Source: European Parliament
The Commission would kindly refer the Honourable Member to the publicly available Financial Transparency System (FTS)[1] and the attached Annex I.
On the FTS, the Commission makes available information on recipients of funds financed from the EU budget, where it is implemented in direct management .
Operating grants are awarded competitively. Applicants submit proposals with the description of their work programmes, annexed to the grant agreement , which may mention, among other activities, advocacy activities.
The Commission does not prescribe the specific activities in the applicants’ work programmes . Nonetheless, agreements involving activities directed at EU institutions, even if they do not breach the legal framework, may entail reputational risks for the EU.
To mitigate these risks, the Commission has issued guidance[2] to all Commission services, clarifying which activities should not be mandated as a condition for EU financing. As part of a grant agreement, beneficiaries must commit to respecting EU values.
The Commission does not have a general responsibility for monitoring the Member States’ funding from the national budgets to civil society organisations.
For EU funding under shared management, based on the requirement of Article 49(3) of the Common Provisions Regulation[3] (CPR), a complete list of projects is publicly available on the responsible Hungarian authority’s website[4].
T he implementation of EU funds governed by the CPR requires compliance with the Charter of Fundamental Rights[5] throughout the programming period, horizontal enabling condition (HEC)[6]. When the HEC is not fulfilled, the related expenditure under the CPR is not reimbursed from the EU budget.
The Commission monitors through its annual Rule of Law Report[7] the situation of civil society in all Member States. In that context, it has noted that concerns related to the Hungarian State’s role in financing civil society persist[8] and has made recommendations in that respect[9].
Hungary is subject to measures under the Conditionality Regulation[10] to protect the EU budget from breaches of the principles of the Rule of Law, which include the suspension of funds.
Per Article 5(2) of the regulation, the imposition of measures does not affect a Member States’ obligations toward beneficiaries and final recipients.
See annex : Annex
- [1] https://ec.europa.eu/budget/financial-transparency-system/index.html ( The annual publications are based on Article 38 of the Financial Regulation (OJ L 2024/2509, 26.9.2024, p. 1-239), and in accordance with the third paragraph of the article, information on recipients is not disclosed in specific cases outlined therein . Information regarding financial year 2024 will be published on the portal in June 2025).
- [2] https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/docs/2021-2027/common/guidance/guidance-funding-dev-impl-monit-enforce-of-eu-law_en.pdf.
- [3] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32021R1060.
- [4] https://www.palyazat.gov.hu.
- [5] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:12012P/TXT.
- [6] Article 6 of the Common Provisions Regulation (https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32021R1060).
- [7] https://commission.europa.eu/publications/2024-rule-law-report-communication-and-country-chapters_en.
- [8] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=SWD:2024:0817:FIN:EN:PDF.
- [9] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=SWD:2024:0817:FIN:EN:PDF.
- [10] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32020R2092.