EUPHA is one of 30 health NGOs that signed agreements with the European Commission outlining their planned activities last year, in anticipation of operating grants for the following financial year. Operating grants go toward daily overhead costs like staff salaries and without which many NGOs say they cannot survive.
The call to apply for those grants never arrived, however, while Commission officials have informally told NGOs to expect no funding.
Other health NGOs have had to take similarly dramatic cost-cutting measures after learning no grants from the Commission would arrive this year. Last week, the European Public Health Alliance (EPHA), one of the biggest health NGO networks in Brussels, confirmed it would cut five of its 13 staff.
Other health NGOs have had to take similarly dramatic cost-cutting measures after learning no grants from the Commission would arrive this year. | Andreas Arnold/Picture Alliance via Getty Images
The European Alcohol Policy Alliance (Eurocare) is also in danger of losing two of its four staff, Anamaria Suciu, policy and advocacy manager, told POLITICO. The Commission’s operating grant typically accounts for 60 percent of Eurocare’s funding in a given year, she said.
The European Patients’ Forum, meanwhile, hasn’t had to make staff redundant but morale is low, spokesperson Flavia Topan said. “The uncertainty and instability in funding take a real toll, both on our muscle to bring the patient voice to the center of EU health policy and on the wellbeing of our employees,” she said.
Brussels is an increasingly inhospitable environment for NGOs since the European election last year. Under a right-wing majority led by the European People’s Party, lawmakers such as the European People’s Party’s Dirk Gotink — appointed to head a probe into NGO funding on Wednesday — claim NGOs have used European money to “shadow lobby” for green policies. A POLITICO fact-check found little evidence for shadowy lobbying, however. EU funding is publicly disclosed and allows NGOs to counter the lobbying activities of better-resourced private interests.