European Union Funding Muslim Brotherhood-Affiliated Groups and Other Anti-Western Adversaries

The official website of the European Commission reported on June 23 that the Commission is allocating a total of €202 million to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency in the Near East (UNRWA) and the Palestinian Authority (PA) under the Comprehensive and Multiannual Programme for Palestine’s Recovery and Resilience.

Yet both the PA and UNRWA have been instrumental in terror attacks against both Israeli and non-Israeli civilians. As MEP Jorge Martín Frías, of the Patriots for Europe (PfE), a group in the European Parliament, noted in a motion to the European Commission:

For many years, the EU has been financing the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). Since 2010, the EU has donated a total of USD 2.15 billion.

On 11 April 2024, Parliament adopted a resolution calling for the funds allocated to UNRWA to be frozen in the face of evidence that UNRWA facilities had been a refuge for Hamas’ terrorists, and had been used by them to plan attacks and store the weapons used to carry out the attacks on and murders of Israeli citizens on 7 October 2023. At least 12 employees from UNRWA were involved in these attacks.

In October 2024, investigations following the death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar showed that one of his bodyguards was a teacher in UNRWA.

Evidence about the link between Hamas and UNRWA is public knowledge but nevertheless, the Vice-President of the Commission / High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy (VP/HR), Mr Borrell, has continued to approve several payments, totalling EUR 82 million, to UNRWA throughout 2024.

How is it possible that the Commission, by request of VP/HR Mr Borrell, has continued to approve the transfer of millions of euros, which cannot be traced, to UNRWA after such striking evidence of its implication in terrorist activities?

Other European political leaders have also criticized the EU’s direct and indirect funding of Islamist groups and organizations.

At the Strasbourg plenary in October 2024, Jordan Bardella, MEP and leader of France’s National Rally Party, said that “European public funds” were “indirectly fueling the Hamas terrorist movement.”

Responding to Bardella’s comments in the chamber, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Josep Borrell said: “If you have the slightest proof that European funds have been reaching Hamas, I as vice-president of the European Commission demand that you share them. And if you don’t, that you retract your words.” “Doing politics shouldn’t be about insulting and slandering,” he added.

Bardella cited the EU’s funding to the Islamic University of Gaza — which was co-founded by Hamas’ founder Ahmed Yassin — to back up his statement, while his National Rally party has launched a petition in his support.

Bardella is correct. For decades, many EU institutions have funded Islamist groups related to the Muslim Brotherhood and its Palestinian branch, Hamas. These Islamist organizations – perhaps for votes and perhaps to bribe this restive constituency not to commit acts of terror on European soil — operate against the interests of European security, sovereignty, and democracy.

On October 13, 2023, the American Centre for Law and Justice (ACLJ) provided detailed information in its report, “The European Union’s Funding of Organizations Close to Hamas”:

Since the unprecedented terrorist attack on the Israeli population on October 7, 2023, European governments have been reluctant to suspend all or part of the European subsidies paid to the Palestinian Authority. Between 2021 and 2023, this represented 691 million euros ($728.2 million). Some governments want to distinguish humanitarian subsidies from those likely to directly fund Hamas terrorism. However, the European Commission also funds organizations close to Hamas and other antisemitic and anti-Israeli terrorist groups through its various programs. An in-depth examination of the groups that the European Union (EU) funds is essential to combat Hamas’ hatred and calls for violence against the State of Israel.

According to data published in the EU’s financial transparency register, the European Commission has paid grants to organizations reputed to be close to Hamas, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), and the Muslim Brotherhood. Between 2014 and 2020, Islamic Relief Worldwide received $13.7 million in European subsidies. However, this association has been on Israel’s list of terrorist organizations since 2014 because of its alleged role in channeling funds to Hamas. It is also considered to be close to the Muslim Brotherhood. It was not until 2021 that the European Commission announced that it had been informed of these facts. It will, therefore, have taken six years for the Commission to stop its subsidies.

