EU funding has supported advocacy activities by NGOs for over 60 years. Yet as Rosa Sanchez Salgado explains, there is now a fierce debate taking place in Brussels over whether this funding should continue.
There is currently a full-fledged fight over whether the European Commission should provide European NGOs with funding for advocacy activities. The European Commission has been accused of paying green NGOs to lobby other institutions on its behalf.
Yet, many believe that this is a campaign aimed at restricting the influence of NGOs in EU policymaking with a view to winning support from far-right voters. In this context, the European Parliament Committee on budgetary control requested to examine 28 grant contracts with NGOs (at the request of centre-right and right groups) and with business giants (at the request of left-wing groups), though the request was eventually rejected by the Committee.
A European Court of Auditors report is the latest twist in the battle over funding NGOs. The report, which was released in April, has been cited by conservative lawmakers as evidence for cutting NGO funding on the basis that it lacks transparency. Meanwhile, NGOs argue that the report does not find any evidence of misuse of funds by NGOs. The funding wars therefore look set to continue for the foreseeable future.
Why do NGOs receive EU funding?
The Commission has supported the advocacy activities of NGOs for more than 60 years. During the 1970s and 1980s, the Commission even promoted the creation of European NGOs and all kinds of European groups, including powerful business groups such as the Round Table of Industrialists. This funding has long dismayed Eurosceptics, who see the European institutions as effectively using taxpayer money to create a European civil society in the pursuit of “ever closer union”. But it also serves a more practical purpose.
The European institutions need the expertise and support of business and citizen groups for their lawmaking work. They are essentially confronted with a “Kissinger question” in this context, namely who do we talk to when we want to talk to European industry or European citizen groups? And would it save taxpayer money if the Commission had to talk to groups from 27 member states in 24 or more languages? The advocacy activities of EU networks are being supported because they ultimately perform an important function by coordinating and aggregating interests.
Representation and bias
As is well-known in academic circles, many citizen groups would not exist without external support or incentives. This is known as the free rider dilemma. But are European NGOs as representative as they should be? Opinions differ on this point. Many think that European NGOs are falling short and that they do not sufficiently represent their members and supporters. Many others think that European NGOs are efficient champions of certain goals and values to which national organisations and members adhere.
The Commission and Parliament have sometimes supported citizens groups at different times to avoid capture from business groups. For example, in the wake of the EU debt crisis, European policymakers realised that part of the problem was that they had drafted laws that exclusively reflected the views expressed by financial sector professionals. Following this, they decided to support organisations working in the interests of consumers of financial services and EU funding has indeed contributed to mitigating the ever-enduring predominance of business interests.
Another possible issue with EU funding for NGOs is bias. With the European Commission distributing substantial amounts of money to NGOs, there is a potential risk that EU officials could exert control over these organisations or even use them for their own purposes.
However, the evidence for this is limited. While NGOs are sometimes fooled by public officials or corporations, it is doubtful the public funding they receive is the cause of this. EU-funded NGOs frequently oppose Commission policies – including the Green Deal – and their opinions are not substantially different from the opinions of large non-EU funded NGOs. If we were to conclude that the Commission has paid Green NGOs to lobby on the Green Deal, then we would also have to conclude that the Commission has paid to receive criticism.
A risky strategy
In recent history, the Commission’s attitude towards European civil society has increasingly depended on its reputational needs. During the Commission’s attempts to pursue a renewal of European Governance in the early 2000s, European civil society was celebrated as the best way to engage European citizens. But now that NGOs are a frequent target of criticism by conservatives and the far right, the Commission might think it is wiser to keep some distance.
Yet if Commission officials are considering cutting the funding of European citizen groups on this basis, they should know that these groups will not go down without a fight. Opposing European citizen groups thus risks inadvertently creating thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of Eurosceptics.
If past history is anything to go by, it would also probably fail. Previous attempts by the Commission to weaken large European citizen groups have failed in the past. In 2000, the Commission suggested that the development Committee of NGOs was not properly able to use EU funding, which was perceived in Brussels circles as an attempt to silence the increasing activism of this citizen group.
After an intense advocacy campaign from its member organisations (and after gaining the support of the European Parliament and many member states) the Commission had to back down. More than two decades later, the successor of this group, CONCORD Europe, which includes more than 2,600 member organisations, is still generously funded by Commission operational grants.
A diversity of funding options
As annoying as they may be to some people, European NGOs are European civil society. To go against European NGOs is to go against European integration. It is logical for Eurosceptics to oppose funding for these NGOs, since this position matches their preferences and values, but this logic does not hold for the Commission. And if the EU does not support European NGOs, who will? Corporations in need of greenwashing, philanthropic billionaires or foreign interests?
It is well known that the only way to preserve the autonomy of NGOs and citizen groups is to promote a diversity of funding options. If the EU wants citizens and certain values to be represented in the European policy process, EU public funding (along with more citizen-oriented sources like crowdfunding) will ultimately have to be part of the funding mix.
Note: This article gives the views of the author, not the position of EUROPP – European Politics and Policy or the London School of Economics. Featured image credit: © European Union