European Court of Auditors warn EU NGO funding remains opaque, despite €7.4bn in grants and increased political scrutiny
Commission cleared of wrongdoing, but criticism mounts over opaque oversight and lobbying disclosure
The European Court of Auditors (ECA) has criticised the European Commission for persistent transparency failures in the way it distributes billions in EU funding to non-governmental organisations (NGOs), warning of fragmented oversight, unreliable data, and inadequate checks on political lobbying and compliance with EU values.
In a report published 7 April 2025, auditors revealed that over €7.4 billion in EU funds were awarded to NGOs between 2021 and 2023 for internal policy areas including cohesion, migration, research and the environment — with €4.8 billion disbursed directly by the Commission and €2.6 billion via member states. However, the ECA warned these figures are rough estimates, given the lack of a centralised, reliable system for tracking NGO beneficiaries.
“Transparency is key to ensuring credible participation by NGOs in EU policymaking,” said ECA Member Laima Andrikienė.
“However, despite some progress since our last audit, the picture of EU funding for NGOs remains hazy, as information on EU funding – including lobbying – is neither reliable nor transparent.”
The report found that data on NGO lobbying and advocacy activities financed by EU grants was not clearly disclosed. In some cases, NGOs receiving EU money had no obligation to declare how it was being used to influence policymaking. Only during the audit process did the Commission issue guidance against requiring grantees to lobby EU institutions.
In response to the audit, marine environmental NGO Oceana issued a strongly worded statement defending civil society’s role and stressing its own transparency practices.
“The European Court of Auditors did not find a single instance of wrongdoing by NGOs,” Oceana said.
“The ideological nature of the defamatory campaign against NGOs shows that the intent is not to protect the EU budget from misuse, but rather to silence the voices that defend the interests of people and the planet.”
Oceana also criticised attempts to frame the audit as a scandal and reaffirmed its commitment to transparency, citing independent financial audits and public access to their accounts as part of EU-funded LIFE programme obligations.
Despite repeated calls for greater scrutiny — particularly after the 2022 Qatargate scandal — the ECA found the Commission still fails to verify whether self-declared NGOs are genuinely independent from governments or private interests. In one case, a state-controlled research institute was misclassified as an NGO, despite its board being entirely composed of government officials.
EU fund managers, the report notes, rely heavily on self-declarations and do not proactively investigate potential breaches of EU values such as the rule of law or human rights. Nor do they conduct thorough checks on the origin of NGO funding.
The ECA stressed that national governments do not systematically report on the EU funds they distribute to NGOs, and upcoming regulatory reforms will not force them to do so.
The Commission has previously committed to reforms, including an EU-wide definition of NGOs adopted in 2024 — described in the report as a step forward, though not sufficient on its own to fix misclassification problems.
The special report follows a 2018 audit focused on NGO funding in the EU’s external actions and a 2024 audit of the EU’s Transparency Register. It arrives amid rising political scrutiny of NGO influence and financing, both within the EU and globally.
Source: Press Release