EU Funding: FPÖ Reported for Suspected Breach of Trust

They criticized the support of non-governmental organizations, for example in the environmental sector, as being non-transparent. It is often unclear what purpose the payments serve and who is behind the NGOs, they said.

A statement of facts was submitted to both the Economic and Corruption Prosecutor's Office in Austria and the European Public Prosecutor's Office, explained Schilchegger. The EU Commission is wasting taxpayers' money to promote associations that, in turn, would influence EU policy - and also individual EU parliamentarians - with their agenda, it is complained. In recent years, 17 billion euros have been distributed to 37,000 recipients. At the same time, grant recipients would sit in workshop groups at the EU level.

FPÖ's Demand

In doing so, the Commission is doing what is also accused of third countries like China: namely, trying to exert influence through NGOs. The FPÖ demands that funded organizations be comprehensively recorded in a register, in which their financing and contracts are also disclosed. "This is urgently needed," Haider was convinced. "The Commission was very negligent in the review," he stated.

Haider was pleased that the matter is now at least being examined in a working group. He himself, he emphasized, would have preferred a committee of inquiry. Some "bizarre" subsidies, for example to African NGOs, are in any case unacceptable, he noted.

Schieder Criticizes

Criticism came from SPÖ-EU delegation leader Andreas Schieder. The FPÖ is conducting a "veritable witch hunt" on civil society organizations, he stated. It is not surprising that a party that denies climate change or courts authoritarian forces attacks those who advocate for environmental protection or human rights. "The FPÖ is trying to silence critical voices here and further shift the political playing field in favor of industry and corporate lobbies," Schieder was convinced.

"The coordinated and ongoing attacks for months by some FPÖ and ÖVP parliamentarians against NGOs are an absolutely unjustified attack on civil society. Their goal is to silence unwelcome experts. What is happening here is not control - it is political intimidation. The FPÖ apparently wants harassment rules for civil society organizations for the entire European Union and Austria, à la Orban or Putin. This smear campaign must stop immediately!" also demands the Green EU parliamentarian Lena Schilling.

(APA/Red)

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