“Despite some progress since ourlast audit, the picture of EU funding for NGOs remains hazy, as information on EU funding--including lobbying--is neither reliable nor transparent,” says LaimaAndrikienė, member of the European Court of Auditors. Photo: Archives/ECA

“Despite some progress since ourlast audit, the picture of EU funding for NGOs remains hazy, as information on EU funding--including lobbying--is neither reliable nor transparent,” says LaimaAndrikienė, member of the European Court of Auditors. Photo: Archives/ECA

EU funding of €7.4bn was granted to NGOs between 2021 and 2023, much of it without any real transparency,” says a report by the European Court of Auditors published on Monday 7 April, sounding the alarm.

With “fragmented and unreliable” information, "NGOs’ lobbying and advocacy activities are not clearly disclosed.” Whilst the European Union has granted €7.4bn to non-governmental organisations (NGOs) between 2021 and 2023 as part of its internal policies, the European Court of Auditors deplores excessive opacity in this funding, in a published on Monday 7 April.

“Despite improvements, information on EU funding awarded to NGOs that are active in the bloc’s internal policies remains inaccurate and incomplete. The European Commission did not properly disclose certain EU-funded advocacy activities such as lobbying, and there are no active checks to ensure that the funded NGOs respect EU values, something which exposes the EU to reputational risk,” warns the European Court of Auditors in its report, denouncing a lack of transparency.

The aftermath of “Qatarargate”

 “To hold public decision-makers to account, citizens must know to whom and for what purpose EU funds are awarded, but also how they are used and whether recipients respect EU values. Public interest in scaling up transparency requirements for NGOs has increased since the ‘Qatargate’ scandal in 2022.” notes the Luxembourg-based EU institution, which nevertheless notes that the European Commission has made progress in gathering information on European funding granted to NGOs since its last audit in 2018, which focussed on external policy.

To produce its report, the European Court of Auditors examined the transparency of 90 NGOs’ calls for proposals and assessed the information made available to the public. “Although the commission checks the main aspects of the NGO definition, these checks are not complete. We found that more than 90% of entities----over 70,000--to which payments were made in the accounting system in the 2021-2023 period were not categorised as an NGO or non-NGO, as this field was left blank (optional for recipients)," explained Laima Andrikienė, the member of the European Court of Auditors responsible for the report, at a press conference on Monday 7 April.

The definition of the term “NGO” also varies from one EU country to another and is rarely enshrined in national legislation. In 2024, the EU essentially defined an NGO as a non-profit organisation, independent of public authorities. “Whilst this is a step in the right direction, the definition alone cannot ensure that NGOs are correctly classified in the EU’s financial transparency system. This is because entities self-declare as NGOs, and the commission does not check important aspects of their status, including whether a government exerts significant influence over their governing bodies or whether an NGO pursues its members’ commercial interests. For example, one large research institute was categorised as an NGO while its governing body was composed solely of government representatives,” the European Court of Auditors notes in its report.

An initial admission by the European Commission

Some of the operating grants awarded by the EU to NGOs “may finance advocacy activities such as lobbying. In our sample, we came across two cases of operating grants financed by the Life programme, which included advocacy activities with policymakers,” said the ECA’s report. “ “Both NGOs are registered in the EUTR as interest representatives; however, the information in F&T does not disclose any such activities. Even if there are no legal requirements to disclose advocacy activities included in operating grants for NGOs, we consider that their sensitive nature, when funded by the EU, requires additional transparency.”

Ironically, this publication comes just a few days after the European Commission acknowledged that it had indirectly funded NGOs to carry out political lobbying activities on its own behalf, notably via the “Life programme,” an environmental funding instrument. “The commission has recognised that in some cases, work programmes submitted by the NGOs and annexed to the operating grant agreements contained specific advocacy actions and undue lobbying activities. The commission has taken action to prevent such cases in the future and will take further measures to strengthen transparency and include appropriate safeguards,” it admitted in a statement issued on 1 April 2025.

This article was originally published in .

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