2023 discharge: General budget of the EU - Commission

Tabled by Virginie Joron, Julien Sanchez, Ondřej Knotek, Anders Vistisen

… functions, as provided in Article 11 of the Treaty on European Union; Added: recalls that subsidies granted to NGOs from the Union budget amount to several billion euros each year (estimated at 7.4 billion euros from 2021 to 2023 by the European Court of Auditors), making the Union one of the main donors to civil society organizations; recalls that the Qatargate scandal revealed that some civil society organizations are catalysts for corruption ; is concerned about alleged cases of fraud and irregularities in situations where EU-funded NGOs are exposed to risks of conflicts of interest, double funding, corruption or money laundering[1]; is concerned about the lack of reliable, publicly available data on NGO activities and cases of fraud involving NGOs[2]; regrets that NGOs and civil society organizations remain exempt from most anti-money laundering transparency and reporting obligations; calls therefore for a definition of NGOs to be established at Union level, and for NGOs to be brought within the scope of the Union's anti-money laundering framework; calls on the Commission to require NGOs to publish on the first page of their website the amount of European and national funds received, and to specify the activity carried out; finally, insists that the Commission cease funding NGOs which contribute to illegal immigration into European countries and facilitate human trafficking; calls for each Member State to have at least the option that its contributions to the European budget are not used to fund such NGOs;

Wording as published by the EP, in English. PE772.532