MORE than 40 MEPs have signed a letter urging the EU to investigate huge sums of money being spent lobbying governments in Europe by right-wing American fundamentalist Christian groups.
An investigation by Open Democracy has uncovered at least $51 million coming from the US religious organisations to Europe over the course of the last decade.
Most of that money has come in the last five years.
A number of the groups are connected to the World Congress of Families, a network of ultra-conservative activists which has links to far-right politicians and movements in several European countries, including Italy, Hungary, Poland, Spain and Serbia.
The World Congress of Families is hosting a summit in Verona, Italy this weekend, with right-wing politicians from all over the continent taking part.
The Italian deputy prime minister, Matteo Salvini, is among those taking part.
In a letter copied to the presidents of the European Council, European Commission and European Parliament, the cross-party group of MEPs have called for action to protect European democracy “against nefarious outside influences”.
The SNP’s Alyn Smith, who sits on the European Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee and who signed the letter, said: “This investigation by Open Democracy is extremely timely and shines a light on a major challenge facing democracy in Europe.”
Smith added: “Nobody should be in any doubt as to the insidious nature of these fundamentalist groups.
“No group of any kind should be able to use dark money to distort debate and to subvert democracy in Europe, least of all group such as these whose causes are deeply regressive”.
He called for the mobilisation of “EU institutions and member states in preventing malign actors such as those identified in the investigation from interfering in the European Parliament elections in May – and beyond”.
Open Democracy analysed of hundreds of pages of financial filings for a dozen religious conservative groups registered in the US as tax-exempt non-profit organisations, and therefore required to disclose some information about their foreign spending.
One beneficiary of American funding is the Glasgow Students for Life group. The anti-abortion group received funding and legal advice from Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) International.
The Southern Poverty Law Centre, which monitors extremists in America, has described it as a hate group that has “become one of the most influential groups informing the [Trump] administration’s attack on LGBT rights”.
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