The General Court of the European Union annulled, on Thursday 7 November, for lack of impartiality, a request for a reimbursement of €172,654.92 for the 2015 financial year, submitted by the European Parliament at the end of 2016 to the European Party 'Alliance for Direct Democracy in Europe' (ADDE), dominated by the Eurosceptic UKIP Party (Case T-48/17) (see EUROPE 11673/20).
In November 2016, the European Parliament's Bureau had established that €500,615.55 had been used to finance ineligible activities of ADDE party member entities, in particular the financing of €172,654.92 for the organisation of surveys in the United Kingdom for the 2015 parliamentary elections and the Brexit referendum in June 2016.
In December 2016, Parliament granted a maximum grant of €1,102,642.71 to ADDE for the 2017 financial year, while specifying that pre-financing would be limited to 33% of the maximum amount and subject to the provision of a bank guarantee for the protection of the EU's financial interests (see EUROPE 11688/25).
When ADDE brought the case to court asking for an annulment of the two decisions, the General Court ruled in favour of the European Party for the November 2016 decision. In particular, it accepts the argument that a member of the Parliament’s Bureau at the time - in this case Ulrike Lunacek (Greens/EFA, Austria) - made public statements showing her bias before the meeting where the decision was taken.
Given the categorical and unequivocal content of the statements made before the adoption of the contested decision, the appearance of impartiality has been seriously compromised, the EU judge concludes. And to add: MEPs are to abstain from making public statements relating to the proper or improper management of funds by political parties at European level when the files are being examined.
In addition, the Court is of the opinion that only surveys carried out in the United Kingdom are affected by the prohibition on the financing of referendum campaigns.
With regard to the December 2016 decision, however, the EU judge considers that Parliament may require the provision of a bank guarantee and limit the amount of pre-financing in order to limit the financial risk for the Union linked to the payment of funds. Alternative measures would not have made it possible to safeguard the Union's financial interests in the same way, the Court stressed, concluding that there had been no breach of the principle of proportionality.
Finally, there is no inequality of treatment as the European Parliament adopted similar financial risk reduction measures for seven beneficiaries, including ADDE.
See the judgment: http://bit.ly/2NrCJXV (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)