The Brief: The real problem with Weber’s anti-NGO crusade

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Manfred Weber’s crusade against NGOs could revive discussions from the 90s about how democratic the EU really is.

The centre-right EPP has won backing for an investigation into “occult” funding contracts, by which the EU dispenses money to so-called civil society groups. The move has outraged the Socialists, Liberals and Greens. 

Exactly how much money is being given to “NGOs” via thousands of funding structures remains unclear – the European Commission has so far refused to make this information public.  Auditors suggest they themselves don’t know but the figure is likely in the billions.

But Weber's campaign was fuelled by the revelation that environmental groups receive €15 million per year to lobby in Brussels. In case you're asking how they can still call themselves “non-governmental”, the confusion is understandable.

Few outside Schuman circles know of the frenzied fights between EU academics over whether the bloc is truly democratic. Nor are they aware of the institutional efforts to remedy the lack of real European citizens by breast-feeding “civil society” groups that cluster around the European Commission.

The theory goes that by helping such organisations exist, EU citizens would thereby be represented in the political heartland. All it took was a few grants to allow organisations like the European Network of Women to have a seat near the bloc's executive. That's an early example (funded from the 1970s); many others would follow. 

But over the years, some of these groups have become so Brusselised that their connection to the citizens they claim to represent was greatly reduced. Instead they became heavily reliant on EU support to continue their operations.

Hence the outrage when Weber and his loyal EPP soldiers began to call that very support into question. 

Have NGOs forgotten how to exist independently?

Many groups have roots so shrivelled they hardly deserve the label. Take the €700,000 provided in 2025 to the “Renewables Grid Initiative” via the bloc’s LIFE scheme. The group's members are either grid operators or environmental NGOs which themselves receive EU money. 

How can progressive parties draw comparisons to Viktor Orban’s Hungary, where civil society groups at least represent citizens’ genuine desire for a more liberal society.

NGOs in Brussels should be able to stand on their own two feet, otherwise how can they truly represent the citizens whose money sustains them?

And yet the way the conservatives are addressing the issue makes a mockery of how serious the situation is. 

Weber’s trusted MEPs attacked funding for environmental groups often allied with the EPP’s political opponents. To get his inquiry across he had to rely on support from nationalists and proto-fascist parties, breaching the informal “cordon sanitaire”.

In the end, the EPP looks like a horde of vengeful crusaders rather than politicians committed to the European project. 

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