Attack against civil society stalled until independent Court of Auditors Report
Response to the controversial EPP report
Attack against civil society stalled until independent Court of Auditors Report
A couple of weeks ago, we sounded the alarm in response to a controversial report, penned by the EPP group in the European Parliament, which attacked NGOs and civil society organisations in a biased and unconvincing manner. It even proposed that NGOs that do not comply with the EU’s “strategic commercial and security-policy objectives” should not receive EU funding, like those organisations campaigning against the EU’s free trade policies.
But now we have good news! As a result of the mobilisation by NGOs, the negative feedback by the Commission to the draft report, and the resistance from various groups in the European Parliament to continue working on a report of this kind; the EPP has retracted – at least for now. They recently agreed to stall the report until the European Court of Auditors has the opportunity to conduct its own investigation into the financing and transparency of NGOs. This should take at least a year to complete.
Then, depending on the outcome of the Court of Auditors report, which should at least be based on more objective and complete data than the Pieper report, the Parliament’s budgetary control committee would decide what should be the appropriate follow-up and what should eventually be done with Pieper’s draft. We will be sure to keep you up to date.
