patrick.net

On our supersecret terminal is a truly insane contract concluded in 2022 between the EU Commission and a non-governmental organisation known as ClientEarth. In this instrument, the Commission agreed to pay ClientEarth €350,000 in exchange for specific activism in Germany. This included the things you’d expect; for example, the NGO pledged to cooperate with the environmentaloid scene and to help stage civic protests and climate camps. But ClientEarth also sold the more nefarious service of waging lawfare against coal-fired German power-plants, and this in the immediate aftermath of the German energy crisis. The Commission specifically wanted ClientEarth to “increase the financial and legal risk of the ownership and operation of [coal-fired] power plants,” by targeting their emissions and water use permits in court. They were to carry out their work without the knowledge of the German government, effectively weaponising our own courts against us.

The ClientEarth agreement was but one of many such contracts concluded between the EU Commission and various NGOs for similar purposes. Altogether, the Commission dispensed over €15 million in taxpayer funds in 2022, all of it for activist and lobbying activities in 2023. That may not sound like a lot, but we must remember, first, that NGOs are by and large an extremely cheap way to influence public discourse; and, second, that Welt am Sonntag has had access only to contracts concluded in this one year. These general tactics are thought to go back to 2017 at least and they are presumed to be ongoing.

Niehoff became famous in late 2024, when police raided his house because he’d retweeted a very dangerous meme suggesting that then-Economics Minister Robert Habeck of the Greens might be a moron.

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