European Court of Justice "Lacking Any Foundation in Law"

European Court of Justice "Lacking Any Foundation in Law"

by Douglas Murray

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3527/european-court-justice-ngo-monitor

The European Commission in recent years has been funding rabidly anti-Israel and anti-Semitic campaign groups. Parading under the banner-term of "NGOs," they have one concerted aim, which is to manipulate international opinion against Israel: Foreign government-funded subversion of a democracy.

Few people would ever label the hydra-like institutions of the European Union as transparent... or responsive to the desires of we mere voters. The EU has long been in the habit of ignoring the will of the peoples of Europe, if their will is not the same as the will of the EU. Its accounting procedures are so lacking in accountability that the EU's own auditors have refused to sign off on the entity's budgets for the last 18 years running. And of course the European Court has a long and ignoble track-record of ignoring the security concerns of EU citizens in favour of the rights of terrorists to go about their lives and careers unhindered.

So nobody should be terribly surprised at the European Court of Justice's latest demonstration of opposition not merely to transparency but to the peoples it presumes to govern.

Shortly before Christmas the European Court threw out a lawsuit filed almost three years ago, which would have led to the EU being required to release the details of its funding of non-governmental organizations [NGOs]. The suit, filed in 2010 by the superb NGO Monitor, accused the European Commission [EC] -- the "executive branch" of the acronym-rich EU - of failing to fulfill the EU's own transparency obligations. These obligations -- included, for what it's worth, in European Freedom of Information law -- require that details of EC funding should be available upon request. For thirteen months, NGO Monitor has requested such information, and for all that time the EC has claimed"'privacy" and "commercial interests" among other reasons for refusing to have any transparency.

Previously, since June 2005, NGO monitor had identified almost $48 million of funding given by the EC to groups which include those actively involved in extremist anti-Israel activity. such as boycott campaigns and "lawfare" -- frivolous and malicious lawsuits to try, through the harassment and expense of lawsuits, to intimidate people from questioning or criticizing Islam.

Now, amazingly, the Luxembourg-based European Court has not only ruled in favour of the EC's resistance to transparency, it has labelled NGO Monitor's claims "manifestly unfounded" and "lacking any foundation in law." The fact that it is manifest to everybody else that the foundation for such claims lies in European law was completely overridden. Indeed the court even -- disgracefully -- ordered NGO Monitor to pay the costs incurred by the EC in the case.

Beyond the Israeli media, too little has been made of this case. But it is vital that Europeans and Americans understand the true nature of the subversion going on here.

There is only one true explanation as to why the various wings of European anti-democracy have engaged in this cover-up. The motivation comes down to this: Whatever criticism the European Court will get for its refusal to be transparent, it is nothing compared to the criticism the EC would get if the identities of the recipients of its funding were made publicly available.

Although the EU is institutionally incapable of listening to criticism, it would probably prefer to avoid it, or at least cut it off where it can. The events of recent weeks are merely a reminder that every lever of European "justice" will continue to be wielded to prevent such information being released. So since we cannot be "told" what the corrupt EC does with our money, perhaps this mere voter could say what he thinks is being done with it.

Although it is eminently possible that the EC is caught up in some corrupt commercial interest, the idea that the European Court has had to cover for the European Commission because of genuine concerns over "privacy" is ridiculous.

The EC in recent years has been funding rabidly anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic campaign groups. Though parading under the banner-term of "NGOs," such groups are in fact barely concealed fronts for a war against the Jewish state. They have one concerted aim, which is to manipulate international opinion against Israel by fabricating bad Israeli behaviour where it does not exist and exponentially exaggerating it where – as in any democracy – it does.

These groups actively seek not merely to poison the reputation of Israel in the international sphere, but to manipulate politics inside Israel. There are parties and politicians they would rather have in power than this one. They believe that through the destroying the reputation of the Israeli government at home as well as abroad, they can actively alter the outcome of the political process within Israel.

What these EU-funded groups are involved in is therefore not merely a campaign of propaganda: It is a campaign of subversion. And not just subversion, but foreign government-funded subversion. It is a subversion aimed at a country, and a democracy, with whom we are still – at least in name – meant to be allies. This is tantamount not merely to an act of folly or stupidity, but of actual and open hostility. It is a campaign about which every voter in the EU, as well as Israel and America, should know.

Or perhaps I am wrong. Perhaps the EU has changed its spots. Perhaps it has been spending our money on pro-Israel groups or groups intent on persuading the Palestinians to stop trying to annihilate the Jewish state, or on outreach water-parks in the greater Gaza area. But I doubt it. And so long as we EU citizens are allowed to remain citizens and not subjects of this accountable EU monstrosity, and so long as we still have the right to say what we like about it, we should say that the onus is on them – and not on us – to show what they are doing with our money. If they cannot be persuaded to do so, then we will gladly refrain from giving them any more.