The European Commission has also granted subsidies to organizations close to the PFLP, a group that Hamas describes as “a major political partner.” This is the case, for example, of the NGO Al-Haq, which received $316,000 in European subsidies in 2018. According to an Israeli statement to the U.N. in 1994, Al-Haq Director General Shawan Jabarin is accused of having been a member of the PFLP. In May 2018, Visa, Mastercard, and American Express halted online credit card donations to Al-Haq due to the group’s links to the PFLP. However, in a written question, MEPs acting on behalf of the Socialist Group (S&D) expressed indignation that in 2021, the Israeli Defense Minister had placed Al-Haq on the list of terrorist organizations. They criticized the Commission for suspending its funding to this organization. Al-Haq also received nearly $2.1 million from the Open Society Foundation between 2016 and 2020.

The European Commission has also awarded grants totaling $527,000 between 2014 and 2019 to the Forum of European Muslim Youth and Student Organizations (FEMYSO). FEMYSO is the youth branch of the Federation of Islamic Organizations in Europe (FIOE), an organization close to the Muslim Brotherhood, according to Florence Bergeaud-Blackler, an anthropologist at the CNRS and specialist in Islamist movements. This analysis is also shared in a letter from members of the French Government to the European Commission in 2021. It is well known that Hamas is the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. FEMYSO brings together 32 Islamic organizations, including the Islamic Community Millî Görüş – Youth and Students. The German domestic intelligence agency considers that the Millî Görüş movement propagates antisemitic attitudes and that its objectives are not compatible with the fundamental principles of the liberal democratic order. The French government considers that the Millî Görüş organization does not respect the values of the Republic. Today, FEMYSO enjoys privileged status as an NGO with the Council of Europe and as an “interest group” with the European Parliament.

As noted by the report above, the Brussels-based Forum for European Muslim Youth and Student Organizations (FEMYSO) receives a significant amount of funding from the EU. The group was also invited to speak at the European Youth Event (EYE) both in 2021 and 2023.

In 2021, a group of Members of European Parliament submitted a question to the European Commission, saying:

It should be noted that FEMYSO shares the same address as the Collective Against Islamophobia in Belgium, which is linked to the Collective Against Islamophobia in France – an organization that was disbanded by the French authorities following the murder of [French teacher] Samuel Paty. While FEMYSO presents a noble front, its alleged connection to the Brotherhood reveals its true nature.

On October 16, 2020, Samuel Paty, a 47-year-old French history and geography teacher, was beheaded by a Chechen Muslim refugee near his secondary school in Paris following accusations that he showed some cartoons of Islam’s founder Mohammed in one of his classes.

It is well-documented that the EU funds Islamist organizations. But the problem does not end there. The terrorist group Hamas is also indirectly represented in the Council of Europe.

The “Palestinian Legislative Council” (PLC), which is represented within the Council of Europe, is led by a Hamas member, Aziz Duwaik, the speaker of the PLC. The PLC has other Hamas members as well.

Ironically, Israel is an “observer” to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE). On the other hand, the Palestinian Legislative Council has had the status of “Partner for Democracy” since 2011.

On October 11, 2023, the European Centre for Law and Justice issued a report “The Council of Europe’s Partnership with the Hamas-Dominated Palestinian Parliament”:

The Palestinian Legislative Council is the unicameral parliament of the Palestinian territories. It is chaired by MP Abdel Aziz Doweik, a member of Hamas. Of its 132 members, 74 are also Hamas members, i.e., the majority. These members were elected in 2006, and the “Palestinian Authority” has not held legislative elections since.

Article 64 of the PACE [Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe] Rules defines the prerogatives of “Partners for Democracy”. This status gives the Palestinian Legislative Council the right to send a delegation of parliamentarians to the Council of Europe at each plenary session. They have the right to speak at the Assembly, to take part in committee meetings, to make proposals concerning the agenda, to sign motions for resolutions and recommendations and written declarations, and to participate in the work of the political groups.

In other words, a parliament in which Hamas has a majority has the status to officially influence the Council of Europe.

