EPP & far-right institutionalising their campaign against NGOs
Civil society
Today’s Conference of Presidents of the European Parliament decided against setting up a Committee of Inquiry into NGO financing, but has agreed to the setting up of a working group on NGO financing inside the Budgetary Control Committee, with a right-wing majority of EPP, ECR & PfE.
Terry Reintke MEP, Greens/EFA Group President who attended today's Conference of Presidents, comments:
"Thanks to EPP leader Manfred Weber, the far-right have today been able to institutionalise their political campaign against civil society in the European Parliament. With the support of the far-right, the EPP has today pushed through an attack against civil society against the votes of the democratic centre.
"This campaign against non-governmental organisations is straight out of the playbook of Orbán and Trump. This political campaign aims to intimidate civil society and undermine the European Commission. We will prevent the far-right from abusing this Parliament to shut down civil society.
"For years the Greens/EFA Group has been campaigning for transparency in the use of EU funds, and in the past we have unfortunately been rather lonely in Parliament. Transparency must apply to all recipients of EU funds, including companies, not just NGOs that are politically inconvenient for the EPP and the far-right."
