Máté Hajba is the director of Hungary’s Free Market Foundation, which has published a new report examining what it calls “circular lobbying” in Brussels: public institutions funding NGOs that, among their activities, seek to influence the policies of those same institutions. The report examines nine organisations, identifies roughly €12.8 million in annual public funding, and says around 96.8% of the public funding it identified came from the European Commission. Daily News Hungary spoke with Hajba about whether Brussels has created an echo chamber financed by European taxpayers.
Daily News Hungary: Let’s put this crudely. Brussels gives NGOs taxpayers’ money, some of those NGOs lobby Brussels, and Brussels then hears supposedly independent civil society demanding policies it helped finance. Is that really the system?
Máté Hajba: Put that way, it does sound exceptionally efficient, doesn’t it? You provide the money, help finance the advocacy, receive the advocacy, and then point to civil society as evidence of public demand for the policy. As a Hungarian, I saw how self-servingly such a practice worked in my country under the Orbán regime, which the EU so often and rightly criticised.
Of course, reality in the EU is more complicated, and we should not pretend that every euro in an EU grant is paying somebody to knock on an MEP’s door. Lobbying is legal, advocacy is legitimate, and EU funding does not automatically make an organisation a puppet of the European Commission.
But that is precisely why transparency matters. If these relationships are entirely proper, there should be no problem showing taxpayers exactly where the money goes and what activities it supports. “Trust us, it’s civil society” is not really a substitute for a receipt. This lack of transparency erodes trust in public institutions and NGOs, at a time of global turmoil when justly earned trust is most needed.
Daily News Hungary: You found roughly €12.8 million in annual public funding among just nine organisations, with about 96.8% of the public funding you identified coming from the European Commission. At what point does “independent civil society” start sounding like a rather creative accounting term?
Máté Hajba: The “N” in NGO still stands for “non-governmental,” as far as I am aware. That does not mean an NGO stops being independent the moment it receives a public grant. Plenty of organisations receive government or EU funding for perfectly legitimate work.
But when a public institution becomes a significant financial supporter of organisations that are simultaneously trying to influence public policy, taxpayers are entitled to ask whether the relationship is transparent enough. It is basic due diligence the EU owes to its taxpayers.
And there is a very simple way to test whether people genuinely believe the principle they are defending: reverse the politics. Imagine the Commission giving millions to organisations lobbying against climate regulation, against further tobacco restrictions, or for dramatically tighter migration rules. Would everyone who currently sees no problem suddenly become fascinated by the details of EU grant agreements?
If your standard of transparency changes depending on whether you like the cause, then you do not have a transparency standard. You have a favourite team.
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Daily News Hungary: Brussels spends quite a lot of time telling member states how to manage public money. Are you essentially saying the EU should try some of its own medicine?
Máté Hajba: I would phrase it more politely, but since you have already phrased it for me: yes, consistency would be refreshing.
The European Union is right to demand transparency when public money is spent. The European Court of Auditors has itself identified shortcomings in the transparency of EU funding to NGOs. So the answer is not to abolish NGOs, ban lobbying, or silence organisations whose politics somebody dislikes. The answer is almost embarrassingly boring: publish the information properly.
Create one genuinely searchable system where a taxpayer can see how much public money an organisation receives, who provided it, under which program, what it was supposed to finance, and which advocacy activities are connected to that funding.
Then let everyone lobby. Environmentalists, businesses, trade unions, health campaigners, free-market organisations, everyone. Democracy is supposed to contain competing voices.
But when taxpayers are paying for some of those voices, taxpayers should be allowed to see the bill. If everything is above board, putting the receipt on the table should be the least controversial idea in Brussels.
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The so-called “civil society” must be pretty much abolished. The idea–organizations representing groups too small and vulnerable to score big in elections, so as to amplify their voice in the national political discourse–was sound. Many ideas are sound on paper (civil rights, O.S.H.A., E.U., U.N., etc.).
However, these organizations have now morphed into corrupt industries that are often more powerful than actual governments and that bulldoze ideas contrary to the express will of the electorate into policy.
1. Abolish everything except charities.
2. Stipulate that charities may receive donations only from people lawfully resident in the national jurisdiction in which they operate.
3. Stipulate that no natural or legal person may donate more than, say, $1,000 per year to any one charity.
4. Create safeguards to preempt abuse of that system (e.g. setting up multiple charities under a common ideological umbrella or forcing employees to launder corporate donations as individuals).