The numbers come from the EU’s own online portals — the Funding & Tenders Portal (FTP) and the Financial Transparency System (FTS) — and yet, even they don’t tell the full story. That’s because the EU’s NGO funding system is built to be opaque.
The FTP and FTS databases, supposedly the most comprehensive tools for tracking EU financial support, are riddled with inconsistencies and data gaps. While Brussels bureaucrats frequently cite these platforms to demonstrate transparency, in reality, the figures don’t match — and both systems omit critical details.
These databases offer no visibility into financial flows between entities, meaning it's impossible to know whether funding from one NGO is quietly funneled to another. Nor do they provide a definitive record of all financial support, raising serious questions about hidden subsidies and undisclosed grants.
This lack of transparency becomes even more troubling when viewed in the context of the Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values (CERV) programme. While officially presented as a tool to strengthen civil society and promote EU values, the way it distributes funding — particularly in Hungary — is raising familiar red flags.
For example, the Central European University (CEU) alone received over €50 million, mostly through research projects. Excluding CEU, other politically active civil organizations still secured a staggering €12.2 million — over HUF 4.8 billion. In just the past two years, nearly €13 million in CERV funds have gone to NGOs that routinely oppose Hungary’s democratically elected government. And that’s just what we know.
This wouldn’t be the first time foreign aid was used as a tool for political influence. In fact, extensive reporting on CERV’s former U.S.-based counterpart, USAID, has revealed a well-documented network designed precisely for that purpose — using civil society funding as a vehicle to shape political narratives, pressure governments, and bypass national decision-making.
With USAID, the dirty tricks are already public: indirect payments, ideological grant conditions, and opaque structures to prop up favored groups while sidelining others. The parallels with CERV are striking.
Fragmented oversight, ideological clustering of grantees, and the absence of national control mirror the patterns seen in the USAID system. At the very least, it raises legitimate concerns that CERV may be drifting in the same direction — transforming from a civil society support mechanism into a political influence tool.
Even as it demands accountability from member states, the European Commission refuses to apply the same standards to itself. The EU’s own funding registries remain incomplete, inconsistent, and unverifiable. It’s impossible to trace how the money moves between entities, where it ultimately ends up, or whether it supports the kind of democratic pluralism the EU claims to champion.
Hungarian taxpayers — like citizens across Europe — are left in the dark. They’re expected to fund this system but have no say in how the money is spent. And worse, they may be financing NGOs that work directly against their interests — and against the representatives and governments they elected.
The EU calls it “value promotion.” But unless full transparency and ideological neutrality are restored to its funding system, it’s fair to ask whether CERV is becoming Europe’s USAID — or if it already is.