The European Parliament’s environmental (ENVI) committee voted against a right-wing initiative to review the financing of the EU Commission’s ‘LIFE’ program after it was revealed that millions of euros had been spent on environmental NGOs to lobby lawmakers and citizens in favor of the EU Green Deal and its catastrophic climate policies.
The motion was meant to review all relevant contracts with NGOs before the next tranche of funding for 2025-2027 will be accessible to ensure no “public funds can be leveraged to exert political pressure on policymakers.”
However, on Monday, March 31st, the vote was unexpectedly rejected by the slimmest possible margin—40 votes in favor of more transparency, and 41 against, with two abstentions.
As we reported before, the initiative was submitted by two MEPs—Sander Smit from the Dutch farmer’s party BBB (EPP), and Pietro Fiocchi from Italy’s ruling conservative FdI (ECR).
Earlier that day, Smit said he was confident his motion would pass because he had the “broad” support of his fellow members in EPP, as well as the full support of all three conservative parties, the Patriots, the ECR, and the ESN.
The conservatives voted for the transparency initiative without fail, while all leftist parties voted against it. The problem was that five members of the centrist EPP backtracked on their commitment at the last minute, with three of them voting together with the left, and two abstaining—enough for the effort to fail.
Interestingly, the three MEPs voting against the motion included a member of the Dutch Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA)—an especially painful betrayal because the Green Deal lobbying scandal is connected to former EU climate tsar Frans Timmermans, currently the head of the Dutch GreenLeft-Labor party, the political opponent of CDA.
“Regrettable, incomprehensible dissenting vote,” Smit commented on CDA and his other EPP colleagues siding with the left and voting against the motion despite having “a deal” to force the EU Commission to come clean. Nonetheless, he’s not backing down, saying that
Now the fight for EU NGO transparency really begins!