In PACE, however, the Palestinian Legislative Council is represented by members from other Palestinian political parties: Fatah, the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. The latter, like Hamas, is considered a terrorist organization by the European Union…

The status of “Partner for Democracy” presupposes compliance with several conditions, which are not fulfilled by the Palestinian Legislative Council. In particular, a “Partner for Democracy” must embrace the values of the Council of Europe (notably human rights), abolish capital punishment (Hamas has always carried it out, legally or otherwise), and organize free and fair elections (which has not been done since 2006 in Palestine).

Hamas–the acronym for Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiyya (Islamic Resistance Movement)—is the largest militant group in Gaza. Hamas, a jihadist organization, has a charter that calls for the obliteration of Israel and the extermination of the Jewish people. Hamas seeks to establish an Islamic state on Israel’s entire territory. The United States, the European Union, and Canada, among other countries, list Hamas as a terrorist organization.

Since Israel’s unconditional withdrawal in 2005 from Gaza, where Jews had resided for millennia, Israel has suffered significant violence and terrorism committed by Palestinian Arabs. Less than two years after the 2005 Israeli withdrawal, Hamas violently seized control of the Gaza Strip, at times tossing PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization) members from the top floors of high buildings.

Hamas terrorists have since launched thousands of rockets against Israeli civilians. They commit suicide bombings and other terrorist attacks which have murdered numerous Israeli and non-Israeli civilians. Hamas is also known for killing or abusing Gazans. As the World Jewish Congress notes,

As well as carrying out attacks against Israel, Hamas oppresses the people in Gaza, via abductions, torture, and extra-judicial killings. Hamas has also admitted to intimidating foreign journalists who film rocket launches or do not reflect the Palestinian narrative. Part of this may be because Hamas deliberately fires from civilian areas, even hospitals and schools, and encourages civilians to remain in buildings that Israel has warned to evacuate. This cynical strategy of using human shields maximizes the possibility that Israel will not retaliate, or that any Israeli action will result in civilian deaths, which can then be used to amplify the ‘martyr’ narrative.

Hamas is also indoctrinating the next generation in Gaza with its ideology. For example, summer camps teach children how to handle weapons along with kidnapping methods, and kindergartens in Gaza put on shows in which children enact the kidnapping of Jews. Moreover, the high schools that are ostensibly operated by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) – which is funded by numerous Western nations – are heavily influenced by Hamas. Dozens of UNRWA teachers are inciting violence on social media.”

Hamas is an Islamist organization that grew out of the Muslim Brotherhood. Countries including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates have designated the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization.

The Muslim Brotherhood, founded in Egypt in 1928, is a pro-jihad, Islamist movement that has branches throughout the world and seeks to implement Islamic sharia under a global caliphate.

Many organizations in Europe are related to the Brotherhood.  In 2022, the Global Influence Operations Report (GIOR) published a report on the Global Muslim Brotherhood in Europe titled, “Europe and the Global Muslim Brotherhood Part 2: Lobbying & Political Impacts.” According to the report,

European groups tied to the Global Muslim Brotherhood (GMB) have been actively lobbying European executive and legislative bodies such as the European Commission and the European Parliament, trying to impact supranational policy affecting European Muslims. The primary policy arenas for this activity have been civil rights & religious freedom, counterterrorism, and law enforcement. Although using modern language to couch their criticisms of European policies, the groups appear to be pursuing long-held Islamist goals such as defending the hijab (Islamic headscarf) and obstructing counterterrorism efforts. The groups have achieved varying degrees of success, significantly including establishing working relationships with MEPs and top EU officials. The legitimacy and status bestowed on European GMB groups by such EU and EU officials raise questions about the wider impact of these groups on European civil society.

The report also notes that FEMYSO is the youth and student arm of the Council of European Muslims, representing the GMB (Global Muslim Brotherhood) in Europe and almost all FEMYSO member organizations are tied to the European GMB.

Terrorism is only one of the methods the Brotherhood employs, and “democratization” has never been one of the Brotherhood’s goals.

Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna openly announced that his aim was to bring back the Islamic caliphate. The Muslim Brotherhood’s official English-language website quotes Banna:

Islam does not recognize geographical boundaries, nor does it acknowledge racial and blood differences, considering all Muslims as one Umma [global community of Muslims]. The Muslim Brethren [Muslim Brotherhood]…believe that the caliphate is a symbol of Islamic Union and an indication of the bonds between the nations of Islam. They see the caliphate and its re-establishment as a top priority…

According to a report by the Counter Extremism Project (CEP):

Banna was concerned with what he considered the greatest threat to Islam: the rise of secularism and Western culture in Muslim societies. To counter this danger, Banna began dawa (proselytization) in schools, mosques, and coffee houses, spreading his pan-Islamist ideology and emphasizing the need to return to sharia.

In the 1950s and 1960s, the Brotherhood’s most notable theorist, Sayyid Qutb, promoted jihad as an offensive force to be used against secular Arab governments… Indeed, Qutb helped to re-popularize the Islamic concept of takfir, by which Muslims serving a secular ruler are rendered apostates and thus legitimate targets for execution.

In 2018, US Ambassador Ryan Crocker sent a statement to a US House Hearing regarding the Muslim Brotherhood’s global threat. The letter said, in part:

The Muslim Brotherhood has been militant from its very beginning. Its founder, Hassan al-Banna, who started the group in 1928, said that “Jihad is an obligation from Allah and every Muslim and cannot be ignored nor evaded.”

And in a book titled “The Way of Jihad,” he wrote: “Jihad means the fighting of the unbelievers and involves all possible efforts that are necessary to dismantle the power of the enemies of Islam, including beating them, plundering their wealth, destroying their places of worship, and smashing their idols.”

This belief was put into action in the decades that followed as the Muslim Brotherhood’s members committed numerous acts of terrorism, including the assassination of Egypt’s Prime Minister in 1948.

This jihadist ideology continues to fuel the Muslim Brotherhood today. The Brotherhood mourned the death of Osama bin Laden and its leaders developed teachings justifying revolutionary violence under sharia law. The Brotherhood has preached hatred towards Jews, denied the Holocaust, and called for Israel’s destruction. The Brotherhood has incited violence against Coptic Christians in Egypt amidst a wave of church bombings and other attacks by terrorist groups, including ISIS.

Yusuf al-Qaradawi, perhaps the Brotherhood’s preeminent cleric, issued a fatwa legitimizing terrorist attacks against American troops in Iraq. And he’s also deemed the Holocaust to be a “punishment for Jews,” and expressed hope that another Holocaust would someday be carried out by his fellow Islamists.

The Muslim Brotherhood’s Supreme Guide, Mohammed Badie, has said that the organization’s goal is to establish a new Islamist caliphate, including the imposition of sharia law, which is the totalitarian Islamic legal code. We saw what happens when the Brotherhood takes control of a country in Egypt from 2012 to 2013, and the results were chilling, that then-President Mohamed Morsi defied the rule of law and granted himself near absolute power. As Egyptian leader Mohamed El Baradi put it, Morsi usurped all state powers and appointed himself Egypt’s new pharaoh.

The Brotherhood’s legislators enshrined the principles of sharia as the main source of law in Egypt’s Constitution, while the Morsi government used state institutions to promote Islamic radicalism, roll back freedom of the press, and launched a wave of blasphemy prosecutions.

The Morsi Muslim Brotherhood government is no more, but the Brotherhood and its affiliates continue to advance their agenda across the Middle East and throughout the world.

In 2021, the European Conservatives and Reformists Group (ECR) in the European Parliament issued a comprehensive report, “Network of Networks: The Muslim Brotherhood in Europe,” documenting the funds that the EU institutions have been granting to the Islamist groups. The report notes:

The MB in Europe is not a single, centralized organization, but rather a starfish of different branches formally independent from one another, but linked by ideological patterns, common umbrella organisations and individual ties.

