Defending Democracy from the Barbarians and Uncivil Society
Reflections from a Day of Conferences in the European Parliament Organized to Save NGOs and Civil Society.
The activists are furious…
The wave of recent attacks on NGO funding from the extreme right (re: European People’s Party), they claim, have aimed at defunding European NGOs and even trying to deny their right to exist. There were two events organized on the same day (June 12, 2025) in the European Parliament to fight back, one called “Defending Democracy” hosted by the Greens/EFA, and the other, entitled “Renew Civil Society’s Role in Europe” organized by Renew Europe. Since I have written a few things on NGO and foundation transparency, I decided to go to both.
The Defending Democracy event kicked off with Patrizia Heidegger, deputy secretary general of the European Environmental Bureau, who set the angry tone for the day saying how the fake news on the weekend of NGO-EU funding contracts, published in the Welt am Sonntag, was designed to manipulate the media. I think Patrizia was more annoyed about having to answer her emails on a weekend than anything else. Bots and fake accounts amplified this news, she maintained, trying to destroy the reputation and influence of NGO funding. See the Firebreak reporting on the Welt am Sonntag investigation which I can assure Patrizia was neither spread by a bot nor a fake account. The news is real.
The angry tone continued with Gabriella Civico, president of Civil Society Europe spoke on the need for NGOs to stick together to resist the malicious attacks. A civil society report is coming out later this year to advise the NGOs on how to work through this.
The fighting spirit hit its zenith when Chloé Ridel, French S&D (socialist) Member of the European Parliament (MEP), denied that the “fake contracts” between the European Commission and NGOs had ever existed, claiming this as simply another egregious attack from the far right (re: European People’s Party). Spitting mad, Chloé rallied the assembled mob to focus instead on the “hundreds of millions of euros in donations from lobbyists going to MEPs, for example, in France, to defend the gas lobby”. According to Ridel, this latest NGO attack in the German media, was all part of a media trick to undermine the Green Deal and the far right’s attempt to set up a working group on NGO funding to continue spreading false claims. The MEP saw her role, with the other left-wing parties, to bring the attention of the media back to focus on other actors on the right receiving funding. Civil society must not be in a defensive mode, she added, but go on the offensive, and Chloé had all guns blazing.
There were some constructive ideas as well:
Lisa Schüler from the German Caritas office showed the European Code of Partnership as a best practice and urged all NGO funding to follow this code. It is though a voluntary code.
Otilia Nutu from the Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum looked at the Norwegian approach of open, competitive grants as a smart approach for EU NGO funding.
Michal Wawrykiewicz, Polish EPP MEP compared the situation today to the crackdown in 2015 in Poland when the Law and Justice Party started to attack NGOs. He reflected on how the judges played a role to protect the NGOs then but as a member of the European People’s Party, he did not discuss the present issue of NGO transparency.
After the session’s opening remarks, I was left wondering: What about the real issue: foundation transparency?
Don’t Touch My Foundation
After the opening round of statements, I decided to confuse the debate by making an intervention, arguing that EU funding of NGOs, to the tune of hundreds of thousands of euros, was really small beer. My real concern was how non-transparent foundations, mostly run by American tech billionaires, were intervening with hundreds of millions of euros channeled into NGOs and media groups via dark, donor-advised funds and third party fiscal sponsors. As regular readers to the Firebreak know, foundations are paying off large numbers of NGOs and media groups, non-transparently, to control the narrative.
I cited as an example the European Climate Foundation (ECF), whose 2023 two-page balance sheet showed around €275 million in revenue and expenses. I stated the obvious, that a large number of the NGOs in the room are receiving funding from the ECF but that the organization, that claims an NGO status, declares zero of how the money is spent and where it came from. Then I added that this group hired the most expensive lobbyists, journalists and former European leaders to control the climate narrative. My question was simple: Shouldn’t foundations be forced to be transparent with their allocations and sources of funding?
Patrizia Heidegger from the European Environment Bureau (EEB) scowled at my ECF question. She admitted that her organization receives annual funding from the ECF and the EEB declares it. Mind you, the EEB doesn’t declare how much they received or how EEB also receives further donations from other foundations within the ECF network. Transparency is, indeed, for stupid people. Heidegger added that the EEB does not have to declare the funding, but it does. She missed the point that the ECF does not declare how many Brussels-based NGOs they have bought and paid for (spoiler alert: almost all of them).
The MEP moderating the conference, Daniel Freund, replied to my €275 million question by listing how much more funding European companies like VW or BASF get from the various EU funding programs. He came prepared with precise numbers for that. But the MEP failed to note that this funding was for innovations, new investments, technology transitions… not for communications and lobbying like most NGO funding is.
The panel did not want to get deeper into my question not only because it is harder to control the issue of foundations than EU funding of NGOs, but also because the Brussels-based umbrella NGOs, like Patrizia’s European Environment Bureau, will soon become expendable, replaced by larger foundation-funded regranting fiscal sponsors (like the ECF) established to actually challenge the European Commission rather than serve their interests. As one person commented to me over lunch, maybe that is why she was so peeved by my question.
