On Tuesday 27 February, the representatives of the European Parliament and of the Council reached an inter-institutional political agreement on the reform of the rules governing the activities of the European parties and European political foundations (regulation 1141/2014).
It will have taken a single trialogue negotiating session to put this dossier to bed, as the positions of the two co-legislating institutions were very close together (see EUROPE 11966 and 11910).
Natural persons will no longer be authorised to participate in the formation of a European political party. Only national parties will have this prerogative. They will be required to display the logo of the European party on their website, at least one year before applying for European funding.
Concerning funding, the share of the overall envelope to be divided evenly between European political parties will be reduced from 15% to 10%, whereas the Commission had proposed reducing it to 5% (see EUROPE 11863). The remaining 90% of the envelope will be distributed on the basis of the representativeness of the national parties that are members of European parties, within the Parliament.
To make it easier for European parties to seek external co-funding, the minimum co-funding threshold falls from 15% to 10% for parties and to 5% for political foundations.
“The institutions have worked together well to close loopholes which, until now, allowed a European political party to be created only for financial reasons. Cross-party membership will not be possible anymore and funding will be linked more precisely to actual voting results at EU level, making European political parties more European”, said Rainer Wieland (EPP, Germany), in a press release.
The new rules are to be put in place before the publication, the end of June, of calls for proposals concerning European funding for 2019. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)