Changes from report parliamentary committee draft to plenary report

Removed36. Urges the Commission to develop a centralised certification system for NGOs wishing to apply for EU funding that are registered in the EU transparency register, based on existing best practices;

Added37. Welcomes the Commission’s proposal to set up, based on Article 36 of the Financial Regulation, a centralised, interoperable IT system for data mining and risk scoring to improve the efficiency of the internal control of budget implementation; underlines that this system must not only include recipients’ data, but also the data of beneficial owners in accordance with Directive (EU) 2015/849; calls for this system to include risk indicators based on data from the EDES under all management modes;

Removed37. Regrets the coexistence of different disclosure requirements for different types of organisations in the transparency register; calls on the Commission to impose the same disclosure requirements on all types of organisation registered in the transparency register; notes that, in particular, they must all be required to disclose their income and all amounts spent on lobbying;

Added38. Regrets that the coexistence of reporting obligations and accounting practices at national and EU levels may lead to a disproportionate administrative burden for beneficiaries, including NGOs; calls on the Commission to ensure that reporting obligations at EU and national levels are consistent in order to guarantee easier monitoring of the fulfilment of obligations;

Removed38. Recalls the recommendations from the 2021 Parliament discharge resolution calling for a revision of the EU transparency register and its guidelines to require the disclosure of details on all funding sources from registered organisations, including the shares held in other companies, and to allow EU funds to be traced from the direct recipient to the final beneficiary when funds are passed along a chain, including when funds from one NGO or stakeholder are transferred to another;

Added39. Emphasises the importance of transparency and of identifying the final recipient of EU funds; calls on the Commission to develop a harmonised monitoring system aimed at reducing the red tape, improving efficiency and identifying final beneficiaries; recommends that the Commission track EU funds up to the final beneficiaries in a systematic, standardised and harmonised manner across information and transparency platforms at EU level; calls, furthermore, for an enhanced dialogue between the Commission and the beneficiaries of EU funding, including NGOs, on how to reduce excessive burdens;

Removed39. Calls for all EU-funded NGOs to publish online all meetings with MEPs, MEPs’ assistants or representatives of other EU institutions, bodies or agencies whenever such meetings relate to ongoing EU legislative affairs or to the EU financing that NGOs receive or apply for, in line with similar obligations for MEPs; calls on the relevant EU institutions and bodies to provide the tools necessary for the publication of such meetings;

Added40. Is concerned when the visibility provisions of EU programmes are not entirely respected; calls on the Commission to instruct its services to terminate agreements or reduce payments to beneficiaries not respecting their contractual visibility obligations;

RemovedNGO regulation

Added41. Invites the Commission to ensure that it provides training for all of its programme officers and EU agencies on the Financial Regulation and on the EU budget; calls on the Commission to provide all beneficiaries of EU funding, including NGOs, training on reporting and financial rules, and requests that the discharge authority is duly informed about these trainings, including their content, their participants and the related costs; calls on the Commission to simplify the grant application and selection procedures, and to ensure uniformity of approach and transparency of the process, a reduction in administrative burden and regular adaptation of these rules to changing circumstances and lessons learned;

Removed40. Reiterates its call made in the 2021 Commission discharge resolution to adopt an NGO regulation by 1 June 2024 that includes harmonised minimum requirements for NGOs across all EU entities and a clear definition and categorisation of the fields of activity and size of NGOs and that provides for the necessary conditions for NGOs to receive EU funds; insists that there should be a clear distinction between regular NGOs and ‘public utility NGOs’; calls on the Commission to establish simplified procedures for small NGOs;

Added42. Notes the 2018 finding of the European Court of Auditors (ECA) that the provision of sub-granting does not allow the Commission to properly monitor how EU funds are used; calls for the amounts provided to NGOs as third parties in the form of cascading grants to be clearly identifiable in the FTS and in the Commission annual financial and accountability reporting;

Removed41. Calls on the Commission to ensure that, when preparing its proposal for the NGO regulation, important questions on issues relating to, but not limited to, clear definitions, revolving doors, transparency in financing and donations, the fight against money laundering, limiting foreign interference, independence from political and economic influence, whistleblowing, and transparency in actual leadership and ownership are dealt with in a sufficiently transparent manner;

Added43. Calls on all EU institutions to ensure far stricter implementation, enforcement and supervision of adherence to the current provisions on the EU Transparency Register; calls for more resources to be allocated to the Transparency Register Secretariat 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 provide more thoroughly; calls, in particular, for a transparency officer to be placed in all committee secretariats and relevant administrative units; recalls that, according to the Transparency Register guidelines, changes in the data provided should be communicated as soon as they occur and, in any case, within three months; insists that any changes in the board or leadership of entities registered should also be recorded in the Transparency Register; requests to have the transparency database only accessible to specific authorised persons, and upon request to the budgetary authority, in order to avoid the dissemination of information that could endanger an individual’s life or personal safety or the existence of an NGO;

