at the core of their argument:

1. The claim that NGOs had been obliged by the European Commission to lobby members of the European Parliament to support specific policies under the European Green Deal.
2. The claim that NGOs had been obliged by DG ENVI, the environment policy branch of the European Commission, to lobby other parts of the European Commission to be supportive of policy options preferred by DG ENVI. Supposedly, one of the main targets was DG GROW, the Commission’s single market and enterprise department.

Had either of these stories been true, it would have been quite a rupture from traditions in the environmental NGO community. Here, the standard approach for decades is to apply for funding by describing planned activities. Civil servants in the Commission are then to assess the application to see whether it is in line with the criteria adopted by the institutions, the European Parliament included. In the case of funding from the LIFE programme – the programme at the centre of public debate so far – that is exactly what has happened. 

It is clear that the main arguments by European conservatives to make the Commission defund, having to pay-back partly or limit democratic space for civil society groups are at best based on misreading of legal documents, and at worst have been fabricated as part of a concerted political attack. 

Politico for example published a fact-check, ‘Did the European Commission really pay NGOs to lobby for the Green Deal?’ and found that “confidential contracts seen by Politico do not tend to support claims that the executive paid green groups to lobby on its behalf”. 

The Commission bows to pressure

Several factors have reinvigorated the appetite on the right for a political attack on NGOs. One is that since the 2024 EU elections the conservatives form a majority in Parliament with the far right, increasing the likelihood of a successful campaign (which already has a long history). As for the EPP, prominent MEPs have fought at least since 2017 to put an end to funding of NGOs they dislike for political reasons. Another factor is the concessions made over the past year by the European Commission, first and foremost the adoption of a new guidance document in May 2024 on NGOs receiving EU grants. These new guidelines respond to some of the claims voiced by the political right, in that they intend to put a stop to unspecified advocacy work that may create “reputational risks” for the EU institutions.

The question is whether this guidance document on “funding for activities related to the development, implementation, monitoring and enforcement of Union legislation and policy” can be seen as an admission that mistakes had been made by the executive. Internal Commission documents received via a FOI request throw new light on this. Did the Commission act because they were informed of irregularities? Were civil servants made aware of contracts that violated the terms agreed by the institutions to guide grant-making?

A first trail is found in the minutes of a high-level meeting of the Ad Hoc Corporate Management Board on 21 Feb 2024. This is well before the Parliament’s discharge report in the context of which some right wing MEPs tabled anti-NGO amendments was voted on. No less than four board members – most working under the Commission’s Secretariat-General, and four other high-level officials, including the cabinet of von der Leyen, participated in this meeting, because the Board “was informed on issues raised in the discharge procedure” which “requires urgent attention”. 

According to the Board the issue was that “some agreements managed by CINEA Agency that deals with practicalities of grants between NGOs and the Commission, ed.) under LIFE appear to have included very specific lobbying requirements directed at the EU institutions themselves”. Now the word “appear” is quite important because it passes no judgment. It is about exactly that, appearances. And politics.

Politics, not arguments

Nevertheless the eight officials pro-actively agreed in that meeting one year ago that DG ENVI should be informed, and CINEA asked to modify the existing “agreements with CSOs if possible” and DG BUDG and SecGen should “start drafting Guidance for all DGs who have grants with CSOs, with key principles on grants involving lobbying or influencing activities”. 

So on the basis of “concerns raised in the EP discharge procedure” which “appear to have included very specific lobbying requirements directed at the EU institutions themselves” the Commission services started drafting the Guidance. In this case the Commission started taking impactful action, before the discharge reports were even voted on. In an email on the new Guidance document from the Secretariat General sent to all DGs in March 2024, all other DGs are requested to give “advice/input on attached Draft Guidance Doc” and the request for comments before April 5^th.

Quite a few striking observations can be drawn from this. The first is that civil servants who can be assumed to be well acquainted with the procedures of grant making by the Commission, and whom we can assume would be aware that none of the two myths (mentioned above)have substance, still feel under pressure from MEPs in the Budgetary Control Committee, enraged by funding of CSOs for advocacy purposes. And more, they do so well before the committee in question has finished its work on the discharge procedure.

The report from the Budgetary Control committee on the discharge of the EC Budget was only voted in committee on 4 March 2024 and then voted on 11 April 2024 in plenary. As it is ultimately the plenary vote that counts legally, this means that the European Commission anticipated almost two months before that crucial vote the possible recommendations for improvement by the European Parliament. 

Equally important, in the end, that procedure did not turn out to include the concerns on NGOs as voiced by certain MEPs, as the core amendments targeting funding of NGOs were voted down. The plenary of the European Parliament did not approve any urgent and alarming language on the lack of transparency of civil society. 

On the contrary. In paragraph 44 of the discharge resolution the EP said it “Welcomes the vital role played by NGOs in representing civil society and in promoting and defending the values enshrined in the Treaties and the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union while implementing programs and projects financed by the Union budget in full respect of the Union’s financial rules and the protection of the Union’s financial interests”. 

This all begs the question what precisely “required urgent attention” from the Commission regarding civil society? It was about the misinterpretation of MEPs of contracts with CSOs, voiced outside the framework of the budget discharge procedure. Their concerns were not supported by evidence of any malpraxis, nor were they supported by a majority in a committee. Still, they were able to make the Commission take a big step towards undermining the position of CSOs in the EU institutions with the issuance of the Guidance document. 

