EU Commission paid environmental NGOs to target Germany, report says
Brussels paid environmental groups up to €700,000 to lobby and in some cases initiate legal action against German companies, German media reported on Saturday.
The European Commission and leading green NGOs, including Friends of the Earth and ClientEarth, “coordinated in detail” to promote the EU’s climate agenda, according to the Welt Am Sonntag.
ClientEarth, which is headquartered in London but has offices in Brussels and several other European cities, is alleged to have received €350,000 to initiate court proceedings against German coal-fired power plants.
Amsterdam-headquartered Friends of the Earth, meanwhile, was reportedly tasked by the EU executive with drumming up resistance to the EU-Mercosur free trade deal, which is staunchly opposed by environmental groups over concerns about the South American bloc’s climate record.
The Mercosur deal, signed last year, is strongly supported by Germany but is vehemently opposed by France, whose farmers are worried about cheap agri-food imports potentially flooding the EU.
Welt also said that “other groups” received money to influence MEPs before critical votes relating to chemicals and plant protection.
The money was reportedly paid to the NGOs in 2023, one year after contracts between the Commission and the NGOs were signed.
The report comes amid repeated allegations by right-wing groups that the Commission is illicitly using taxpayer money to further its green agenda.
The claims have received increasingly vociferous support over the past few months from the centre-right European People’s Party, the largest group in the European Parliament. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen also hails from the EPP.
Responding to the report, a Commission spokesperson said that “there are no secret contracts between the European Commission and NGOs”.
“The Commission exercises a high degree of transparency when it comes to providing funding to NGOs,” the spokesperson said.
Brussels also issued “clear guidance last year to streamline how it provides funding to NGOs”, which included instructions “not to sign off on work programmes if those contain overly specific activities directed at EU institutions or their representatives”, the spokesperson added.
Christiane Gerstetter, head of ClientEarth’s German office, assured that “no amount” of the Commission’s so-called ‘LIFE’ funding scheme – which supports nature and climate projects across the bloc – was spent on “external litigation costs”, but that the grant money was used to “partially support staff and operations in its German office”.
The group also said that the “deliverables” laid out in EU funding applications are “conceived of and pursued” by individual NGOs and are “not imposed as obligations by the Commission at its own initiative”.
Friends of the Earth did not respond to requests for comment on Welt’s reporting.