Removed42. Reiterates its call in the 2021 Commission discharge resolution for the creation of a public blacklist of NGOs that have engaged in activities such as hate speech, incitement to terrorism, religious extremism, supporting or glorifying violence or spreading unfounded scientific statements or that have misused or misappropriated EU funds and are listed in the EDES database in order to ensure that they are blocked from access to EU institutions and EU funding programmes; expects a proposal on this to be put forward by the Commission no later than 1 July 2024;

Added44. Regrets the coexistence of different disclosure requirements for different types of organisations in the Transparency Register; calls on the Commission to impose the same disclosure requirements on all types of organisations registered in the Transparency Register; notes that, in particular, they must all be required to disclose their income and all amounts spent on lobbying;

Removed43. Calls on the ECA to draw up a special report following up on its 2018 findings with a view to investigating the internal democratic structures of NGOs, the direct and indirect inflows and outflows of EU and other funds and to the extent to which these are in line with democratic and human rights and EU values, calls on the ECA to additionally conduct a comprehensive analysis of the visibility- and transparency-related provisions of the current legal framework for the EU transparency register and the Financial Regulation and to make further recommendations to and analyse the final beneficiary and first financial sponsor transparency and further recommendations to enhance it; expects the ECA to deliver this report by 1 December 2024 and calls on it to adapt its existing work plan if necessary;

Added45. Recalls the recommendations from the 2021 Parliament discharge resolution calling for a revision of the EU Transparency Register and its guidelines to require the disclosure of details on all funding sources from registered organisations, including the shares held in other companies, and to allow EU funds to be traced from the direct recipient to the final beneficiary when funds are passed along a chain, including when funds from one beneficiary, including an NGO, are transferred to another, while taking into account the principle of confidentiality in the case of NGOs facing serious threats;

Removed44. Calls on the Commission and the ECA to systematically submit to Parliament, as the discharge authority, the information from the risk-based on-site reviews of NGOs that it conducts; calls on the Commission to go beyond the minimum requirements and increase the number of NGOs it subjects to reviews; insists that such information be made publicly available;

Added46. Calls on all NGOs and entities committed to full transparency and accountability, the EU Charter and promoting democratic and EU values, to request to be included in the Transparency Register when applying for EU funds;

Removed45. Regrets the fact that it is not possible for OLAF to obtain information on the financial misconduct of individual NGOs; calls on the Commission to enhance OLAF’s access status; expects that the development of the monitoring system will make it easier to identify organisations guilty of misconduct, to name and investigate them and to impose appropriate sanctions;

Added47. Calls for strict enforcement of the rules for access to Parliament and for invitations to parliamentary committees, which are conditional on the registration of each organisation in the Transparency Register by the new transparency officer who will be placed in each committee secretariat;

Added48. Considers the adoption of an NGO regulation to be a discriminatory measure that targets NGOs but not any other EU funding recipients; is of the opinion that issues such as revolving doors, transparency in financing and donations, the fight against money laundering, limiting foreign interference, independence from political and economic influence, and whistleblowing are of importance for all entities receiving EU funds and should not be used to limit the space of action of NGOs;

Added49. Reiterates its call in the 2021 Commission discharge resolution to ensure that all EU funding beneficiaries, including NGOs, that have misused or misappropriated EU funds, or engaged in activities contrary to the EU values enshrined in Article 2 of the Treaty on European Union and the EU Charter, including inciting terrorism, hate speech, supporting or glorifying violence, political and religious extremism as well as spreading disinformation under the disguise of intentionally falsified scientific data, are listed in the EDES and are blocked from access to EU institutions and EU funding programmes in direct and shared management; calls on the Commission and the Member States to enforce the implementation and publication of an improved exclusion list as recommended by Parliament and in line with the agreement on the Financial Regulation; expects the Commission to report on the implementation of this recommendation at the beginning of 2025;

Added50. Calls on the Commission and the ECA to systematically submit the findings and the audit conclusions related to the risk-based on-site checks of beneficiaries, including NGOs, and their results to Parliament as the discharge authority; encourages increased cooperation with the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) and the ECA; calls on the Commission to enhance, in particular, the access status for OLAF in order to obtain information on the financial misconduct of individual beneficiaries, investigate them and impose appropriate sanctions (i.e. suspension of payment via the EDES system), in the event of fraud, corruption and other irregularities related to EU funds, in compliance with the applicable regulations;

Added51. Recalls that NGOs are subjected to the same level of controls and investigations as any other recipient of EU funds covering all expenditure sides, within the respective mandates of both OLAF and the European Public Prosecutor’s Office;

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52. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission and the European Court of Auditors.