Nanny state groups barred from using EU cash to lobby

It would take a heart of stone not to laugh

Some good news at last. After the European Commission pulled the plug on eco-mentalist groups using taxpayers’ money to lobby EU politicians, it has now done the same with ‘public health’ pressure groups, as Politico sorrowfully reports…

The European Commission will stop hard-up health NGOs from accessing funding for lobbying or advocacy work because of the “reputational risk” to the European Union.

The Commission — under pressure from right-wing lawmakers to push for more NGO funding transparency — already told green civil society organizations last year that they could no longer use EU funding to lobby the bloc’s institutions.

Hard up? The European Public Health Alliance - which is the Death Star of the EU’s killjoy lobbyist network - had €2,624,403 to spend in 2023. The best part of a million Euros came from the unwitting EU taxpayer, but it still had enough from the likes of George Soros to keep it ticking over.

Sending letters, organizing meetings and providing advocacy material to specific EU institutions or officials — previously considered acceptable — are listed as activities that can no longer be funded by the EU’s operating grants, according to two of the letters seen by POLITICO.

Rightly so. Use your own money.

While NGOs account for a small portion of this funding, the letters come at a particularly precarious time for health civil society groups. The EU is expected to shrink or even ax the budget of its first ever ring-fenced health fund, EU4Health, while countries from France to the U.K. and U.S. are cutting foreign aid, meaning less funding to go around.

I’d never heard of EU4Health before so I looked it up. I still don’t know what they do because nearly all their “news and updates” are pleas for the European Commission to give money to health NGOs.

I guess the European Commission has not only been paying NGOs to lobby it but has also been paying an NGO to campaign for it to keep giving money to the other NGOs. Nice work if you can get it.

“We are now working against the clock to ensure that we can pay the salaries and bills, exploring all legal, financial and political options, including Belgian government support. And I don’t know if we will succeed,” Milka Sokolović, director general at the European Public Health Alliance, said.

People of Belgium, e-mail your politicians and tell them to not give these wastrels a bent penny.

The last time I read about the European Public Health Alliance in Politico, its staff were walking out and it was on the brink of collapse because of its “toxic and hostile work environment”. Rip it up and don’t start again.

“Were we informed, timely, that the grants would be delayed or withdrawn, we would have adjusted our plans,” she said, adding: “Sadly, we are hearing that some of our colleagues have been struggling to pay their staff for months.”

Hahahaha! YES!! This is a great day.

One person working at an NGO who received the letter from HaDEA said in a message: “At a time when organisations are being forced to cancel activities and furlough staff due to the Commission refusal to honor its commitments, to receive such a scolding letter seems hardly appropriate nor justified.”

WTF, I love the European Commission now!

“We understand the pressures endured by the Commission but we believe that upholding European values of democratic societies with vibrant Civil society organisations should come first,” the person, granted anonymity to speak candidly, continued.

This is the kind of word salad these people come out with whenever their unearned privileges are under threat: “Give me your money or democracy dies.” Civil society organisations don’t need money from the government. The whole point of them is they’re independent of government.

“It seems not all health NGOs are getting the letters, just the ones who put advocacy first,” one person working in EU health, also granted anonymity, said.

Well, duh. It’s the ones who engage in “advocacy” (i.e. lobbying) who are most likely to fall foul of these long-overdue rules.

“So we could end up with just a Commission-compliant bunch of groups that don’t say boo to a euro goose any more! We could be left with just info providers and meeting organizers rather than lobbyists.”

Suck it up, buttercup. Your euro goose is cooked.

It’s been 13 years since I wrote Euro Puppets: The European Commission’s remaking of civil society and something has finally been done about it.

A drink, I think.