EU vs Soros? Foreign Agent Legislation Would Force NGOs, Charities to Disclose International Funding

The bribe money scandal-struck European Union is reportedly preparing legislation that has “spooked” leftist charities and NGOs as it would require them to disclose any international funding in a bid to reduce foreign influence.

The European Commission, the executive arm of the EU, is said to be currently preparing draft legislation similar to the American Foreign Agents Registration Act 1938, which requires lobbyists to declare if they are working as an agent of a foreign government. However, the EU legislation is believed to only target organisations, not individuals, such as non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and charities, according to a report from the POLITICO website.

The move comes on the back of one of the largest scandals in the history of the bloc, in which socialist Members of the European Parliament (MEP), among others, have been accused of taking literal suitcases full of cash in bribes from Qatar and potentially other nations in exchange for lobbying. The bill would also likely be sold as a means of reducing the influence of antagonistic nations such as Communist China and Russia.

However, according to the news website, the proposed law requiring organisations to disclose their foreign funding has “spooked” NGOs, with some having already received a questionnaire from the Commission — as a part of its impact assessment — which asks them to disclose their non-EU financial backers.

“It’s obviously a delicate matter,” an unnamed Commission official said of the bill. “We are still in the early stages of gathering information from a wide range of stakeholders to make sure we are taking the right approach.”

Nick Aiossa of the Berlin-based Transparency International NGO said in response to the questionnaire, that the questions over funding “took a lot of people aback.”

Aiossa, whose organisation is financially backed by the likes of globalist billionaire George Soros’ Open Society Foundation as well as non-EU foreign governments such as the United States, the UK, Canada, Taiwan, among others, added: “The guiding questions suggested they were evaluating whether Transparency International was a threat to democracy.”

The report from POLITICO went on to reveal that other NGOs it spoke to expressed concern that such legislation from the EU would empower leaders such as Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán to, as the website put it, “clamp down on pro-democracy forces in their country.”

Mr Orbán has long sought checks on foreign-funded NGOs, which he has claimed often work on the behalf of liberal administrations in the United States, albeit paused under former President Donald Trump. Figures such as Hungarian-Anglo-American billionaire George Soros have been accused of interfering in Hungarian politics to attempt to promote globalist agenda items such as open borders migration policies, which Orbán one of the few EU leaders to actively oppose.

As Breitbart London reported in 2017, the Fidesz leader said: “These [open borders theories] are conceived in the Soros workshop, and these have also infiltrated a number of international institutions. We must fight these battles. We must argue against them. We must make their operations transparent, and we must make clear that often it’s not about the principles of human rights, but about greed and the migrant business.”

Conservatives in other EU nations, particularly Italy, have also found themselves at odds with international NGOs, some of which have actually sponsored boats to pick up migrants from Africa adrift in the Mediterranean Sea and bring them ashore in Italy.

One such organisation, Doctors Without Borders, also known by its French name Médecins Sans Frontières — which has also received Soros money — has been accused of violating a government decree from Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni earlier this year, which requires such NGO ‘migrant taxi’ ships return to port after a ‘rescue mission’ rather than continuing to sail around and pick up more migrants.

NGO-funded migrant taxi operations have previously been accused by the European Union border agency Frontex of serving as a “pull factor” for illegal immigration to the bloc. The organisations have also been accused of directly worked with people-smuggler operations as well as leading to more migrant deaths on the open sea, with many setting sail with no other hope of survival than being picked up by the NGO boats.

Follow Kurt Zindulka on Twitter here @KurtZindulka