08/05/2026
A vote in the European Parliament last month barely made the news. Tucked into a report on the EU livestock sector was an amendment that has nothing to do with farming and everything to do with who gets to influence EU policy. The amendment singles out NGOs, calling for tighter scrutiny of their funding and activities, and suggests they may be exercising undue influence on EU policymaking. On paper, this is framed as a transparency issue:
“ The European Parliament […] stresses the need for increased transparency in the allocation and use of EU funds allocated to non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in order to prevent any risk of misuse or undue influence on EU policies; calls on the Commission to establish a public register specifying the amount and purpose of funding received by NGOs; is concerned about the allocation of funds, including through the programme for the environment and climate action (LIFE), to NGOs carrying out lobbying activities before the EU institutions, in particular on animal welfare, thereby potentially violating the principles of separation of powers and sincere cooperation; calls on the Commission to stop funding NGOs conducting targeted lobbying and conveying a misleading, militant and ideological image of livestock farming in Europe; calls on the Commission to ensure that all beneficiaries of consolidated funds disclose their meetings with representatives of the EU institutions when they aim to influence EU policies;”
Transparency, selectively applied
Transparency is a fundamental principle of democratic governance. Civil society organisations already operate under strict rules: financial audits, reporting obligations, and transparency requirements that many other actors in Brussels do not face to the same extent.
So why this focus on NGOs, and why now?
Because it works rhetorically. Calling for “increased scrutiny” of a particular group implies there’s already something to scrutinise. It plants doubt. And over time, that doubt hardens into a narrative: that civil society is somehow less legitimate, less accountable, or more suspect than others involved in shaping EU policy.
Not an isolated move
This development does not come out of nowhere. It follows the establishment of a dedicated scrutiny working group on NGO financing within the European Parliament, an initiative that has already raised concerns among civil society actors and that we have discussed previously. The pattern is becoming harder to ignore. Taken together, these steps point to a broader shift: from engaging with civil society as a partner to treating it as an object of suspicion. Civil society doesn’t just represent organised interests – it gives voice to people who would otherwise have no seat at the table. It provides expertise, watchdog functions, and real-world perspectives that strengthen policy outcomes. Undermining their credibility doesn’t just affect organisations. It weakens the broader democratic ecosystem. And when this signal comes from the European Parliament itself, the EU’s only directly elected body, it carries particular weight.
A broader pattern, increasingly visible
As Professor Alemanno, founder of The Good Lobby, has been arguing, these developments risk fitting into a wider pattern. From the creation of dedicated scrutiny mechanisms to repeated narratives questioning NGO legitimacy, the cumulative effect can be to normalise distrust towards civil society while leaving other forms of influence comparatively unexamined. Whether intentional or not, such dynamics can gradually reshape the conditions under which civil society operates – and at a moment when democratic participation is already fragile, the EU’s institutions should be strengthening those conditions, not eroding them.