Members of the national conservative Patriots for Europe (PfE)—the third largest group in the European Parliament (EP) and the main opposition bloc in Brussels—have launched a campaign to force the Commission to disclose all contracts with European Union-funded non-governmental organizations (NGOs).
The move follows recent revelations that—much like with USAID in America—“billions of euros” in EU taxpayer funds have been spent on progressive political activism under the nose of national governments across the bloc. Now the conservatives are demanding full transparency on the issue.
Patriot lawmakers first submitted 86 freedom of information requests to different directorates-general, all of which were either ignored or rejected due to being too “vague” in their scope—which is not a valid reason under EU law, MEP Csaba Dömötör (Fidesz) explained in a press conference on Thursday, March 27th.
The next steps will include raising the issue with the newly elected European Ombudsman, Teresa Anjinho, hoping she would put additional pressure on the Commission. However, as von der Leyen’s Commission will likely ignore Anjinho’s ruling just as it did countless times with her predecessor, Emily O’Riley, the Patriots are fully prepared to take the EU executive to court over its violation of the fundamental right to free information.
Some examples that have become public recently include hundreds of millions of euros going to Eurofederalist think tanks and green or gender activists who are then invited by the Commission to become “stakeholders” and influence EU legislation. The EU also financed anti-government protests in several conservative member states, as well as organizations that focus solely on suing EU countries on behalf of illegal migrants.
As a concrete example, Dömötör cited a €2.4 million grant that the EU awarded for “fostering queer feminist intersectional resistances.”
All this, however, is just the tip of the iceberg. The Patriots obtained leaked information from the EP’s budgetary control (CONT) committee that indicates that there are as many as 10,000 such contracts. Now, the conservatives will not stop until they have every piece of “the puzzle,” Dömötör said.
European citizens have the right to know which NGOs were financed, for what purpose, and also the amount of the grant.
All we want is transparency. Now it’s time that the Commission proves its democratic values. The very same values it demands from all member states.
| @domotor_cs: “Patriots demand full transparency regarding the NGO contracts.” pic.twitter.com/JKcNUlMd79
— Patriots for Europe (@PatriotsEP) March 20, 2025
To give a more in-depth explanation of the process, Dömötör—along with his colleagues Elisabeth Dieringer (FPÖ) and András László (Fidesz)—held a public meeting in the European Parliament on Wednesday, March 26th.
They also invited representatives of MCC Brussels, a conservative think tank that blew the lid off the current NGO scandal by recently releasing an explosive report about which organizations and projects the EU has been financing with millions in taxpayer funds, often explicitly against the political interests of democratically elected governments.
“What’s happening in Brussels is best described as a parasitical relationship,” Frank Furedi, director of MCC Brussels explained when detailing the think tank’s findings. “In the absence of a European demos that could legitimize it, the Commission funds NGOs who then become stakeholders to uphold the appearance of a demos to legitimize progressive legislation.”
Brussels pays the NGOs, then “consults” them, so of course they say what the Commission wants to hear. This is a cycle of corruption, not of money, but corruption of democracy.
During the meeting, the MEPs also reiterated MCC’s call for establishing an ‘EU DOGE’—a U.S.-style ‘department of government efficiency’—to independently audit both NGO and commercial contracts.
“We must make these payments publicly available and traceable,” MEP András László said. “We cannot expect mainstream media to help us fight for transparency, because they are also on the payslip,” he said, adding that we now know that USAID was paying over 6000 journalists globally, and the EU is doing the same in Europe.
This also invites questioning of the ‘unequal playing field’ for media organizations in Brussels. The Patriots explained that the fact that ‘EU-friendly’ left-wing media receive millions of euros from EU taxpayer funds, often hidden within classified contracts with intermediaries, while conservative outlets are denied even media accreditation in the EP—worth its own separate lawsuit!i
