ÖVP under fire: attack on civil society in Brussels!

ÖVP under fire: attack on civil society in Brussels!

Brüssel, Belgien - The discussion about the position of non -governmental organizations (NGOs) in the European Union has recently gained intensity. Again and again there are attacks on civil society organizations, especially on the part of the ÖVP (Austrian People's Party). These attacks are directed against NGOs at the federal and EU level. As ots.at together with other rights in the EU Parliament has been in life called. This decision was made against the resistance of the liberals, Social Democrats and Greens.

Leonore Gewessler, climate protection spokeswoman for the Greens, criticizes the cooperation of the ÖVP with extreme rights and urges the ÖVP to hire its defamation campaign against civil society. It emphasizes that the ÖVP tries to water important climate and social laws. While the ÖVP stimulates a tightening of the transparency rules for NGOs, this claim was refuted by both politico and the EU Commission.

transparency and criticism of the report of the European Court of Auditors

The European Court of Auditors has published a report that deals with the financing of NGOs by the EU and focuses on transparency when using EU funds. LobbyControl describes the report as one-sided and criticizes that it takes up misleading narrative conservative EU members. According to Nina Katzemich of LobbyControl, the transparency of companies and other associations is not taken into account to the extent that it would be necessary. It is important that the public sector provides civil society organizations to support their lobby work.
The 50 most sales -strong companies in the EU spent around 200 million euros for lobby work.

In addition, it is emphasized that the allocation of EU funds to NGOs is subject to strict accounting obligations. Nevertheless, there is increasingly dissatisfaction with the poor transparency of the financial resources, which was also noted by members of the European Auditors' Court of Auditors such as Laima Andrikienė. The report also addresses the lack of clear guidelines regarding a clear definition of NGOs, and thus leads to confusion in the lobby register.

The role of the NGOs in democracy

The Greens emphasize the indispensable role of independent NGOs for functioning a democracy. Lena Schilling, Green MEP, condemns the measures of the ÖVP as political intimidation and draws parallels to tactics that are used by authoritarian governments like that of Viktor Orbán. At a time when the pressure on civil society increases, political forces, in particular conservative parties, undermine civil society engagement in the field of climate protection.

From 2021 to 2023, over seven billion euros flowed to NGOs into central policy areas such as cohesion, research, migration and the environment. Despite the latest attacks, the NGOs defend their way of working and see no evidence of rule violations or abuse of EU funds. The Greens therefore call for ÖVP party leader Christian Stocker to end the attempts at intimidation and to maintain the independence of civil society actors in order not to endanger an essential component of the democratic values.