STRASBOURG — European Parliament voted on Thursday to establish a working group to probe EU funding of nongovernmental organizations, with the support of right-wing political groups.
The proposal was led by the center-right European People’s Party, the largest group in Parliament.
The center-left Socialists & Democrats, the liberals of Renew Europe, and the Greens all voted against the working group, but the proposal passed in a vote of group heads with the support of far right groups. It’s the latest of many moves by right-wing forces in different EU countries to heighten oversight of NGOs.
“We have long said that not enough is being done to ensure transparency in NGO funding — and we meant it,” said Tomáš Zdechovský, lead EPP lawmaker in the budgetary control committee. The EPP said the working group will count with staff to check all the contracts awarded by the Commission to NGOs.
Europe’s right-leaning political forces have been calling for more scrutiny on how NGOs are funded and use Commission money in recent months, creating divisions among political groups in the Parliament.
The idea for the scrutiny body started when EPP lawmakers in the budgetary control committee accused the Commission of financing NGOs to lobby Parliament on its behalf via public contracts.
The right-wing European Conservatives and Reformists reacted by proposing a committee of inquiry, but the EPP vied instead for trying to find a compromise with the S&D and Renew to create a less powerful working group undertaking the budgetary control committee.
But the alliance collapsed after the EPP refused to widen the scope of the working group to include all beneficiaries of EU funding.
“We denounce the ongoing unjustified attack of the right-wing in this Parliament against NGOs and the alignment of the EPP with the far-right,” Iratxe García, leader of the S&D group in Parliament, told press in Strasbourg following the vote on Thursday. “The EPP is making a shameful alliance with the far right for their witch-hunt on NGOs.”
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