German conservatives prompt anger with questions about NGO funding

By Thomas Escritt

BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany's conservative chancellor-in-waiting Friedrich Merz on Wednesday drew a chorus of criticism, including from his likely future coalition partner, for a raft of parliamentary questions that some see as an attack on German civil society.

The 31-page filing, signed by Merz in his capacity as parliamentary leader of the centre-right Christian Democrats (CDU), asked the outgoing Social Democrat-led (SPD) government 551 questions on whether civil society groups which had received government funding were politically neutral.

Merz, seen as gaffe-prone even by some members of his own party, had already alarmed other parties by inviting Benjamin Netanyahu to Germany despite an International Criminal Court arrest warrant for the Israeli leader over alleged war crimes in Gaza. Merz told Netanyahu he would find a way to avoid having to implement the arrest warrant.

The filing also coincides with moves by the Trump administration in the United States against USAID, the world's largest single funder of civil society groups, which have caused deep unease among political parties and NGOs in Europe.

Among groups mentioned in the CDU filing is "Grandmas against the Right", which arranged protests against the Alternative for Germany (AfD) after the far-right party joined with Merz's conservatives before the election to help pass a conservative motion calling for tighter immigration controls.

"How much does Grandmas against the Right get from the state?" asked the legislators. "Are there links between Grandmas against the Right and certain parties or political actors?"

Other organisations cited in the filing include Correctiv, an investigative journalism portal which revealed that some of the AfD's most senior officials had discussed deporting "poorly-integrated" naturalised German citizens.

NEUTRAL?

"Tax-supported groups are allowed to exercise influence on public opinion provided they remain neutral with respect to political parties," said Christian Democrat legislator Mathias Middelberg. "With our parliamentary question we want to check if this is the case."

Middelberg said the filing, among the first to be published since Sunday's election, was made before the vote.

The filing prompted criticism from the SPD, Merz's favoured partner in a future coalition government.

"I can't imagine a situation where we negotiate about investments in the army, railways and infrastructure in the morning and in the afternoon the conservatives call into question the organisations that defend our democracy," said Lars Klingbeil, leader of the SPD parliamentary party.

"The conservatives really need to decide how seriously they want to take their talks with the Social Democrats... They should really think very hard about whether they are sticking to those questions," he added.

The Left party said the CDU's filing was "shameful" and compared it to "the methods of the far right".

(Reporting by Thomas Escritt; Editing by Gareth Jones)