Activities of Giuliano PISAPIA related to 2023/2122(INI)
Shadow opinions (2)
OPINION on the transparency and accountability of non-governmental organisations funded from the EU budget
OPINION on transparency and accountability of non-governmental organisations funded from the EU budget
Amendments (20)
Amendment 1 #
Draft opinion
Recital A a (new)
Recital A a (new)
A a. whereas Article 11 of the Treaty of the European Union (TEU) requires the EU institutions to maintain an open, transparent and regular dialogue with representative associations and civil society;
Amendment 2 #
Draft opinion
Recital C a (new)
Recital C a (new)
C a. whereas interest representatives, including NGOs, should be subject to scrutiny, due diligence and transparency rules, in particular with regard to financing, with proportional criteria and non-cumbersome procedures, in particular for small NGOs;
Amendment 3 #
Draft opinion
Recital C b (new)
Recital C b (new)
C b. whereas strengthening the transparency requirements for interest representatives and entities, including NGOs, could serve the purpose of tracing foreign interference; whereas these requirements, however, should not stigmatise legitimate foreign funding;
Amendment 6 #
Draft opinion
Recital C c (new)
Recital C c (new)
C c. whereas in September 2023, the European Parliament amended its Rules of Procedures with a view to strengthening integrity, independence and accountability;
Amendment 7 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 1
Paragraph 1
1. Stresses that NGOs and CSOs working for the promotion and protection of human rights, democracy and the rule of law both within and outside the EU play an important role in our societies around the world; highlights, in this regard, the crucial work of these organisations in collecting public interest information, exploring andactively promoting and defending human rights and democracy, combating any form of discrimination, proposmoting new ways of promoting human rights and democracyintercultural dialogue, fighting for a clean, healthy and sustainable environment, informing individuals, especially the most vulnerable, about their rights and standing up for them when those rights are violated, promoting civic engagement and public participation, countering disinformation and hate speech, collecting public interest information and holding governments and elected representatives accountable to citizens, and fighting corruption and impunity for human rights abuses;
Amendment 14 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 3
Paragraph 3
3. Is alarmed by the fact that some governments, whose aim is to shrink civil society space and silence dissenting voices, have adopted legislation based, inter alia, on security, counter-terrorism and the fight against foreign interference, that imposes discriminatory obligations on human rights NGOs, stigmatises, restricts or bans their activities, including by closing these NGOs, freezing their assets, deterring their donors from contributing funds or depriving them from access to funding; expresses its deep concern regarding the fact that similar laws have also been proposed and adopted in some EU Member States;
Amendment 17 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 4
Paragraph 4
4. Underlines the need to make moreas transparent and accessible as possible to the public, the available information on the beneficiaries, including NGOs, of EU external action funds dedicated to human rights and democracy support and to the related EU- funded projects which are implemented worldwide; acknowledges the precarious conditions faced by some human rights defenders and NGOs in non- EU countries; believes, in this regard, that confidentiality and data protection must be ensured in order not to put them at risk; calls on the Commission to develop more flexible strategies of supporting civil society actors in repressive environments that have difficulties benefitting from assistance through traditional funding channels due to their legal status, for instance non-registered entities or individuals;
Amendment 25 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 5
Paragraph 5
5. Calls on the Commission to improve the clarity and organisation of information and data available in the Financial Transparency System on the beneficiaries of EU-funded projects to be implemented, in particular,cluding in the field of human rights and democracy support;
Amendment 26 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 6
Paragraph 6
Amendment 32 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 7
Paragraph 7
7. Points outNotes that human rights NGOs receiving EU funding give visibility to the EU’s support in different ways, and sometimes incompletely, through various communication channels, including official websites; underlines that sometimes these differences could also depend on the fact that, under certain authoritarian and illiberal regimes, the dissemination of such information may put human rights NGOs at risk; calls for the establishment of harmonised but flexible approaches to make EU funding for human rights and democracy support more transparent and visible to the public, while avoiding putting at risk NGOs that operate in critical local civic space contexts;
Amendment 35 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 2
Paragraph 2
2. Stresses that civil society is a broader category than that of NGOs; notes that while NGOs are, on the one hand, a favoured institutional form of the neoliberal state and therefore rarely truly oppositional, on the other hand many resist instrumentalisation and expose the excesses of state and private interestsRecalls that the Treaties requires the EU institutions and EU Member States to maintain an open, transparent and regular dialogue with representative associations and civil society; stresses, therefore, that they must be protected, including through the provision of adequate funding, including foreign funding; notes that it is short-sighted to treat NGOs as a singular bloc with a singular policy outlook importance for EU Members States and EU institutions to provide adequate funding to programmes aimed protecting and promoting rights and values enshrined in the EU Treaties; recognises the role NGOs and CSOs play in implementing these programmes;
Amendment 36 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 8
Paragraph 8
