Is the political environment in Brussels the worst ever for NGOs?

Nongovernmental organizations in Brussels, Belgium, are increasingly coming under fire from right-wing politicians over their advocacy work, with veteran development advocates describing the political environment in the de facto capital of the European Union as “the worst we’ve ever had.” The past year has seen a slew of reports and debates around NGO lobbying and transparency, as well as a series of amendments on the issue tabled in key parliamentary committees, with some EU politicians accusing NGOs of “propaganda” and political bias. NGOs recently pushed back, in turn accusing those politicians of “false narratives and disinformation.” A key dispute has centered on how NGOs use EU funding for advocacy. But new guidance on the issue ended up muddying the waters further. As a result, some parts of the European Commission have been altering their contracts with NGOs to change the language around advocacy. So far, those changes have mostly affected environmental nonprofits receiving funding from the Commission’s LIFE program, as well as some health NGOs, but at least one development organization has also had its contract amended to remove the words “advocacy” and “influence,” Devex has learned. While others have escaped contractual changes so far, development leaders say the issue is distracting from their work and making it harder for them to meet officials to advocate for causes. Right now, while some of the impact is down to changes in the rules, as much or more is caused by confusion about what those rules are and uncertainty about how to operate in the face of a perceived threat. Last month, hundreds of civil society organizations across Europe — including Concord, the network of European development NGOs, and Alliance2015, a smaller network of aid NGOs — published a joint statement decrying “an unprecedented attack [on civil society] coming from certain Members of the European Parliament.” They pointed particularly to some members of the European People’s Party, or EPP, — a powerful center-right grouping which has been the biggest bloc in the European Parliament for more than two decades — and parties further to the right of the EPP, which now make up nearly a quarter of the parliament. The joint statement called on “all democratic forces to oppose false narratives and disinformation around the role of civil society organisations, to protect our unique role in European democracy and to support public funding for civil society.” What is under attack? A key focus of the fight has been a dispute over whether NGOs should be able to use grant funding from the European Commission to advocate for causes at European institutions, including the European Parliament. Operating grants from the commission, which help NGOs cover core costs, are often vital in enabling them to campaign on issues from health to climate to aid, and ensuring they have a voice when EU-wide legislation is being debated. However, some members of the EPP have been campaigning stridently against this, arguing that it threatens the separation of powers — in other words, the independence of the European Parliament from the commission, the EU’s executive branch. In particular, some EPP politicians accused environmental NGOs supported by the LIFE program of “shadow lobbying” on behalf of the commission to promote its green policies to members of the European Parliament, or MEPs. EPP politicians also claim that the commission has insufficient oversight of how NGOs spend its grants, particularly when it comes to subcontracting. NGOs fiercely dispute these claims. They insisted that their policy positions are independent, and that their ability to advocate for causes at EU institutions is an essential part of the democratic process. Without it, they said, there would be no counterbalance to the thousands of profitmaking organizations that lobby in Brussels. For example, funding for NGOs under the LIFE program was initially conceived as a way to provide some balance to corporate lobbying interests when it comes to EU environmental policies, according to Politico. Changing the rules to prevent those NGOs from meeting with politicians unravels that balance, civil society advocates said. Civil society is “a fundamental pillar in democracy, in making sure that … diverse views are heard, so that the industry lobby can’t just push through what they want,” said Tanya Cox, director of Concord, which doesn’t receive LIFE funding but does get about half of its annual income from a commission operating grant. There is far less transparency in the private sector than among NGOs, Cox argued. “We have to do such detailed reports on our funding,” she said. “We have to be able to justify every single centime we spend. And we are audited every year, not just by our own auditors [but also] externally by EU auditors.” A special report released in April by the European Court of Auditors — the body that oversees EU financial management — found that there are key areas for improvement in the commission’s funding of NGOs. For example, it called for a consistent definition of nongovernmental organizations, more accessible data on the funding that the EU provides for them, and better background checks before funding is provided. Civil society organizations in Brussels generally welcomed the report, saying that they too were in favor of better processes — but said the report found no evidence of any scandal or misuse of funds. They added that the recommendations should apply to all organizations being funded by the commission, not just NGOs — which, according to the ECA report, account for a very small proportion of the EU budget. What have the impacts been? Under the pressure of criticisms from MEPs — particularly in the parliament’s budgetary control committee, which reviews and signs off the commission’s management of the budget — the commission issued new guidance on funding for NGO advocacy in May last year. The guidance indicated that contracts with organizations must not “mandate” that specific policy positions are presented to any EU institution or its members. NGOs said this framing made no sense because it is they who present proposals to the commission for work they want to do, not the other way round. While proposed work programs may include advocacy, they said, the commission never mandates the positions that NGOs can take. Despite the accusations, nobody so far has been able to produce evidence of the commission mandating an NGO policy position. Even more broadly, the guidance suggested that any advocacy work targeting EU institutions — such as sending letters or organizing meetings with EU representatives — “may entail a reputational risk for the Union,” and that this should be considered when assessing applications for funding. But advocates said that such work is integral to civil society’s democratic role in Brussels, and that without commission funding it would be all but impossible for