Security agencies and parliamentary inquiries from multiple EU Member States have made a similar assessment of the damage MB-related organizations have been causing to security and social cohesion. Yet, this has not prevented state institutions from interfacing with the MB as privileged interlocutors and representatives of the local Muslim communities – a trend that ought to stop.

The European Commission has fallen into the same trap, disbursing large amounts of money to finance MB organizations or empowering them and their members in different ways.

Muslim Brotherhood-related groups in Europe possess access to significant financial resources. That is not surprising if we consider that, in 2012, Youssef Nada talked of the Ikhwan [Muslim Brotherhood] having over 100 million members worldwide. In 1996, the Federation of Islamic Organizations in Europe (FIOE) established the Europe Trust, to generate funds for its activities. The Europe Trust has since established an impressive property portfolio.

According to the report, the main Muslim Brotherhood-related organizations in Europe include the Council of European Muslims – formerly Federation of Islamic Organizations in Europe (FIOE), the European Council for Fatwa and Research (ECFR), the European Institute for Human Sciences (EIHS), the Forum of European Muslim Youth and Student Organizations (FEMYSO) and the European Forum of Muslim Women (EFOMW).

Other MB-related organizations that receive EU funding include Islamic Relief, Forum of European Muslim Youth and Student Organizations (FEMYSO), the Islamic University of Gaza, the Lokahi Foundation, and the Muslim Association of Ireland Friendly Society (MAI).

For instance,

EU institutions have funded Islamic Relief to the tune of over 40 million Euros. This has continued at a time when member states have increasingly begun to both question, and indeed to move away from this organization following repeated example of extremist comments involving senior figures, and exposure of its connections to the Muslim Brotherhood.

The report argues that the EU should “call a moratorium on all funding to Islamic Relief Worldwide and its constituent organizations whilst an investigation into its problems with extremism, and the precise nature of its relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood, is conducted.”

As of today, however, the EU funding to the Islamic Relief Germany continues.

EU engagement with the Muslim Brotherhood has not come only in the form of funding. “Individuals and organizations gravitating around the MB enjoy a regular presence at the European institutions and agencies, in different forms,” such as advertising Islamism at the “European External Action Service (EEAS)” panel and endorsing the MB as trustworthy partners, according to the report.

The ultimate goal of the Muslim Brotherhood to build an Islamic state based on Sharia law. The Brotherhood is an enemy of Western values and concepts such as democracy, freedom of speech, and intellectual pluralism. Their ideology is Islamic supremacist, violent and totalitarian, undermining security, and liberties of Western nations.

In 2022, the ECR submitted a parliamentary question to the Council of Europe. It said:

Is the Council aware of the Commission’s funding of Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated organizations, including Islamic Relief, the Forum for European Muslim Youth and Student Organizations and the Lokahi Foundation?

Will the Council take steps to cease the funding, given that time and again, security agencies and parliamentary inquiries in multiple Member States have assessed that Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated organizations have caused damage to the security and social cohesion of the Member States?

Does the Council agree that non-violent Islamists pose a systemic threat to European values?”

In its response, the Council said: “The Council is not in a position to comment on the Commission’s funding decisions under its competence.”

The more that the EU funds Muslim Brotherhood affiliated groups, including Hamas, and enables them, the more that the EU risks Europe’s security and stability. As Hungarian Member of Parliament Zsolt Németh said, “terrorism is a common enemy of both Israel and Europe.”

The Muslim Brotherhood openly aim for an international Islamic caliphate under sharia law, which would mean a complete end to the freedoms, sovereignty, and cultural diversity of Europe.

Is the Islamic caliphate the future some members of the European Commission (EC) foresee or want for European nations? Have European populations given their consent to the EC funding of Islamists who want to destroy Europe as we know it? Are they even aware of how the EU executive has been directly or indirectly enabling Islamist groups by granting them hundreds of thousands of euros?

Why is the EU allowing Muslim Brotherhood related organizations to operate on European soil? And why is the European Commission funding and helping the MB, and other Islamist groups who oppose everything Europe historically stands for?

Uzay Bulut is a Turkey-born journalist formerly based in Ankara.