Patriots for Europe Publish Brussels’ NGO Contracts and Decry Political Bias

Fidesz MEP Csaba Dömötör, representing the Patriots for Europe group in the European Parliament, announced the public release of a database listing over 37,000 contracts—worth a total of €17 billion—between the European Commission and NGOs or “so-called civil organizations” from 2019 to 2023.

The platform, available at ngotransparency.eu, allows users to identify which activist groups in each country received EU funding during the period.

In MEP Dömötör’s view, the majority of the funds went not to grassroots civil society groups but to politically active organizations aligned with liberal agendas.

He compared the system to a European-style USAID (U.S. Agency for International Development), calling it a “liberal cash distribution machine” that operates without democratic legitimacy.

Backed by documents from the European Commission and findings from the European Court of Auditors, Dömötör argued that many recipient organizations could not survive without Brussels’ funding, and are frequently headquartered in the EU capital—signaling, in his words, their embeddedness within the EU institutional elite.

These groups, he alleged, have lobbied against conservative governments, weakened national border control efforts, opposed agricultural subsidies, protested energy projects, and even contributed to international campaigns critical of Hungary’s rule-of-law record.

He cited the example of the Mikepércsi Mothers for the Environment Association, who had received substantial EU funds and participated in opposition political campaign events alongside TISZA Party leader Péter Magyar.

Dömötör called the funding network a “serious distortion of democracy” and said it should be scaled back, especially as the new seven-year EU budget proposes even more resources for such organizations. He warned that this funding often comes at the expense of farmers and cohesion funds.

The Patriots for Europe group, which includes Fidesz and other right-leaning European parties, intends to extend transparency efforts to post-2023 contracts, Brussels-funded media outlets, and EU-backed fact-checking organizations that, they argue, skew public debate. Dömötör emphasized that genuine civil society has social roots and community backing—unlike groups reliant on EU, USAID, or Open Society Foundations funding, while engaging in political advocacy without public mandates.

Via MTI; Featured image: European Parliament’s official Twitter page