Another question from an activist from Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO), that also receives regular and substantial funding from the ECF and other dark, donor-advised foundation funds within the ECF network, declared how the far right (re: European People’s Party) are delaying the funding of programs that protect health, leaving NGOs like EPHA with no option but to let four of its people go. How docile have these NGOs become? Do they only sit around in a room and wait for the Commission to deliver the cash? Don’t they know that they can easily go to the foundations and pick up a couple million to hold them over? The ECF also funds EPHA, and their sister group HEAL (… and almost every other NGO in Brussels), and as it was early in their budget year, they could easily spare a couple mille.
There was a need in the room to deflect the conversation and talk about dark Russian money mysteriously moving around the EU, or the Georgian anti-civil society legislation, all happening under the shadow of Putin. This was all due to the far right it seems. Hungary and their dark funding of lobbyists in Brussels strikes even closer to home. Many activists mentioned the think tank, MCC Brussels, whom they argue, are also not transparent and should be banned from the European Parliament. Funny, I had always thought Furedi was a communist.
Who are the “Bad Guys”?
In between the two main sessions of the Green Party’s Defending Democracy event, the Renew Europe lunch event on protecting civil society was held. Was there a political competition over which European party should represent civil society? Renew Europe, formerly the Liberal party, seems to be pivoting. As the political poles are bifurcating into left and (extreme) right, the former centrist party is trying to plant their flag with the “good guys”.
When the moderator, Raquel García Hermida-van der Walle, introduced a panel of NGO speakers, she added: “I understand you are the bad guys!” Everyone laughed because it is so absurd to think of these loving humanitarians in that way. The room was full of activists who have dedicated their careers fighting against groups they were convinced are the bad guys: the far right, industry, lobbyists (remember, NGO activists are advocates, not lobbyists), foreign government meddling and autocrats.
Neil Datta, head of the European Parliamentary Forum for Sexual and Reproductive Rights, put the situation bluntly: “The barbarians have reached the city – they have breached the walls and they are taking aim at civil society.” Later, in reference to a group of lawyers campaigning against abortion rights, he added: “They are the uncivil society (acting in the same way as CSOs but not grounded in a respect for civil and human rights). They need to be banned from the European Parliament.”
Datta made it clear the outlook was even more critical: “Civil society is being attacked at all levels. USAID funding in gone, affecting reproductive, HIV, gender equality and women’s rights programs. National governments like Belgium and the Netherlands are cutting funding to civil society as well.” This fight to protect the vulnerable was now existential.
Having had my lunch, it was time to be shuttled back to the Defending Democracy event. Saving NGOs has never been such hard work.
Protecting Environmental Defenders
Part 2 of Green Party event, in the afternoon, was about protecting green activists (who curiously now prefer to call themselves “environmental defenders”). Indeed, nothing spells martyrdom more than sacrificing everything to defend Mother Earth from Father Profit.
The subject of the afternoon event was clear. Environmental defenders have suffered repression for standing up for environmental/democratic values. Among those in attendance, in a survey, 70% admitted they have suffered some form of repression due to their campaigning. I also ticked the “Yes” box as I had lost a university post for defending the farmers’ right to farm more sustainably by keeping their access to glyphosate. But somehow I think I was in the wrong room and should have turned right instead of left when I was in the hallway.
In this afternoon session, the speaker from ClientEarth, Anne Friel, spoke about the importance of the anti-SLAPP Directive to protect NGO campaigners from what she defined as frivolous lawsuits. SLAPP stands for: Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation and can be used to try to intimidate journalists and activists from speaking their minds. An organization called ClientEarth, created to use the courts to obstruct industry with frivolous lawsuits, was advising activists on their rights to be protected from … frivolous lawsuits. Sweet!
Conclusion: Blame Others
After a day of speeches and questions, one thing was missing. There was no reflection about what went wrong on the left. The greens and the social justice groups lost a significant amount of public support in the 2024 elections but they seem to only be blaming others and bearing down to fight harder for their ideals. There was true anger in the room, referring to those who disagree with them in extremist terms: barbarians, uncivil, fascist… the center right has become part of the far right. There seemed to be no interest within the greens and the left to even consider what went wrong to have so many voters prefer autocratic or populist candidates than to continue with their green transition agenda.
There were many demands to continue trying to implement laws to protect the ideals they are campaigning on. There were also several calls to ban many of the groups on the right from the European Parliament. Were they radicalizing even more, or was this just show?
Maybe the activist groups were pushing too hard and just maybe there should now be more compromise and dialogue rather than ramming their ideological dogma into forced transition policies (those very ones that were negatively affecting people’s livelihoods before the elections). Maybe that had something to do with why so many voters turned against them. This conference was an excellent opportunity for these parties to reflect on where things went wrong. Instead, they served up more anger, vengeance and outrage.
After public health scientists pushed too hard on health safety policies during COVID, the scientific community lost trust and respect (much like the decline in trust in scientific advisers in the UK following from the BSE-Mad Cow crisis in the 1990s). Today in the US, there is a purge of health scientists from RFK Jr’s Department of Health and Human Services, and a significant part of the population is welcoming that.
After NGOs pushed too hard on the Green Deal, leading to food and energy inflation and farmers’ protests, the activists likewise lost the public trust and respect. Maybe it is time for NGOs to stop pushing their ideologies so hard and maybe consider more dialogue and compromise?
Who am I kidding? These zealots are angry and itching for a fight. Pass the popcorn.
Editor’s note: This article satirizes how the European Greens and Socialists have been trying to portray the European People’s Party (EPP) as the far right. The EPP are a center-right party and, on a global political spectrum, would find themselves to the left of the US Democratic Party.