EEA/Norway grants
In the ongoing courtcase related to the tax number of Carpathian Foundation Hungary (member of the EEA/Norway NGO Fund operator consortium) the Administrative and Labour Court of Eger decided to turn to the Constitutional Court of Hungary. The Court of Eger made this decision based on our motion to establish whether the tax number suspension ordered by the Governmental Control Office (GCO) and the Government Decree on GCO' operation conflicts the Basic Law.
Over the past months, the Hungarian government and pro-government media has published numerous malicious rumors viewing Ökotárs, its partners and the activities of the EEA/Norwegian NGO Fund in a bad light. These rumors include heavy, sometime contradictory accusations against us and even these are constantly changing: it started out with the claim that we are indirectly supporting parties from the Fund. It turned out that this is not true. Than it continued with that we support party-related NGOs. It turned out that this is not true either. It continued that we are pseudo-civil. This is not true either, of course. And now they say that our operation is irregular. We will refute this as well.
In the first days of August, the evaluation of the 2nd phase macro project applications was successfully completed and the final grant decision made. Accordingly, out of the 43 detailed proposals 14 received support in Thematic area I. (human rights and advocacy) and 9 in Thematic area II. (organisation and community development), with a total amount of 2.7 million €.