Debate: Transparency and accountability of non-governmental organisations funded from the EU budget
Date: TUESDAY, 16 JANUARY 2024
Speaker: Didier Reynders
Language: EN

The Commission would firstly like to highlight the open cooperation with the European Parliament in the process of preparing the report. The Commission acknowledges and supports the crucial role of non-governmental organisations in fighting corruption and in protecting and promoting fundamental rights, rule of law and democracy. The Commission is led by the objective of protecting the EU’s financial interests, a goal we share with the European Parliament. The Commission is both politically committed and legally bound to ensuring that organisations involved in criminal unethical practices, or those incompatible with EU values, do not receive EU financial support. This, of course, includes upholding the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. In this context, we feel that the report we are discussing today does not fully reflect the robustness of the existing legal framework, which helps us ensure a strong protection of Union financial interests for all beneficiaries, including NGOs. I would like to recall the main safeguards already in place today. The Commission’s early detection and exclusion system (EDES) is essentially a blacklist, which allows us to exclude problematic operators from receiving EU funding. We apply a rigorous selection process, carried out prior to the award of funding. Indeed, in all our discussions, we are occasionally accused of requiring too many checks for awarding funds. The close monitoring during the implementation of agreements and contracts; the various mechanisms in the contractual arrangements safeguarding the proper use of EU funds, including for the violation of EU values. If an entity is engaged in any criminal or unethical practices or acts against EU values, we have the legal framework in place to prevent such entities from receiving EU funds and EU funding. The Commission would also like to highlight the steps it has already taken to strengthen the transparency of funding to NGOs and provide more explicit safeguards for the protection of EU values. Upon proposal of the Commission, the Financial Regulation – recast politically agreed in trilogue already in December last year – provides the following: a definition of a non-governmental organisation and an obligation for all grant applicants to systematically declare whether they fall under this definition; ambitious transparency provisions that will ensure that the financial transparency system can act as a real, centralised platform for the publication of information in all management modes; an explicit new grant for excluding entities from EU funding under the early detection and exclusion system for incitement to discrimination, hatred or violence; and an explicit reference to the obligation for the Commission and Member States to respect EU values and the Charter of Fundamental Rights when implementing the budget. The Commission also adopted a proposal for a directive establishing a new form of non-profit associations. This will be a new vehicle fostering the EU democratic space while facilitating cross-border operations of associations. Last December, we presented the ‘defence of democracy’ package, which includes a draft directive aiming to establish mandatory national transparency requirements for all entities – including, where relevant, NGOs – undertaking interest representation activities on behalf of third countries. Those entities would be obliged to declare the annual amount of funding received from third countries. In light of all this, we would like to advocate for a balanced approach to EU funding to NGOs that ensures protection of EU financial interests, while imposing proportionate requirements to beneficiaries of EU funds. Stricter controls require more reporting and therefore more paperwork for beneficiaries. As a consequence, they inherently complicate access to EU funding for small organisations with limited capacities. The Commission will examine thoroughly the recommendations in the report and will work together with Parliament to continue ensuring that EU values and the principle of transparency are upheld in EU funding to all beneficiaries. Of course, we will try to take into account the remarks that will be possible to listen to today in your interventions. Thank you all very much for your attention and for your work.