“European institutions demonstrate a continued record of engagement with and support for Muslim Brotherhood-related organizations. The most visible examples occur in the form of direct funding.” — Paul Stott and Tommaso Virgili, in the report “The Muslim Brotherhood in Europe,” October 2021.

According to a report published by the ECR Group in December 2025, “Unmasking the Muslim Brotherhood. Brotherism, Islamophobia and the EU,” written by Tommaso Virgili and Florence Bergeaud-Blackler, the European Commission is still funding Muslim Brotherhood-linked organizations that “exploit EU funding and institutions to advance their agenda.”

A bit hard for the EU, therefore, to feign ignorance.

“They [these Muslim Brotherhood organizations] get funding and legitimacy that other totalitarian groups would never dream of getting…. these organizations play a clever game of dominoes, leveraging legitimacy in one member state to gain credibility in another or at the European level, then using that to charm more grant-making bodies. This creates a vicious cycle of ever-growing legitimacy and funding from multiple sources…” — Charlie Wiemers, Swedish Member of European Parliament, in “Unmasking the Muslim Brotherhood.”

“If an organization claims to uphold European values, authorities take it at face value. Denying funding for failing to align with those values requires ironclad evidence, but monitoring isn’t built to scrutinize content. A few missteps are brushed off as one-offs, and any official who dares push back risks accusations of racism or ‘Islamophobia’—a chilling effect that will prevent most officials from acting unless they are extraordinarily principled and courageous.” — Charlie Wiemers, in “Unmasking the Muslim Brotherhood.”

The European Commission, the unelected executive arm of the European Union, assured Europeans in 2019 that it was not spending their hard-earned taxpayer money on supporting the Muslim Brotherhood (MB). In response to a question by Charlie Weimers, a Swedish Member of European Parliament, about the Commission’s funding of the MB, European Commission Vice President Margaritis Schinas said:

“[T]he European Commission does not finance extremists. On the contrary, we have very strong oversight and audit of our financing… and if you have evidence to the contrary, I would be very interested to have it.”

Weimers later supplied the Commission with the requested evidence. In October 2021, the European Conservatives and Reformists Group (ECR Group), a center-right political group in the European Parliament, of which Wiemers is a member, published a report they had commissioned from researchers Paul Stott and Tommaso Virgili, “Network of Networks: The Muslim Brotherhood in Europe.” Wiemers wrote in the report’s introduction:

“The aim of this report is stimulate a debate on what new policies we need to institute to prevent the spread of Islamism in Europe. My ambition is to persuade the European Commission to change its policy and stop all contributions to Islamist organisations.”

According to the report:

“… European institutions demonstrate a continued record of engagement with and support for Muslim Brotherhood-related organisations. The most visible examples occur in the form of direct funding.”

Weimers did not succeed, however, in getting the European Commission to stop these contributions. According to a report published by the ECR Group in December 2025, “Unmasking the Muslim Brotherhood. Brotherism, Islamophobia and the EU,” written by Tommaso Virgili and Florence Bergeaud-Blackler, the European Commission is still funding Muslim Brotherhood-linked organizations that “exploit EU funding and institutions to advance their agenda.” The authors write:

“The report identifies insufficient financial oversight, allowing EU funds to support extremist groups or to amplify their illiberal ideologies. It also warns against a legitimization effect produced by the engagement of EU institutions with Brotherist narratives and structures.”

Among the Muslim Brotherhood-linked organizations that the EU funds is the European Network Against Racism (ENAR), an “anti-racism network” that advocates “for better EU anti-racism policies and legislation.” ENAR received €23 million ($26.4 million) from the EU in the years spanning 2007-2020 and its director from 2010 to 2021, Michaël Privot, a convert to Islam, admitted in an article in Belgian news outlet Le Soir in 2008 that he was affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, before claiming to denounce the organization in 2012.

A bit hard for the EU, therefore, to feign ignorance.

ENAR is active in fighting “Islamophobia”, a strategic tool used by the Muslim Brotherhood to shut down all criticism of Islam, in coalition with a whole slew of other MB-linked organizations in Europe, according to the report.

“… ENAR has been in the forefront of the battle against Islamophobia. It has even coordinated a ‘European Coalition Against Islamophobia’ that was, in fact a ‘network of Brotherist influencers’ comprising some of the most influential organizations and individuals of the Brotherhood nebula….”

What is even more concerning is that the opinions of this network appear to carry a lot of weight with highly placed EU decision-makers:

“ENAR enjoys a great deal of material and immaterial benefits from the European Commission… Moreover, ENAR is frequently involved as a partner and consultant in different initiatives sponsored by the Commission or EU agencies. In 2021, for instance, it took part in a roundtable on ‘racial and climate justice’ along with EC Vice-President Frans Timmermans and in another meeting concerning the European Climate Pact. It also delivered the opening speech at the European Commission’s 6th Migration Forum. In 2023, the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights shared on its social media, and later deleted, a call for a “march against Islamophobia” promoted by ENAR and other Brotherist organizations… Additionally, ENAR prides itself on engaging with multiple political groups at the European Parliament and on influencing documents and reports from the European Commission, European Parliament and the Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA).”

Between 2007 and 2019, the MB-linked Forum of European Muslim Youth and Student Organisations (FEMYSO) received €288,856 ($331,000) of EU funding across various projects, according to the report. Even though EU-funding has apparently stopped since then, EU institutions continue to legitimize the organization, the ECR Group report’s authors write:

“In July 2023, the Commission stated that no EU funded project featuring FEMYSO was still running.

“Yet, beyond the matter of financial support, FEMYSO represents another towering example of the different forms of legitimization EU institutions bestow on Brotherist entities. FRA explicitly admits its cooperation with FEMYSO, and, in 2023, it advertised on social media the FEMYSO-led ‘march against Islamophobia’… The Commission and the Parliament, too, engage with FEMYSO. In November 2021, Commissioner Helena Dalli tweeted about her meetings with FEMYSO members. This happened the same month as Dalli promoted the controversial FEMYSO campaign to mainstream the hijab…”

Why is the European Commission seeking out the opinions of Muslim Brotherhood groups and bestowing legitimacy on them?

Charlie Wiemers, in the report’s foreword, writes that EU support of the Muslim Brotherhood has become a self-perpetuating vicious cycle of growing legitimacy, seemingly created both by ideology, bureaucratic inertia and basic incompetence.

“Political directives often push grant-giving bodies to prioritize or earmark funds for minority-run or minority-serving organizations. This, combined with officials’ unfamiliarity with this totalitarian religious-ideology, gives Brotherhood-affiliated groups an edge. They can get funding and legitimacy that other totalitarian groups would never dream of getting….

“[T]hese organizations play a clever game of dominoes, leveraging legitimacy in one member state to gain credibility in another or at the European level, then using that to charm more grant-making bodies. This creates a vicious cycle of ever-growing legitimacy and funding from multiple sources….

“[O]ur monitoring systems are toothless when it comes to catching deviations from a grant’s purpose. If an organization claims to uphold European values, authorities take it at face value. Denying funding for failing to align with those values requires ironclad evidence, but monitoring isn’t built to scrutinize content. A few missteps are brushed off as one-offs, and any official who dares push back risks accusations of racism or ‘Islamophobia’—a chilling effect that will prevent most officials from acting unless they are extraordinarily principled and courageous.”

This is not only extraordinary, but potentially fatal. An unelected and deeply undemocratic institution – the European Commission – is boosting the Muslim Brotherhood, spending taxpayer money on it, and legitimizing it. Why?

 egretnewseditor@gmail.com