Council of Europe Funds FEMYSO Youth Organization Activity

The Coun­cil of Europe’s Euro­pean Youth Foun­da­tion is fund­ing the Forum of Euro­pean Mus­lim Youth and Stu­dent Organ­i­sa­tions’ (FEMYSO ) inter­na­tion­al activ­i­ties. On 28 July 2025, the Coun­cil of Europe report­ed that the Euro­pean Youth Foun­da­tion con­duct­ed a mon­i­tor­ing vis­it on 24–25 July to FEMYSO’s inter­na­tion­al activ­i­ty titled The essen­tials of organ­i­sa­tion­al sus­tain­abil­i­ty in youth work in Verona, Italy, attend­ed by 35 par­tic­i­pants from 12 Coun­cil of Europe mem­ber states. The arti­cle begins:

On 24 and 25 July 2025, the Euro­pean Youth Foun­da­tion con­duct­ed a mon­i­tor­ing vis­it to the inter­na­tion­al activ­i­ty “The essen­tials of organ­i­sa­tion­al sus­tain­abil­i­ty in youth work” of FEMYSO — Forum of Euro­pean Mus­lim Youth and Stu­dent Organ­i­sa­tions, in Verona, Italy. This capac­i­ty build­ing activ­i­ty was attend­ed by 35 par­tic­i­pants from 12 Coun­cil of Europe mem­ber States and aimed to empow­er and equip Mus­lim youth across Europe by enhanc­ing their organ­i­sa­tion­al skills and oper­a­tional capac­i­ty with­in their youth organ­i­sa­tions. The main objec­tives were to improve the inter­nal gov­er­nance of Mus­lim youth organ­i­sa­tions by pro­vid­ing guid­ance on how to cre­ate strong and well-defined organ­i­sa­tion­al struc­tures (this includes work­ing on lead­er­ship and account­abil­i­ty, as well as on effec­tive deci­sion-mak­ing process­es), and to devel­op long-term strate­gic plans (this includes work­ing on step-by-step organ­i­sa­tion­al plan­ning, and project man­age­ment, and sus­tain­able growth).

Read more: https://www.coe.int/en/web/european-youth-foundation/-/monitoring-visit-to-the-international-activity-the-essentials-of-organisational-sustainability-in-youth-work-of-femyso-forum-of-european-muslim-youth-and-student-organisations

Key Points

• Euro­pean Youth Foun­da­tion con­duct­ed a mon­i­tor­ing vis­it on 24–25 July 2025 to FEMYSO’s capac­i­ty build­ing activ­i­ty in Verona, Italy, attend­ed by 35 par­tic­i­pants from 12 Coun­cil of Europe mem­ber states, aimed at empow­er­ing Mus­lim youth across Europe.
• The activ­i­ty objec­tives includ­ed improv­ing inter­nal gov­er­nance of Mus­lim youth organ­i­sa­tions by guid­ing the cre­ation of strong orga­ni­za­tion­al struc­tures cov­er­ing lead­er­ship, account­abil­i­ty, and effec­tive deci­sion-mak­ing processes.
• FEMYSO’s project focused on devel­op­ing long-term strate­gic plans, includ­ing step-by-step orga­ni­za­tion­al plan­ning, project man­age­ment, and sus­tain­able growth for Mus­lim youth orga­ni­za­tions across Europe.
• The project is co-fund­ed by the Euro­pean Youth Foun­da­tion through a grant for inter­na­tion­al activ­i­ties, with a mon­i­tor­ing vis­it con­firm­ing the orga­ni­za­tion­al capac­i­ty-build­ing goals of the Mus­lim youth net­work span­ning mul­ti­ple Coun­cil of Europe mem­ber states.

FEMYSO European Funding: Muslim Brotherhood Youth Group’s Financial Ties

The Forum of Euro­pean Mus­lim Youth and Stu­dent Orga­ni­za­tions (FEMYSO), reg­is­tered as an NGO in Brus­sels, received over €288,000 from Euro­pean Com­mis­sion depart­ments across ten years for var­i­ous com­mu­ni­ty projects. This fund­ing stream end­ed in 2022 when the Com­mis­sion con­firmed it would no longer pro­vide finan­cial sup­port to the orga­ni­za­tion fol­low­ing inquiries from French Inte­ri­or Min­is­ter Gérald Dar­manin about FEMYSO’s alleged ties to Islamist networks.

Beyond Euro­pean insti­tu­tion­al fund­ing, FEMYSO pur­sued Mid­dle East­ern finan­cial back­ing for its Brus­sels head­quar­ters. French pub­li­ca­tion Le Point revealed that in 2016, the orga­ni­za­tion sought €2.25 mil­lion from Qatar Char­i­ty after already secur­ing €6.75 mil­lion from the Islam­ic Devel­op­ment Bank, a Sau­di insti­tu­tion, for a project total­ing €9 mil­lion. In inter­nal com­mu­ni­ca­tions with Qatar Char­i­ty, FEMYSO offi­cers empha­sized pro­tect­ing the Islam­ic iden­ti­ty of young Euro­pean Mus­lims, con­trast­ing sharply with their pub­lic mes­sag­ing to Euro­pean insti­tu­tions about pro­mot­ing tol­er­ance and human rights.

The Coun­cil of Europe also finan­cial­ly sup­port­ed FEMYSO ini­tia­tives, includ­ing a 2021 pro-hijab cam­paign orga­nized through two work­shops that sparked sig­nif­i­cant back­lash from French politi­cians. The cam­paign, fea­tur­ing slo­gans like “Beau­ty is in diver­si­ty as free­dom is in hijab,” was pulled after France’s youth min­is­ter expressed shock at mes­sag­ing she believed encour­aged hijab-wear­ing. FEMYSO Pres­i­dent Hande Tan­er, who served on the Coun­cil of Europe’s Advi­so­ry Coun­cil on Youth, defend­ed the cam­paign as pro­tect­ing reli­gious freedom.

Mul­ti­ple Mem­bers of the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment raised con­cerns about FEMYSO’s fund­ing rela­tion­ships through par­lia­men­tary ques­tions, not­ing the orga­ni­za­tion’s con­nec­tions to the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood net­work in Europe. The orga­ni­za­tion main­tained insti­tu­tion­al rela­tion­ships with the Coun­cil of Europe, the Euro­pean Com­mis­sion, and the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment as an inter­est group and reg­is­tered lob­by orga­ni­za­tion, and reg­u­lar­ly par­tic­i­pat­ed in the annu­al Euro­pean Par­lia­ment Youth Event despite ongo­ing con­tro­ver­sies about its affil­i­a­tions and fund­ing sources.

Exter­nal References:

     • Euro­pean Par­lia­ment Par­lia­men­tary Ques­tion: Pos­si­ble links between FEMYSO and the Commission
• The Wash­ing­ton Post: Euro­pean diver­si­ty cam­paign cel­e­brat­ing Hijab end­ed after French backlash
• Le Point: Le dou­ble dis­cours d’une asso­ci­a­tion proche des Frères musulmans

 Dis­claimer: The Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) uti­lizes AI through­out the post­ing process, includ­ing the gen­er­a­tion of sum­maries for news items, intro­duc­tions, key points, and, often, the “con­text” sec­tion. We rec­om­mend ver­i­fy­ing all infor­ma­tion before use. Addi­tion­al­ly, all images are gen­er­at­ed using AI and are intend­ed sole­ly for illus­tra­tive pur­pos­es. While they rep­re­sent the events or indi­vid­u­als dis­cussed, they should not be inter­pret­ed as real-world photography.