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Once again, Brussels has shown that it doesn’t know—or prefers not to know—where Europeans’ money is going. A recent report by the French Ministry of the Interior has raised serious concerns about organisations allegedly linked to the Muslim Brotherhood having received funds from the European Union budget.
The revelation not only calls into question the control mechanisms of the EU’s subsidy system but also raises doubts about the naivety—or complicity—of certain members of the European elite.
According to the report, the Islamist movement has spent years building a dense network of associations with a civil, educational, or youth-oriented appearance, many of which are registered as lobbies in Brussels.
One of the primary beneficiaries is FEMYSO, the youth wing of the Council of European Muslims (CEM), which several intelligence services regard as the platform channeling the ideological agenda of the Muslim Brotherhood into Europe. The problem? FEMYSO has been funded through another organisation, ENAR (European Network Against Racism), financed almost entirely by the European Commission.
European money, therefore, ends up financing activities and networks that, in the best-case scenario, promote a religious and identitarian agenda incompatible with European values and, in the worst-case scenario, contribute to the development of Islamist platforms. All this happens without EU institutions conducting any serious audits of the true ideological affiliations of the organisations requesting funding.
The French report stresses that many of these entities practise a double discourse: towards the public, they speak of inclusion, diversity, and rights; internally, they promote a radical vision of Islam, covert antisemitism, and a policy of cultural segregation. Some of these organisations, for example, advise Muslim families against sending their children to public schools in Europe, deeming them contrary to Islam.
This is not the first time warnings have been raised about this phenomenon. Back in 2019, Swedish MEP Charlie Weimers warned that the Muslim Brotherhood was accessing EU funds through front organisations. According to a report he commissioned, FEMYSO alone received over three million Swedish kronor (around €275,000) from the EU between 2007 and 2019. A new, still unpublished study suggests that several hundred million kronor have been channeled in recent years through projects labeled as anti-Islamophobia initiatives.
Meanwhile, oversight bodies are conspicuously absent. The European Court of Auditors has repeatedly pointed out the lack of proper evaluation and monitoring of projects funded by the Commission. The result is a system that is vulnerable, opaque, and easily manipulated by ideological agendas that have nothing to do with liberal democracy.
Over thirty MEPs have called for a formal investigation in response to the scandal. In parallel, governments such as Austria, Germany, and France have already taken national measures to limit the Muslim Brotherhood’s influence. In Austria, the organisation has even been banned due to its links to political Islam.
