The few times in my political career when I have not relied exactly on facts, I have always stumbled and fallen over, so I will keep to what has happened and is happening, rather than having a guess at what might happen in future.
The 300 individuals, and the people they then talk to, will
“act as European Citizens of the future and peer-leaders. The festival will focus on the issues of precarity, poverty and solidarity
in a Europe facing the financial crisis, as well as themes of common goods, media pluralism, migrants and Roma rights and the fundamental rights given by Europe.”
Obviously, to be involved in this scheme, one has to approve wholeheartedly of the application of the EU charter of fundamental rights by the European Court of Justice. Those interested in Roma migration should note that the festival was held in London, as well as many other European cities, to promote that sort of thing.
Last year, the festival was awarded €149,000 from the Europe for Citizens budget. It appears that the 2011 festival was awarded €150,000. In 2010, European Alternatives Ltd was awarded €40,000 for a project called “Transeuropa citizens”. In 2009, the same company was awarded €36,300 for a project called “active and transnational citizens in dialogue”. In 2008, the company was awarded €24,800 for a project called the “active and transnational citizenship programme”. I wonder what all these programmes did, or do; from the preamble, one can probably guess exactly what they did.
In addition, European Alternatives Ltd has been awarded grants to fund its existence, which the Commission said it would cut out; no longer could organisations bid for money simply to run themselves, so that they could bid for more European money to run projects for the Commission, so that they could bid for more money from the Commission, so that they could run more projects for the Commission. That was not the case here. In 2012, 2011 and 2010, it was awarded a €100,000 annual operating grant. In 2009, it did a bit worse: it got only €60,000. This one organisation was awarded, all in all, approximately €760,000 from one section of the Europe for Citizens programme budget over the period from 2007 to 2013. Bear that figure in mind when I come on to the sort of grants that have been issued to projects in the United Kingdom.
Let us look at another example of an organisation that has received money from the Europe for Citizens programme. The grants were intended to support the running of the organisation itself, so I am pretty sure that it would not exist were it not for this funding. It is the French think-tank called—perhaps Members will be able to work out why it has been awarded funding—Notre Europe, the Jacques Delors Institute. It was set up by Jacques Delors in 1996 after he stepped down as European Commission President. It aims to contribute to the debate on the future of Europe and to influence decision makers. We are paying for an organisation to try to influence decision makers in a highly political way on the future of Europe and other European integration matters.