About the Author

Thomas Fazi is an independent researcher, writer and journalist based in Rome.

He is the author of several books, including: 
The Battle for Europe: How an Elite Hijacked a Continent – and How We Can Take It Back (Pluto Press, 2014); 
Reclaiming the State: A Progressive Vision of Sovereignty for a Post-Neoliberal World (co-authored with Bill Mitchell; Pluto Press, 2017); and The Covid Consensus: The Global Assault on Democracy and the Poor—A Critique from the Left (co-authored with Toby Green; Hurst, 2023). He is a columnist for UnHerd and Compact.

In this report, Thomas Fazi, investigates, with many supportive references, including directly from the European Commission itself, how the EU goes about utilising ‘tools’ against challenges to its authority. By positioning local NGOs to pressure or delegitimise democratically elected governments, it attempts to centralise power within its “supranational institutions, particularly the European Commission” itself. This in turn, Fazi argues, “jeopardises the credibility and work of genuine NGOs that provide critical services and advocacy” via an “inevitable backlash against the EU-NGO complex”. Fazi concludes that a ‘recalibration is urgently needed to ensure that NGOs remain independent actors’ functioning in the public sphere on behalf of the citizens and public whom they serve. Otherwise they risk becoming the “tools of undemocratic supranational agendas”.

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