8. SDenounces the use of organisations sponsored by governments of non-EU countries (government- organised NGOs (GONGOs)) to spread disinformation and false narratives related, in particular, to human rights issues; stresses that the funding by non-EU countries of EU-based legal entities, including human rights NGOs, while also carrying out lobbying or advocacy activities within the EU and aiming to influence EU foreign policymaking, raises questions as to their objectives; denounces the use of organisations sponsored by non-EU country governments (government-organised NGOs (GONGOs)) to spread disinformation and false narratives related, in particular, to human rights issuesmay at times expose these NGOs to external influences; believes that transparency requirements should not, however, stigmatise legitimate foreign funding; highlights that, in the context of recent corruption allegations against some Members of the European Parliament, an NGO, not registered in the EU Transparency Register and whose stated purpose was to carry out advocacy activities on human rights, is suspected to have been used as a vector of foreign interference; considers that there is a public interest in knowing the financial sources, including non-EU funding, of theall stakeholders active in the fields of lobbying or advocacy;
Amendment 45 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 9
Paragraph 9
9. Welcomes the progress made in the use of the EU Transparency Register and is committed to continuing its work to expand the scope of the Register and strengthen the monitoring of the data it contains; points out that, as a general rule, annual financial data on the sources of funding, including EU grants and domestic and non-EU donations, of registered legal entities are made publicly available under the EU Transparency Register; stresses that, since 12 July 2023, the participation of ‘interest representatives’ as invited active guests at Parliament’s events is conditional on their prior registration in the EU Transparency Register, except if registration is likely to endanger an individual’s life or personal safety or where other compelling reasons require confidentiality; recalls that the EU Transparency Register (Annex II) requires that NGOs provide their main sources of funding by category; stresses that the measures requiring NGOs to disclose all funding sources must take into account the situation of NGOs operating in countries under authoritarian and illiberal regimes, in particular when the disclosure of such information could put them and their work at risk because of the application of repressive legislation such as ‘foreign agents’ laws and similar;
Amendment 48 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 10
Paragraph 10
10. Recognises, however, that the EU institutions, including Parliament, should have been more diligent in ensuring greater transparency, integrity and accountability regarding their framework for interaction with entities listed in the EU Transparency Register; also acknowledges that further resources are needed to strengthen the transparency and accountability of the lobbying or advocacy activities of legal persons or entities, including human rights NGOWelcomes the European Parliament's decision of 13 September 2023 amending Parliament’s Rules of Procedure with a view to strengthening integrity, independence and accountability; stresses that these measures should, under no circumstance, contribute directly or indirectly to endanger or put at risk any individual such as human rights defenders or journalists;
Amendment 53 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 11
Paragraph 11
Amendment 53 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 3
Paragraph 3
3. Remains deeply concerned by threats to and attacks on NGOs in some Member States, including by proposing and adopting legislation that imposes discriminatory obligations on NGOs, stigmatises, restricts or even bans their activities;
Amendment 71 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 4
Paragraph 4
4. Calls on the Member States and the EU to improve the legal environment for civil society by ensuring that any measure restricting the right of associations to seek, secure and use resources, including foreign resources,Recalls that any measure restricting the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and to freedom of association must pursue one of the legitimate aims under Article 11(2) of the European Convention on Human Rights;
Amendment 86 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 5
Paragraph 5
5. Recalls thatUnderlines the need to make as transparencyt and accountability measures must only serve the purpose of ensuring legitimate public scrutiny; stresses that reporting requirements for NGOs must remain strictly necessary and proportionate to the specific aims pursuedessible as possible to the public the available information on all beneficiaries, including NGOs, of EU funds; underlines that scrutiny, due diligence and transparency rules, in particular with regard to financing, should foreseen proportional criteria and non-cumbersome procedures, in particular for small NGOs;
Amendment 97 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 6
Paragraph 6
6. BWelievcomes that current EU instruments are likely sufficient for achieving proportionate transparency goals concerning NGO fundinge European Parliament's decision of 13 September 2023 amending Parliament’s Rules of Procedure with a view to strengthening integrity, independence and accountability; calls all EU institutions for far stricter implementation, enforcement and supervision of adherence to the current provisions on the EU Transparency Register; insists that the EU Transparency Register should be strengthened by increasing its budget and its staff so that it is able to offer support to all applicants and registrants, especially small entities and NGOs, throughout the registration process and to verify the information they provided more thoroughly;
Amendment 124 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 7
Paragraph 7
7. Warns emphatically against the weaponisation of the concept of ‘foreign interference’ and emphasises that thiPoints out that transparency requirements for interest representatives can be and is being used by governments to repress civil society and NGOs.d entities, including NGOs, should not stigmatise legitimate foreign funding;