Answer given by President von der Leyen on behalf of the European Commission

The Commission is independent and is obliged to promote the general interest of the Union according to the Treaties[1]. Its missions are defined by the Treaties, its objectives flow from the Political Guidelines of its President and the annual Work Programme, which results from close cooperation with the Parliament and Member States.

Its decision-making procedures ensure thorough preparation of decisions and collegiality. It does therefore not see the challenge mentioned by the Honourable Member.

The Commission does not see it as its task to assess organisations and their impact on society.

Commission Members always have a great number of activities and meetings with many organisations every year, as part of their mission.

Since 2014, the Commission has been publishing information on meetings of its Members that fall under the scope of the Interinstitutional Agreement on the transparency register[2], and moreover, since 2018, information on the missions of its Members.

As regards funding, the Honourable Member will find in the annex information extracted from the Financial Transparency System with one entry pertaining to the World Economic Forum and its initiative ‘Global Shapers Bucharest Hub’[3]. No funding has been made available to the Bilderberg Group.

See annex : Annex

• [1] Article 17 Treaty on European Union.
• [2] OJ L 277, 19.9.2014, p. 11.
• [3] The FTS publishes EU budget beneficiaries directly administered by the Commission departments, its staff in the EU delegations, through executive agencies and of the European Development Fund. It does not provide information on EU budget funding implemented in shared management or indirectly, nor on very low value contracts below EUR 15 000.