In response to reactionary political voices decrying EU funding for environmental groups, Carbon Market Watch lays the record straight: civil society must be heard  

Carbon Market Watch and 550 civil society organisations from 40 countries are today joining forces to fight back against ongoing attacks against NGOs from centre-right and far-right political voices.

Today’s action precedes a pivotal vote tomorrow in the European Parliament’s Budgetary Control committee to discharge the 2023 EU budget.

Leading up to the vote, Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) representing the EPP and far right groups have misleadingly argued that environmental NGOs receiving funding under the EU’s LIFE programme are being paid by the European Commission to lobby on its behalf.

Furthermore, untrue claims regarding civil society’s adherence to the Transparency Register were also made. These narratives have been amplified by some media, further heightening the spread of false information and negatively affecting the perception of civil society as a whole.

Voice of the people

These attacks appear designed to discredit the crucial work that non-profit organisations are doing to protect democracy and other European values, while the involvement of for-profit lobbyists is not equally in the firing line

For-profit corporate lobbying is rampant. In 2024, the 50 corporations with the largest lobbying budgets collectively spent nearly €200 million on lobbying in the EU alone, an increase of 66% from 2015. The critics of NGOs raise no concerns about this.

In comparison, NGOs receive only €15.6 million annually of a €700 million LIFE programme annual budget, a mere total of 0.006% of the EU’s total budget. This supposedly interferes with the independence of policy-makers.

“Civil society is crucial in championing the rights and concerns of citizens in the EU policymaking process as well as the general interest in a healthy climate and clean environment, balancing against financially motivated interests of the corporate lobby,” said Carbon Market Watch Executive Director Sabine Frank. “At CMW, where our work focuses on carbon pricing policies designed to deliver a just transition in respect of human rights, we believe that robust democratic processes are crucial.”

Hypocrisy in action

Such anti-NGO projection is particularly rich when considering the blatant conflicts of interest of some of the most ardent critics of NGO funding, notably German EPP lawmaker Monika Hohlmeier.

Amendments Hohlmeier has called for in the European Parliament include demanding an EU NGO regulation, the cancellation of LIFE contracts and “the repayment of EU funds” by “activist networks” lobbying against the Mercosur agreement.

It was revealed that Hohlmeier receives €75,000 annually from BayWa, the largest agricultural trader in Germany, which engages in lobbying activities in Brussels and receives considerable funds from the EU’s LIFE programme. Despite this, Hohlmeier remains the vice-chair of the parliament’s Committee on Budgets and is a member of the Committee on Budgetary Control, granting her significant influence in overseeing EU budgetary matters.

This is not only hypocritical, but an incredible conflict of interest that undermines democratic accountability.

“The real scandal is how comfortable certain policymakers with vested interests are in opening the doors of Parliament to the corporate lobby,” said CMW’s Communications Director Khaled Diab. “It is hypocritical and anti-democratic for politicians like Hohlmeier to demand the defunding of NGO advocacy while receiving money from lobbying corporations.”

LIFE blood

Carbon Market Watch is the recipient of a LIFE operating grant that helps us cover some of our essential operating costs. Not only do we guard our independence jealously and have in place a firewall between funding streams and our policy and advocacy work, this EU money comes with no political strings attached, but with stringent control of delivery against our workplans and of accounting for spending.

In order to discredit and create distrust of organised civil society, political antagonists have floated the idea that secret contracts exist between the European Commission and NGOs. False claims have been made that NGOs lobby on behalf of the EU executive and pursue ideology-led policies with taxpayers’ money. These were refuted by independent fact-checkers.

“The idea that there are ‘secret contracts’ is a work of utter fantasy,” stated CMW policy director Sam Van den plas. “Securing EU funding is a completely transparent and highly competitive process that follows strict guidelines. The use of such funds is monitored by qualified experts and independently audited.”

Notes

Today’s action is coordinated by Civil Society Europe: https://civilsocietyeurope.eu/    

For further reading check out Khaled Diab’s article: Urgent LIFE-saving intervention required for European environmental NGOs