“We will submit to the Marshal’s staff all projects, especially civilian projects, especially in defense of Christians, in defense of forests, but also those related to the openness and transparency of the financing of non-governmental organizations,” says Michał Woś, former deputy minister. of Justice, Member of Parliament of Sovereign Poland, in an interview with the wPolityce.pl portal.
wPolityce.pl: In his statement, Donald Tusk thanked non-governmental organizations and social movements for their support in the election campaign. What impact do you think they had on the election?
Michael Woś: Huge. I would like to divide these organizations into two movements, i.e. those that operated under their banner from the beginning, that were founded on the basis of hatred and aversion to right-wing rule, that helped create the impression that the rule of law was being violated, which had absolutely nothing to do with reality, but also a whole series of such “old” organizations that had an established position within the creation of the Third Polish Republic and were the beneficiaries of all these changes after 2015, because all these foreign centers directed their finances to them. And these are the organizations that were the operators, who distributed the money, that is, who decided which organization could function, which could grow, and which would be financially oppressed. During our administration, we made a number of reform efforts regarding the Freedom Institute, for the greater good, but what these organizations hated most were the rules regarding the flow of money. When the Committee for the Defense of Democracy was created at the beginning of our government, it had several hundred likes on Facebook, but immediately there was full mobilization on the other side and questions arose about its finances. Where do they get the money from, what is the source of the collections they organize, who is behind it?
You have submitted a draft law to the Sejm on the transparency of financing of non-governmental organizations. This was immediately met with an attack. The Polish Federation of Non-Governmental Organizations and the Donors Forum warned that you were proposing Putin-Orban solutions, that this was a strangulation of democracy. This project was submitted in March 2022 and was not accepted. Why?
We, as the Sovereign Polish Community, deeply regret that this has happened, as we have firmly opted for full transparency. I was surprised by these protests and the resistance against this act by NGOs, because no one banned anyone from doing anything. It was not a law about the ban on financing or about foreign financing, it was a simple law about transparency. We said that openness is the basis of public life, openness and transparency strengthen democracies, and these organizations said so, but when it also started to compromise their finances, they launched a furious attack. These solutions were absolutely in line with European law, following the CJEU ruling on Hungarian law, i.e. they took into account all the CJEU’s concerns regarding the Hungarian solutions. American solutions were also a model. In the US, no one doubts the fact that if someone makes a donation to a non-governmental organization, it is public because it is necessary first for the good of democracy, secondly for citizens’ access to information and thirdly, to combat certain threats. that can be related to it, because citizens have the right to know whether a protest related to, for example, the ecological movement is not behind a large company whose interests are pursued in this way. And this law in the USA, which concerns the transparency of financing of non-governmental organizations, especially with foreign money, has been in force since the late 1930s, that is, before the Second World War. I consider it a mistake from the previous parliamentary term that this good bill was not adopted, because citizens have the right to know who is trying to influence public opinion and with whose money.
I believe that there is an imbalance in NGO funding. On the one hand, we have grants, subsidies and donations that flow indirectly from the state budget to non-governmental organizations through the government and government-related institutions, with full transparency to whom and for what purpose they are awarded, while on the other side a whole range of non-governmental organizations that use money whose sources are unknown.
This is indeed a problem, and it is even more of a problem in democracies when the left-liberal side is in power, provides financial support to various left-liberal organizations, and they also benefit from the charity and generosity of various private entities . including foreign ones. And it must be completely transparent and open when companies transfer money to the accounts of non-governmental organizations. For example, if someone makes a poster protesting the digging of the Vistula Spit, let the poster say that it is being financed from money transferred, for example, to a newly created ecological foundation by a Western company or a large foreign corporation . company. Similarly, in the case of nuclear energy, a key issue for Poland, namely the construction of nuclear power plants, there are already some organizations and foundations that, in my opinion, directly pursue German interests, whose sources of financing are also not clear.
There are non-governmental organizations that are openly involved in politics and organizations that have nothing to do with it officially, even though the goal is the same. And this is one area of work, but the other is what you just mentioned: there are pseudo-ecological or ecological organizations where it is clearly visible that they act in the economic interest of another country or a Western company. And while we can expect that during the campaign for the European Parliament elections there will again be a large flow of money from abroad in support of parties and candidates welcomed by the liberal socialist elite in Brussels, we can also expect actions aimed at inhibiting all economic activities. investments, which were started by the right wing and which were intended to strengthen Poland’s economic position.
I agree with you: I think this is the biggest concern regarding the third sector. Of course, the third sector, that is, non-governmental organizations, is absolutely desirable in democracies; this should function well as an efficiently organized social involvement of people, but we cannot, under the pretext of social involvement, turn a blind eye to the use of this noble activity for cynical politics or lobbying, which is often the case. Our bill was also about social engagement, because citizens, who have a fixed list of entities that finance non-governmental organizations – and this list would only apply to large organizations with a turnover of more than one million – would play a specific role as guardians of democracy, able to detect certain information, for example that some billionaire foundation is pumping money into a specific organization. Let people know. But there is one more thing, and it probably became most clear during the last election and referendum campaign. I read the reports of the Anti-Polonism Monitoring Center, which analyzed information about finances on Facebook, and which introduced a standard regarding transparency, that is, it informs who spent how much and on what. With any Facebook ad, you can expand on this and see how much money a particular organization has spent on different campaigns. And under the guise of the referendum campaign, de facto election campaigns were conducted by various small, strange, unknown associations and foundations that suddenly appeared and had sums of millions or hundreds of thousands at their disposal, the sum of which was spent on these kinds of practices. of activity on the Internet alone in the last ten days of the campaign amounts to approximately PLN 8 million, while the budgets of parties and candidates for the entire campaign amount to PLN 15 to 20 million. We must closely monitor and control citizens, but also involve them and equalize their opportunities to access knowledge, because knowledge ensures that the context in which a certain event or a certain assignment is carried out also changes the picture of reality. And if we have this knowledge, every common-sense citizen will respond differently to the arguments of someone known to be, for example, a paid lobbyist.
Does Sovereign Poland intend to return this project to the Sejm?
The Board of Directors has decided that all our projects that have not gone through the full legislative process or have been in some kind of freeze during the last legislative term will be submitted to the Marshal’s staff. But it hurts me to see that Mr Hołownia says one thing and does another, namely that he announces that he has taken the freezer out of the office of the President of the Sejm and is continuing with all the projects, but at the same time he got one freezer, but several freezers were installed in the Sejm committees to which Mr. Marshal returns the projects. He himself has clean hands, but he does not set deadlines for dealing with cases, so the chairman – and most of them are members of the ruling coalition – puts these projects in the freezer and there they die. However, we will submit to the Marshal’s discretion all projects, especially civilian projects, especially those in defense of Christians, in defense of forests, but also projects related to the openness and transparency of the financing of non-governmental organizations .
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Source: wPolityce