The European Parliament has urged the bloc's executive arm, the European Commission, to increase the monitoring of financial flows to the Muslim Brotherhood on the continent.
The 10-page resolution calls on the Commission to provide a "comprehensive overview" of all EU funds delivered to entities suspected of links with the Muslim Brotherhood.
The resolution demands the overview specify details such as the amounts received and the "failure of control" that led to the awarding of such funds. Examples given of such failures include the youth group Femyso, the European Network Against Racism, Al Sharq Forum, Islamic Relief Worldwide and the University of Gaziantep.
They are described as having received EU funding "in sensitive areas such as youth, anti-discrimination, education, culture, research, humanitarian action, intercultural dialogue or university programmes, despite having raised serious questions regarding their ideological, institutional or financial links with networks linked to the Muslim Brotherhood or political Islam."
The Commission, which is headed by Ursula von der Leyen, was urged to ensure full traceability of funding, including sub-grants, financial intermediaries, implementing partners and final recipients.
The Parliament also encouraged it to develop new control and assessment tools "adapted to entryism strategies and network structures".
The Muslim Brotherhood is described in the resolution as orchestrating an "unacceptable form of cover and malicious interference aimed at weakening democratic institutions".
Checks and balances
The resolution passed by a vote of 381 to 167. It was spearheaded by the Parliament's largest group, the right-wing European People's Party (EPP), and supported by others including the centrists at Renew. It was rejected by the left.
"The European Commission and member states must duly check who receives EU funding before it is granted," said MEP Tomas Zdechovsky, the EPP spokesman for budgetary control. "We must know who gets EU money, how much and through which programmes, and be able to trace every euro, flag the risks and stop funding where the rules are not met."
Resolutions are not legally binding, but they give a signal of the political mood on the continent. The Commission has three months to reply to requests made by Parliament but is not bound to follow up with a legislative proposal. The National has contacted the Commission for comment.
In June, the EPP adopted a resolution at its factional political assembly in Vienna, Austria, titled “Interference of Political Islam in European democratic processes."
"We are concerned with Islamist entryism as a structured political strategy that promotes an ideological project in which the religious, the social, the legal and the political are conceived as inseparable," it said at the time.
The European debate on the Muslim Brotherhood was relaunched by the French government announcing last year it would take new counter-measures, including the disbanding of endowment funds and a new asset-freeze mechanism.
The resolution calls for the listing of some Muslim Brotherhood supporters as terrorists. It highlights that several EU states had recently banned entities linked to the Muslim Brotherhood.
"Where rules allow, the Council should list individuals and organisations linked to the Muslim Brotherhood as terrorist entities," said MEP Celine Imart, who led the EPP Group’s work on the topic. "European money must not fund groups that threaten our rights and freedoms."
Earlier this year, French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez revealed the government prefers to act on a case-by-case basis to address the concerns raised by a French Parliament vote to endorse a resolution calling on the EU to add the Muslim Brotherhood to its list of terrorist groups.
