The European Commission’s decision to reduce support for pro-EU civil society groups has coincided with the growing visibility of eurosceptic and sovereigntist think tanks in Brussels, shifting the balance of influence in the EU policy debate.
A struggle over money, access and influence is reshaping the Brussels policy world. While the European Commission has tightened or withdrawn parts of its financial support for civil society organisations that have traditionally argued for deeper European integration, a parallel network of conservative, sovereigntist and eurosceptic policy shops has become more visible in the capital. The result is not a simple transfer of funds from one camp to another, but a marked change in the balance of voices seeking to shape the debate around the future of the European Union.
The immediate trigger for the dispute was the row over EU grants to non-governmental organisations. In April 2025, the European Court of Auditors said EU funding for NGOs remained too opaque, warning that information was fragmented and unreliable and noting that certain advocacy activities financed by the Commission were not clearly disclosed. The auditors said NGOs received €7.4 billion in EU internal policy funding between 2021 and 2023, although they also stressed that the overall picture remained incomplete. The report did not amount to a finding of fraud or illegality, but it gave political ammunition to those arguing that Brussels had blurred the line between public funding and political advocacy.
Pressure then shifted to the Commission’s grant-making. In a statement issued on 31 March 2025, the Commission said LIFE programme grants should support civil society participation in policymaking and democratic debate, but added that grant agreements must not require NGOs to lobby specific members of the European Parliament, institutions or national authorities. That clarification followed a campaign led by parts of the centre-right and the conservative right, which accused Brussels of underwriting one side of the policy debate, particularly on climate and environmental law.
The squeeze widened beyond the environmental field. In health policy, the Commission’s 2025 EU4Health work programme, adopted in July 2025, omitted operating grants for health NGOs. A number of health and patient organisations said the decision removed core funding on which they depended for staff, coordination and participation in EU-level policymaking. The European Ombudswoman later took up the issue, noting that no 2025 calls for those operating grants had been published.
For many established Brussels civil society groups, these operating grants mattered less because of their headline size than because they covered basic running costs. LIFE operating grants for environmental NGOs in 2025 amounted to less than €15 million, according to organisations defending the scheme, yet the money helped sustain a permanent presence in Brussels. Remove that support, and the effect is immediate: fewer staff, fewer briefings, less participation in consultations, and a weaker ability to respond to legislative proposals coming out of the Commission and Parliament.
At the same time, the Brussels ecosystem has seen the emergence, consolidation or greater visibility of a cluster of conservative and sovereigntist think tanks. MCC Brussels, founded in 2022 by Hungary’s Mathias Corvinus Collegium, presents itself as an alternative to the “status quo” and says it has become a major think tank arguing for strong nations and strong borders. New Direction, the political foundation linked to the European Conservatives and Reformists family, continues to organise conferences and projects across Europe and states openly that it is partly funded by the European Parliament. More recently, the Charlemagne Club has sought to build a right-leaning, explicitly European current, arguing for a different form of pro-European politics rooted in identity, borders and cultural conservatism.
That mix matters because the old Brussels argument between “pro-European” and “anti-European” camps is changing. Some of the newer organisations are not calling for withdrawal from the Union. Instead, they seek to recast it: less federal, less regulatory, less rights-based in tone, and more centred on sovereignty, migration control and cultural questions. A recent analysis by CEPS noted a broader shift on the radical right from outright rejection of the EU towards attempts to reshape it from within.
The funding picture is therefore more complicated than the headline suggests. The Commission is not handing money directly to eurosceptic think tanks in place of environmental or health NGOs. Some right-leaning political foundations receive Parliament funding under a separate legal regime governing European political parties and foundations, a regime revised in 2025 to tighten transparency rules. But politically, the effect of cutting or constraining operating grants for mainstream civil society groups is still significant. When organisations that traditionally defend integration, regulation and rights lose institutional capacity, alternative networks gain comparative space, whether or not they receive the same type of support.
What is now under way in Brussels is a redistribution of influence rather than a straightforward budget transfer. The centre of gravity in the policy debate is moving. Civil society groups aligned with a more integrationist, regulatory view of the EU are under sharper scrutiny and tighter financial conditions. Conservative and sovereigntist think tanks, by contrast, are building visibility, networks and confidence. In Brussels, where access often matters as much as money, that may prove the more important shift.
