VOICE input into European Parliament report on NGO financing from EU Budget
Earlier this month, VOICE participated in a joint meeting between Elly Schlein MEP and NGOs representatives from CONCORD, Solidar, Eurodad, Civil Society Europe and others. As a member of the Development Committee (DEVE) in the European Parliament, Ms Schlein is preparing the DEVE opinion for the Committee on Budgetary Control on the report “Budgetary control of financing of NGOs from the EU budget”.
VOICE is pleased that the draft opinion reflects some of our messages from the Study on donors’ conditionalities including on the need to reduce the adminisrative burden on NGOs and increase flexibility. Together with the other civil society representatives, suggestions to the opinion were proposed. Concretely it was stressed that there is no need for more controls on NGOs, and that NGOs must maintain a degree of independence from the EU including in the implementation of EU-funded projects.