Media chip in – and fake news starts to spread

It was not until 28 November 2024 that the story about the new guidelines was picked up by the media. Politico wrote a fact-based analysis, reporting that going forward, funds received from the Commission could no longer be spent on lobbying, not of the Commission, nor of the European Parliament. It was only then that the public was made aware of the decision made back in May 2024 by the Commission’s Secretariat General. 

Unfortunately, what followed when other media picked it up was a series of misleading articles that echoed the angle preferred by MEPs from the conservative EPP group, in rather inflammatory language. For example, the Germany-based Table.Media wrote on 8 December 2024 that the Commission “supports environmental NGOs with six-figure sums every year. Contracts that were previously kept secret reveal what the NGOs have to do in return.” In the story, it is ‘revealed’ that NGOs have been asked by the Commission to fight the Mercosur agreement, a trade agreement with South American countries, contrary to the official policy of the EU. But again: no evidence has been and in all likelihood can be produced in support of such a claim. CSOs draw up their plans, and the Commission take them into consideration on the basis of the principles of the programme in question, in this case the LIFE programme.

While Table.Media insinuated that NGOs are being instrumentalized, this claim was hammered out more explicitly in a media storm in January 2025, that began with an article in the Dutch tabloid De Telegraaf, coinciding with a plenary debate in the European Parliament about the matter. De Telegraaf reported – highly inaccurately – that former Commissioner Frans Timmermans had quite simply paid NGOs to lobby MEPs and the Commission in favour of his own European Green Deal policies. 

That incendiary Telegraaf story travelled Europe in a split second, receiving coverage in a high number of media, including Italy, the Czech Republic, Romania, Belgium, France, Germany, Slovenia, Slovakia, Lithuania, Hungary, the UK, and more. Scores of media across Europe quoted the story from De Telegraaf, but as with De Telegraaf itself, no evidence was presented to back it up. Moreover the NGOs in question, charged with perhaps the most serious disrespect to their own principles and supporters, were not asked for comment. This was shoddy journalism. As for Timmermans, when he was interviewed the day after the story was aired by another Dutch media NL Times, and denied having had anything to do with the grants, it gained little traction. Clearly, a large number of European media felt it was uninteresting. 

A vote on fake news

With both a media storm and an accommodating EU Commission as covers, the right wing in the European Parliament now seems in a good position to continue its political work on the basis of feverish fantasies. On 18 March 2025, the Budgetary Control Committee will vote on amendments to a first number of reports under the discharge procedure, with misleading messages about the non-existent NGO scandal. 

In some cases, the vitriol is pure, in that wording shows a general resistance to NGOs in general and environmental organisations in particular. MEP Monika Hohlmeier of the German CSU, one of the key rapporteurs, prepare the ground by tabling a draft report in December 2024 that included a call to protect the institution from “undue influence” from NGOs “harming the work of the House”, and call for sanctions to “NGOs that unduly try to manipulate decisions”. This is bizarrely incendiary language. 

Even a few months ago such views would not have stood a chance. It reflects a wider Trumpian trend where the mainstream right is increasingly borrowing tactics from the far right of using weaponised misinformation for political goals.

Aside from the change in the political composition of the European Parliament, what has paved the way is a campaign based on the two myths. Two myths that continue to be manifestly present in the debate. When the Committee votes on 18 March, more than a dozen amendments tabled by right-wing politicians, reflect on and mention the two myths supported by fake news, and seemingly by the European Commission too. And the language applied is unrestrained. We are in a dangerous place, when conservative and far right MEPs drum up fears over civil society by outlining: “brazen misuse of taxpayer funds, funnelling billions into a shadowy network of NGOs and think tanks to promote its own political agenda and silence dissenting voices; condemns this enormous EU-NGO propaganda complex, that undermines democracy and constitutes a massive betrayal of European citizens”.

The EPP on an authoritarian cause

It is clear from the combined work of the EPP, that this is about so much more than what they consider inappropriate grants. It is about attacking the little space civil society organisations have won in an arena otherwise dominated by corporate lobby groups. In Brussels, the latter easily dwarf and outspend NGOs. Rolling back the latter’s space even further would have severe consequences for the quality of lawmaking.

The solid fear of civil society is that as a result of the mess created, they will be told not to have any contacts with EU institutions, lose part of their funding, face chilling effects, or self-censor. In the words of a source within Concord, an umbrella of development organisations: “"To be absolutely clear, like environmental NGOs we have never been instructed by the Commission to lobby whomsoever on whatsoever. But it seems that some politicians are really upset that some parts of the EC are funding NGOs that are the criticizing the work of the oher parts of the Commission, for example on free trade agreements like Mercosur or CETA. And we've never even worked on those issues, but are still affected by the Guidance document."

The fact that this is inherent to a well-functioning democracy seems to escape some EPP politicians, who are increasingly not shying away from outright authoritarian measures, as when the draft report by Monika Hohlmeier speaks of CSOs harming “the work of the House” and calls for sanctions. 

This shows leading parts of the EPP taking unprecedented steps: at a time where the rise of authoritarian far right forces pose a direct threat to civic space and democracy in numerous European countries, the European conservatives are running an Orban-style witchhunt against civil society, based on gross disinformation. It’s time for those with the EPP member parties who are committed to democracy to stand up and help end this outrageous behaviour, or the history books will not judge the EPP mildly when it comes to their role in defending democracy against far-right authoritarianism.