Although Michał Woś, the Minister of the Environment, has set up a working group to promote transparency in NGO funding, he himself gives evasive answers and restricts the citizen’s right of access to public information. For this reason, we are taking legal action and filing a complaint of his inaction. What exactly is it all about?

The minister of the environment wants to take a look at NGO finances. ‘We are all for transparency’

Michał Woś was appointed Minister of the Environment on Thursday, 5 March 2020. Just five days after he took office, he informed on Polskie Radio 24 that he has set up a working group that will create ‘statutory solutions to clarify the rules of transparency of pro‑environmental organizations’.

There have been cases in the world, and it probably happens in Poland too, that organizations [non-governmental organizations – ed.] have been directed by various types of lobbyists who have an interest in this and it often happens that they are used by various entities […] who want to use such precise laws on nature protection as ours to block investments or exert some other influence.

– said Michał Woś.

The newly minted Minister of the Environment emphasized that he started his work in the Ministry by setting up a working group to develop solutions to ‘remedy’ the use of lobbying as a tool. 

The public deserves full information about the organizations. It is not enough to have a nice name that appeals to everyone’s imagination. […] Sometimes there are really big business interests behind catchy names and positive emotions, so you need a lot of transparency here.

– he said on Polskie Radio 24.

Two months later, on 9 May, Minister Michał Woś spoke about pro-environmental NGOs in an even harsher way. He was a guest on TV Trwam and Radio Maryja where he talked about environmentalists who fight for the protection of the Białowieża Forest:

There is a large proportion of people who have been brainwashed by certain manipulators, they get caught up in emotional intrigues. We know that lobbyists as well as big business operate there, and that’s why the Ministry of the Environment started working on that. I set up a working group to disclose the financing of NGOs. Not only the environmental ones, because it will serve Poland well if all organizations have transparent finances. We are all for transparency, so organizations can show if they are foreign funded or not. The assumption is that organizations that are financed with foreign funds should inform Poles about it. The Polish people have the right to know whether those who protest so strongly on this or that road, against an investment project, or in the Vistula Spit, are really organizations that act in the interest of the Poles, or whether sometimes there are foreign organizations that finance certain activities or even pay some people for protesting in a particular place.

We request public information. Ministry of the Environment gives an evasive reply

The day after the minister of the environment gave the interview in Father Tadeusz Rydzyk’s media outlets, we requested information about the working group he has formed. We sent a request to the Ministry to provide:

1. the name of the group,

2. the information about the composition of the group (the names of the members, their educational backgrounds and the names of the entities they represent),

3. the data about the purpose for which the group was established,

4. the documents that had been developed by the group by the time of the response to the request.

The Department of Environmental Education and Communication of the Ministry of the Environment responded to our request. The response we received reveals virtually nothing.

In response to the request for public information from 10 May 2020, I would like to inform that on the initiative of the Minister of the Environment, Michał Woś, a group of experts is preparing a draft of legal solutions on transparency of financing of NGOs. The group is of a rotational nature and has not yet created any documents.

– states the response signed by Sebastian Tomczak, director of the said department.

The working group established by Minister Michał Woś attracted also the interest of the media. Editors of the portal OKO.press wrote to the Ministry, asking what solutions had been discussed by Minister Woś and whether the composition of the working team was known yet. A response from the Ministry of the Environment has not come. The letter received by the portal NGO.pl was as evasive as the one we received. 

Michał Woś wants Russian-style solutions. ‘Public discrediting of NGO activities’

We can only guess at the purpose of Minister Woś’s working group and the solutions it is developing. In May, OKO.press, Gazeta Wyborcza and NGO.pl pointed out that solutions similar to those proposed by the head of the Ministry of the Environment have been applied in Russia, Hungary and Israel. Journalists have commented on the case, claiming that Woś is trying to fabricate the impression that civic organizations in Poland are critical of the government because they are funded by foreign powers. Our spokeswoman, Alina Czyżewska, takes a similar view:

The words of Minister Michał Woś are a manipulation. By talking about foreign funding, he insinuates that the NGOs are non-Polish and therefore harmful. It is about publicly discrediting the activities of these organizations and denying them the ability to operate. Let us remind you that Poland also benefits from foreign funds. Just think of the European Union or the Norway Grants. Interestingly, this money does not stink to the Polish government.

Experts point out that NGOs have been obliged to report on their income and funding for years. In an interview with OKO.press, Ewa Kulik-Bielińska, director of the Batory Foundation, stressed that ‘Minister Woś’s idea duplicates existing regulations’ from the Corporate Income Tax Act. In a conversation with NGO.pl, Krzysztof Izdebski, a member of our association and the programme director of the ePaństwo Foundation, pointed out that ‘non-governmental organisations have been obliged to report their income for many years’ and added:

I even find it a little amusing that the issue of NGO transparency is raised by a government representative whose one of the first decisions in the wake of the pandemic was to stop disclosing public procurement and drastically limit access to public information.

The minister of the environment is not giving us information, so we are going to court

We find the words of Michał Woś a bit amusing too. Let’s make this clear – the minister who set up a working group to work for transparency in NGOs is himself not answering the questions from us and from journalists. Although Michał Woś’s team was appointed in March, the mystery of its composition remains unsolved. This is one of the reasons why we are taking the case to court. On 15 July 2020 we filed a complaint with the Provincial Administrative Court in Warsaw. It relates to the inaction of the Minister of the Environment, which resulted in the violation of:

• Article 61(1) of the Constitution of Poland, 
• Article 10(1) of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms,
• Article 10(1) in conjunction with Article 13(1) of the Act of 6 September 2001 on access to public information.

In our opinion, by giving evasive answers, the Minister of the Environment is accountable for inaction and, as a result, the right to information has been unjustifiably restricted. The letter we received from Michał Woś’s ministry does not answer our questions. We believe that the ‘rotational nature of the group’ cannot justify the authority not being able to provide information as to who was part of the group at a particular time. It is an important fact that such a group was created and operated for a certain period of time, carrying out public tasks.

In future articles, we will report on whether the court agreed with us.

* volunteer with the Citizens Network Watchdog Poland, a graduate of Cultural Studies at the AGH University of Science and Technology, a student of Editing at the Pedagogical University of Krakow. She works professionally as an editor of a news portal, privately she loves reportages, mountains and four-legged pets. She is socially engaged out of the need of her heart – she cooperated, among others, with the Klamra Foundation, the Foundation Miasto Słów and the Civic Engagement Workshop.