Tuesday, May 21, 2013

European Commissars: Bankrolling Pro-EU and Pro-Green Energy Groups

Guy Bentley at backbencher.co.uk explains how the EC is investing millions in pro-EU groups.
On Wednesday the Institute of Economic Affairs released a new report authored by Christopher Snowdon titled ‘Euro Puppets: The European Commission’s remaking of civil society’.
This report exposes the vast scale to which the European Commission uses taxpayers money to fund charities, think tanks and other lobby groups which campaign not only for closer European integration but a vast array of regulations and spending programs.
The groups the Commission decides to fund skew heavily to the left and a significant proportion of these groups would fail to exist if it were not for the taxpayer money the European Commission so freely hands out to its favoured groups.
One example of this given in the report is the group Women In Europe for a Common Future received a grant of €1,219,213 in 2011 and a further €135,247 from national governments. These grants made up a staggering 93% of the groups total funding whilst only 0.2% of funding came from private donations.
The programme Europe for Citizens has had a budget of €229 million designated for the years 2014-20. The stated aims of this programme include:
Giving citizens the opportunity to interact and participate in constructing an ever closer Europe, united in and enriched through its cultural diversity;
Forging a European identity, based on recognised common values, history and culture;
Enhancing mutual understanding between European citizens respecting and celebrating cultural diversity, while contributing to intercultural dialogue.
However Snowdon finds that the Commission goes far beyond promoting the European Union. The green 10 represent Europe’s largest environmental lobby groups. These groups campaign tirelessly for heavier regulation of European industry and subsidies to unprofitable renewable energy sources impoverishing European citizens with no significant impact in world carbon emmisions. These organisations campaign for as much as 25% of the entire EU budget to spent on climate change projects.
All but one of these groups receives significant amounts of funding from the European Commission

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