On the International Day of Democracy on Friday 15 September, the European Commission presented its reform of the European rules governing the activities of European parties and European political foundations in order to tackle abuses observed since 2014, amongst other things.
Today's proposals are meant to tackle, before the next elections in 2019, “loopholes” in the regulation (1141/2014) in place that have been taken advantage of to the benefit of certain individuals or national parties, the First Vice-President of the Commission, Frans Timmermans, explained. In particular, the aim is to make sure that public subsidies to the European political parties are not channelled into national parties, but “in no way to dictate what programmes EU parties should follow”, even if they should take a Eurosceptical line, he stressed.
The legislative proposal sets out three areas in which the current rules can be tightened up. In response to actual cases in which a natural person has sponsored more than one European political party, the Commission is proposing that only one national political party be able to support the registration of the European political party. The national political party concerned would then be required to display the logo and state the programme of the European political party to which they are affiliated on their website.
Officially, the Commission would like financial support to the European parties (€30.8 million in 2017) to more reflect their representation at the European Parliament. The share of the overall financial envelope divided fairly between European parties, irrespective of their size, should therefore, it argues, be cut from 15% to 5%.
Under the proposal on the table, the European political parties (EPP, PES, ALDE, ACRE, EL, MENL, etc.) represented at the European Parliament in the form of political groups would lose very few resources, if any. However, the real losers (44% cut in resources on the base of 2017 figures) would be the Eurosceptical parties such as Europeans United for Democracy, inspired by former Danish MEP Jens-Peter Bonde, or downright Europhobic ones such as the European Christian Political Movement, the Alliance of European National Movements, of which the Hungarian party Jobbik is a member, and the Alliance for Peace and Freedom. The anti-abortion and homophobic Coalition for Life and Family would lose 66% of its subsidy.
The proposed regulation also clarifies the powers of the independent authority set up in 2014 to enforce the rules, particularly as regards sanctions, right up to stripping a party of its accreditation. It also intends to give the authority more resources to recover public money in the event of a proven infringement of the rules.
The proposed regulation is available at: http://bit.ly/2wuOf8Y. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)