many cash-strapped NGOs to do it. The full impact of the guidance remains unclear as it continues to unfold. Toward the end of last year, NGOs receiving funding from the commission’s LIFE program on environmental and climate action — including the World Wide Fund for Nature, or WWF, and Friends of the Earth — were the first to receive letters telling them that they could no longer use the money to advocate for environmental causes at EU institutions and had to amend their grant contracts accordingly, Politico reported. Recently, health NGOs receiving grants from the commission’s Health and Digital Executive Agency received letters to the same effect. While NGOs receiving EU humanitarian and development funding have not received such letters, Cox told Devex that Concord was asked by the commission’s development department DG INTPA to remove mentions of advocacy from its contract. Yet, EU advocacy is integral to Concord’s work — it describes itself as “the main interlocutor with the EU institutions on sustainable development policy and international cooperation.” The request from DG INTPA was especially surprising, said Cox, because as the EU’s development agency, it is “supposed to actually promote … the involvement of civil society. It’s supposed to be part of their values.” Devex asked DG INTPA to confirm if any such requests had been made, why, and whether it impacted the work that NGOs could undertake under the contracts. However, after weeks of engagement, we had not received answers at the time of publication. Devex also contacted Monika Hohlmeier, an EPP MEP on the budgetary control committee who has been a leading critic of the use of commission funding for advocacy work and who demanded a review of some NGO contracts over the issue, for her perspective. She did not respond. Other NGOs have not received specific instructions but have been left confused about the activities they’re allowed to undertake. There are fears that, eventually, all NGOs could receive similar letters to the environmental and health groups, preventing them from using EU funding for advocating for their causes at the EU institutions. Beyond contractual changes, development NGOs told Devex that the furore has reduced their access to EU politicians and officials, and therefore their ability to advocate for development causes at the EU level. Both Cox and Floris Faber, director of ACT Alliance EU — a network of faith-based European aid groups that do not directly receive commission funding — said their organizations are finding it harder to set up meetings. Faber speculated that the intense scrutiny could be creating nervousness about meeting with NGOs, as well as questions around what is and isn’t allowed. For example, NGOs in Brussels often bring in human rights defenders and development advocates from overseas to speak to parliamentarians about issues in their countries. But coming from outside the EU, those people and their organizations are not registered in the EU Transparency Register — a prerequisite for conducting lobbying or advocacy work at the EU institutions. While this has been done for years with no problems, some are now second-guessing the practice. What has the response been? While there have been some concrete changes over the past year — primarily the new budget guidance and subsequent funding changes for some NGOs — many of the attacks have been largely symbolic, coming in the form of parliamentary debates and amendments to reports. But NGO leaders said a big part of the challenge has simply been keeping track of all the moving parts, defending themselves where necessary, and figuring out how to operate amid the confusion. “This is just taking up so much of our time,” said Cox. “It’s a complete distraction from us actually getting on with the work that we should be doing.” Faber agreed, estimating that the situation is taking up around a third of his time. “We’re seeing amendments in various documents or various pieces of legislation that are popping up here and there which are very anti-civil society and they’re in places where you wouldn’t actually have expected them to be. So there’s a vigilance that’s required which we haven’t really seen before,” he said. Some MEPs — including from the EPP — have defended the work of NGOs. Politico recently reported that the issue is driving a wedge between the EPP and its centrist allies, the liberal Renew Europe group and the center-left Socialists and Democrats. Renew Europe leader Valérie Hayer accused the EPP of “embracing an agenda of the extreme right” on the issue, and said the campaign was “obviously meant to shrink political and democratic space for NGO work.” Parties further to the left have also been supportive of civil society. The budgetary control committee provisionally signed off the commission’s management of the 2023 budget in April after members largely voted down an attempt by Hohlmeier and others to include criticisms of NGO transparency and funding in the final report. Two members from the far-right Patriots for Europe group had even attempted to include an amendment accusing the commission of “funnelling billions into a shadowy network of NGOs and think tanks to promote its own political agenda,” referring to an “enormous EU-NGO propaganda complex.” Similarly, the parliament’s environment committee narrowly rejected a recent motion to censure the commission for its funding of environmental campaign groups under the LIFE program after three EPP MEPs broke rank to vote against it. Although these amendments failed to pass, NGO professionals are rattled. They said that while some members of the EPP group have been critical of them for years, this narrative has been boosted by the surge of populist and hard-right politicians who entered the European Parliament following elections last summer. And they believe that the disparate campaigns and complaints against them add up to a much broader attempt to delegitimize the work of civil society groups. EPP representatives have denied this. Tomáš Zdechovský, who currently leads the EPP’s work on the topic in the budgetary control committee, told The Guardian: “We don’t want to liquidate any NGOs. We only want transparency.” But he also claimed that NGOs have “secret contracts” with the commission to lobby MEPs, for which he did not provide evidence. NGOs said they fear for the future of funding from the EU, and their ability to have a voice in EU policy and lawmaking. At the very least, it’s making NGOs less effective. “What’s happening … is keeping us as humanitarian and development organizations quite occupied with stuff that is not central to reducing poverty or to saving lives,” said Faber. “That’s something that really worries me.” For Cox, who has worked in development advocacy in Brussels for around two decades, this is a new low. “This is, as far as I’ve seen it, the worst we’ve ever had,” she said. “And it won’t improve over the course of the coming five years. This is here for this parliamentary cycle.”