World Youth Alliance Europe has redacted the names of certain EACEA staff members from documents published on our website following a request from the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA).
We took this step as a gesture of institutional courtesy and good faith, and in order to avoid further diversion of time and resources from the substantive issues raised by the grant review decisions themselves. The redactions were made without prejudice to our legal position and should not be understood as acceptance of EACEA’s interpretation of the GDPR or of our obligations under it.
However, we wish to draw attention to a deeply troubling asymmetry in EACEA’s approach. Through its review reports, the Agency has levelled extremely serious accusations against World Youth Alliance Europe, including allegations of breaches of “EU values,” ethical standards, and fundamental obligations under EU law. These accusations go to the heart of our organisation’s integrity, legitimacy, and continued eligibility for Union funding, and they are set out in official administrative acts with far-reaching consequences.
What makes this asymmetry particularly concerning is that these allegations are, as we have explained in detail both publicly and via official responses to the EACEA reviews, legally and factually unfounded. The review reports substitute binding EU law with non-binding political resolutions and policy documents, and treat imposed ideological frameworks as if they were settled legal standards. Our projects fully complied with the applicable grant agreements and EU legal framework. The underlying disagreement is not about compliance, but about ethical, scientific and political positions: World Youth Alliance Europe affirms that human dignity is inherent to every human being from conception, that the family is the fundamental unit of society, and that human rights must be grounded in the equal dignity of all persons. These positions are true, it is lawful to express them, even if they diverge from certain policy preferences promoted by parts of the EU institutions.
Against that background, it is difficult to understand why the same Agency now insists that the individuals responsible for formulating and endorsing these grave accusations must be shielded from public identification by invoking anonymity and data protection arguments. Accountability cannot operate in only one direction. Our concern was never personal exposure, but institutional responsibility. When an EU agency accuses an organisation of breaching fundamental values, the public has a legitimate interest in understanding how those conclusions were reached, on what legal basis, and by whom.
We continue to maintain that publication of official administrative decisions, including the identification of those who formally signed and assumed responsibility for them, serves a legitimate public-interest purpose: accountability and traceability in public administration. We did not attribute personal motives, nor did we understand the reviews to be individual opinions. Our criticism has been strictly factual, legal, and institutional. Rather than concentrating on speculative data-protection concerns arising from lawful public criticism, we believe that the EACEA should prioritize examining whether it is appropriate for its staff and experts to make such far-reaching accusations against a civil society organisation on the basis of interpretations that are legally unsound and methodologically flawed.
At the same time, EACEA asserted that publication of staff names raised data protection concerns and repeatedly invoked contractual enforcement measures under the grant agreement. In the interest of concluding this matter, and without conceding that these claims are legally well-founded, we decided to redact the names while placing our objections formally on the record.
It is important to underline that this decision does not mean we accept the reasoning of the review reports, the legal interpretation advanced by EACEA, or the attempt to characterise legitimate public criticism as problematic. In particular, our article “EU Agency Misapplies EU Law” constitutes legally precise and legitimate criticism of an EU agency’s legal reasoning. Such criticism lies at the core of democratic accountability and freedom of expression.
Here, we wanted to explain publicly why these redactions were made, and clarify that we reserve the right to contest the legal basis on which they were demanded, and to continue scrutinising the procedures and standards applied by EACEA in reviewing civil society organisations.
Transparency, accountability, and pluralism are not threats to EU values. They are among their essential safeguards. Read our full response to the EACEA on this matter here.
