The EU likes to see itself as a benefactor of so-called ‘civil society’. The CERV programme in particular is intended to promote civil society engagement and strengthen democracy. In reality, however, the exact opposite is happening: the one-sided promotion of supposed non-governmental organisations based on clearly ideological criteria distorts democratic competition, and the organisations receiving funding become an extension of the European Commission, albeit without transparency or political accountability.
In this way, the Commission is systematically and deliberately creating an uneven playing field, in which those not agreeing to the Commission’s understanding of “our common values” (e.g., abortion, euthanasia, re-definition of marriage and family, etc.) must fight uphill battles.
The very unequal outcomes of two European Citizens’ Initiatives with diametrically opposed petitions are illustrative of this: The Commission refused to follow up on the pro-life initiative ONE OF US, which is, with 1.7 million signatures, the most widely supported ECI so far. By contrast, the pro-abortion initiative “My Voice, My Choice” has collected only 1.1 million signatures, but the Commission has not only bent backwards to accommodate its demands, including by a statement of doubtful legality according to which “from now on, Member States can use money from the European Social Fund to finance abortion”, but – having for years subsidized the abortion lobby with lavish “operative grants” – seems to have had itself a stake in the game.
This apparent inequality of treatment should not surprise anyone, as it reflects the by now deeply entrenched bias of the European Commission in favour of radical “progressive” and “feminist” social ideologies, and against anyone opposing these ideologies. With its control over the EU budget and, through its monopoly of initiative, unique power to set the agenda or block it from being set, combined with the lack of accountability that is in-built in the EU Treaties, the European institutions possess all the tools they need to act in open defiance of the people over which they rule. The ostensibly well-meaning support of civil society organization is a key element in this toolkit of undemocratic power exercise.
one-of-us.org 