The increasing ties between some of these US Christian conservative groups and the European far right will be on display this weekend at a summit of the World Congress of Families (WCF) in Verona, Italy.

Right-wing politicians and their supporters from across the continent are expected to attend – including the Italian deputy prime minister, Matteo Salvini, who has described the WCF as a showcase for “the Europe that we like”.

In a letter copied to the presidents of the European Council, European Commission and European Parliament, the cross-party group of MEPs has demanded action to protect European democracy “against nefarious outside influences”.

Scottish National Party MEP Alyn Smith, who sits on the European Parliament’s foreign affairs committee and signed the letter, today said: "This investigation by openDemocracy is extremely timely and shines a light on a major challenge facing democracy in Europe.”

Our findings “are highly alarming and nobody should be in any doubt as to the insidious nature of these fundamentalist groups”, he continued. “No group of any kind should be able to use dark money to distort debate and to subvert democracy in Europe, least of all group such as these whose causes are deeply regressive”.

‘The Europe we like’

In the first analysis of its kind, openDemocracy has examined a decade of US Christian organisations’ financial accounts and found that several of them appear to have significantly increased their spending in Europe over the past five years.

Our findings come as far-right parties aim for big wins in the upcoming European Parliament elections in May, and show how large amounts of foreign money have supported the spread of their ‘traditional values’ messages.

openDemocracy has reviewed hundreds of pages of financial filings for a dozen religious conservative groups that are registered in the US as tax-exempt non-profit organisations, and thus are required to disclose some information about their foreign spending.

Some of these groups have been previously accused of supporting campaigns to criminalise homosexuality in Africa, “draconian” anti-abortion laws in Latin America and controversial projects to encourage gay people in the US to “leave homosexuality”.

But the extent of their European activity has – until now – received little scrutiny. Our investigation reveals that some of these groups have:

Sent teams of lobbyists to Brussels to influence EU officials

Challenged laws against discrimination and hate speech in European courts

Supported campaigns against LGBT rights in the Czech Republic and Romania

Funded a network of ‘grassroots’ anti-abortion campaigns in Italy and Spain

Deployed ‘ambulance-chasing’ evangelists after tragedies such as the Grenfell Tower fire, and in the wake of terrorist attacks

Five of the conservative groups have previously been listed as partners of the World Congress of Families (WCF) network, which is meeting in Verona this week.

It’s not just European politicians who are concerned about them: these groups are controversial in America too. The WCF itself has been described as an “anti-LGBT hate group” by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), which monitors extremist movements and tracks this network’s increasing connections with the far right.

The SPLC explains that “viewing homosexuality as unbiblical or simply opposing same-sex marriage” is not enough to be categorised as a “hate group”. Groups on this list go further – claiming that homosexuality is dangerous, linked to paedophilia and should be criminalised, disseminating “disparaging ‘facts’ about LGBT people that are simply untrue”.

This is, says SPLC, “no different to how white supremacists and nativist extremists propagate lies about black people and immigrants to make these communities seem like a danger to society”.

Joseph Grabowski, a WCF spokesperson, told openDemocracy: “We dispute entirely the premise [of the ‘hate group’ designation]... It’s an unfortunate slight for the countless Americans and the people around the world who hold the same views as we do on marriage, the nature of family and the right to life, that are part of the fabric of Christianity and also other traditional points of view,” he said.

The WCF is a project of the International Organization for the Family and the Illinois-based Howard Center for Family, Religion and Society, whose directors include an ultra-conservative Spanish activist linked to the leader of the far-right Vox party.

Other directors include a close associate of a Russian oligarch who sponsored a 2014 ‘secret meeting’ in Vienna with key French and Austrian far-right leaders – and an Italian politician facing corruption charges in his country.

Over the last decade, the WCF has hosted at least seven major meetings in Europe, attended by hundreds of religious right activists and a growing list of far-right politicians. Its 2017 meeting in Budapest was opened by Hungarian prime minister Victor Orbán.

Among the conveners of this week’s event in Verona is an Italian anti-abortion group linked to the neo-fascist Forza Nuova party, whose leader is also expected to attend the WCF.