Discharge 2024: General budget of the EU - Commission

Tabled by Sarah Knafo, Christine Anderson

13. Removed: Recalls Added: recalls that the Commission’s 2024 review of NGO grant agreements found no breaches of the law; Removed: nevertheless, Added: stresses, however, that legality alone does not ensure sound financial management or safeguard institutional neutrality; underlines that any recipient of Union funding, including NGOs, should be subject to robust, proportionate and risk-based scrutiny and transparency Removed: requirements, in line with legal provisions and sound financial management; stresses that budgetary control, safeguards and transparency requirements must be applied in a neutral, proportionate and evidence-based way, ensuring that transparency and oversight apply effectively across all categories of beneficiaries and that the scrutiny is risk-based; Added: requirements; considers that the use of Union funds to finance advocacy, lobbying or communication activities aimed at influencing Union institutions, legislative processes or electoral debate may constitute a circular use of public money incompatible with the principle of sound financial management, whereby Union funds are used to generate pressure on Union decision-making processes; calls on the Commission to exclude such activities from the scope of eligible expenditure and to introduce clear and enforceable contractual safeguards, full transparency of funded activities and deliverables, and effective ex post controls, including recovery of funds where such conditions are breached; emphasises that the lack of transparency undermines trust in the discharge process …

Wording as published by the EP, in English. PE783.213