Fidesz MEPs turn to European Ombudsman over financing of NGOs

Budapest Times

31-03-2025

Csaba Dömötör said Fidesz MEPs would again submit their requests for information. "If we're denied entry through the door, we'll knock again ... but more firmly," he said.
Ruling party MEP Csaba Dömötör said on Thursday that Fidesz MEPs are turning to the European Ombudsman concerning the financing of NGOs, adding that the European Commission did not appear ready 'to disclose the list of its agreements with political activists'.
According to MTI, Dömötör said it was likely that there were more than 10,000 such contracts. He noted that the Fidesz group filed 86 requests with EC directorates and background institutions to obtain information, adding that the directorates had refused every one. He said the rejections were 'absurd', adding that the EC website provided only partial information concerning the matter.
'In addition … the amounts [quoted on the website] are often nowhere near the sums included in member states' reports,' he added.
Dömötör said Fidesz MEPs would again submit their requests for information. 'If we're denied entry through the door, we'll knock again … but more firmly,' he said.
The Fidesz group also will turn to the recently elected European Ombudsman, for whom 'nothing should be more important than ensuring transparency, especially when it comes to European taxpayers's money, or supporting liberal policies promoted by these organisations, even if in many cases they are in conflict with the will of European voters,' he said.
Dömötör said he had been informed that 'certain MEPs' in the EP's budget control committee had been given the list of 'activist contracts' from some of the directorates, but 'they were asked not to disclose them… They were even instructed that each group should have access to as many contracts as many MEPs they have in the committee… This is totally absurd.'
The MEP said, 'parties of the grand coalition are quiet because they are implicated.' He mentioned an MEP, for example, who he said was a supervisory board member of a Bavarian company that received subsidies in the million-euro range from the EC. 'The MEP receives an annual 75,000 euros for that second job, which clearly indicates why groups in the grand coalition are not so active: they have interests,' he added.
While Hungary ensures the transparency of contracts, with the documents and contract amounts available on ministries' websites for 14 days, the EC, which 'comes up with even more stringent transparency criteria for member states by way of rule of law procedures, does not disclose even basic information,' he said.
The EC has provided support to 'at least 54 organisations of so-called fact-checkers, including left-liberal groups in Hungary', Dömötör said, adding that those groups 'often act as censors'. The European Parliament democracy shield committee refused to answer relevant questions, he said. 'Moreover, at their last session, they even tried to prevent the question from being asked; that says all about their attitude towards transparency,' he said.
'They are not accustomed to applying those democratic values, principles and virtues that they keep demanding from member states and their governments. It is not part of their practice, and this is what we want to change. And we will,' the MEP said.