26/11/2025
Today, the European Parliament’s Scrutiny Working Group on NGOs (SWG) met for the first time. Its inaugural press conference confirmed what civil society has warned for months: this working group is politically motivated, structurally biased, and fundamentally damaging to transparency and democratic participation in Europe.
A transparency exercise launched in total opacity
For a group justified on the grounds of “transparency,” its own conduct is remarkably opaque. As of this morning, the Parliament has still not published:
- the working group’s full composition,
- its mandate or terms of reference,
- its meeting calendar,
- or even today’s agenda.
If the European Parliament genuinely believes NGOs suffer from a lack of clarity, it should start by applying the most basic transparency standards to its own work. Instead, the SWG begins hidden from public view – a troubling signal that the scrutiny is political, not procedural.
The SWG’s working methods and composition violate basic democratic and parliamentary norms. Documents requested by the initiators were not shared with other MEPs. The agenda was not discussed beforehand. There is also almost no possibility to influence the final report – expected in about six months – which will be written exclusively by conservative and far-right members. For the Greens, continued participation in the working group is therefore pointless. Daniel Freund, Green coordinator in the Budgetary Control Committee
A biased mandate designed to target civil society
Environmental, human rights and social justice organisations have all raised the same concerns: the SWG’s scope is deliberately narrow. It looks only at NGOs, ignoring the much larger universe of EU-funded beneficiaries – corporate actors, consultancies, think tanks and private contractors who receive far more in public money and exert far greater influence on policymaking. As a result, the group will produce a distorted picture of EU funding, reinforcing the false narrative that nonprofit organisations are uniquely suspect while far less transparent actors escape scrutiny entirely. This is not about accountability; it is about singling out civil society.
A parallel oversight structure that undermines existing rules
The EU already has robust systems to track, audit and evaluate spending across all programmes, including LIFE. The Parliament’s own discharge procedure and a recent European Court of Auditors review found no misuse of funds, no irregularities and no wrongdoing by NGOs. Duplicating these mechanisms through a politically driven working group is not only redundant – it risks weakening the treaty-based oversight architecture that actually works.
The EU-support for NGOs has already been thoroughly scrutinised by ECA, the Commission and the parliament’s budget control committee which has proven no evidence of wrongdoing from the side of the NGOs. At the same time a number of extreme right parties in the European parliament are under investigation for embezzling millions of euros of the Parliaments funds aimed for group activities. When they try to point fingers at the NGO it’s hypocrisy at the highest level. Jonas Sjöstedt, Left Coordinator of CONT Committee
A group dominated by those who have attacked NGOs for years
The composition of the SWG speaks volumes. It is overwhelmingly controlled by conservative and far-right MEPs who have repeatedly opposed stronger transparency rules at EU level and who have spent the past years portraying civil society as untrustworthy or extremist. Most centre and left political groups are boycotting the SWG entirely, having voted against its creation. They rightly refuse to legitimise a process designed to confirm a pre-written narrative rather than assess evidence.
And yet, two members of this working group are themselves facing serious ethical questions:
- one MEP settled an alleged corruption case involving the hiring of a colleague’s 17-year-old son as an assistant;
- another receives €75,000 annually from a private company receiving EU funding under the very programme the group is scrutinising.
Evidence-free accusations, again and again
Yesterday’s press conference recycled familiar insinuations: that NGOs “lobby with Commission money,” that they “shape debates,” that they have become “influential partners” in climate and environmental policy. This is not investigative work but narrative building.
Civil society engages with EU institutions because the Treaties require participatory policymaking. Public funding allows organisations to provide independent expertise, empower communities, monitor implementation of EU law and hold both governments and corporations accountable. Without such support, watchdogs weaken and policymaking becomes more vulnerable to unchecked private influence. The real imbalance in Brussels is not an excess of NGO influence – it is the overwhelming lobbying power of vested corporate interests, which the SWG has chosen not to examine.
The creation of this working group is not an isolated event. Across Europe, civil society organisations face foreign-agent narratives, administrative harassment, SLAPPs, shrinking budgets and attempts to delegitimise public-interest advocacy. These tactics were once associated with governments outside Europe’s democratic community. They are now emerging inside the EU institutions themselves.
Our position is unchanged: this working group must be boycotted
The Good Lobby, together with 30 civil society organisations, has urged progressive political groups to maintain their boycott of the SWG. What we have seen in the past 24 hours only reinforces that call. A body that begins its work in opacity, staffed by politically motivated actors and built on disproven allegations, cannot strengthen transparency. It can only undermine it.