Brussels, 25/01/2001 (Agence Europe) - Most of the European Parliament's political groups welcomed the proposal from the Commission to establish a statute and Community financing for European political parties (see EUROPE of 25 January, p.4).
Stressing that the draft statute will allow the sharing of responsibilities between parliamentary groups at the EP and the parties at European level to be clarified, the German president of the EPP/ED group, Hans-Gert Pöttering declared: "we will work to ensure that the financial and other responsibilities of political groups in the European Parliament and political parties at European level will be open and transparent". EUROPE recalls that the group's financial relations with the EPP Party had been criticised by the Court of Auditors last year. The British Conservatives who were associated with the EPP within the parliamentary group but who do not belong to any party of European dimensions do not share the same enthusiasm as members of the EPP. Speaking of the need to bring the more dynamic parties "closer to the citizens" and of necessary transparency, Spanish President of the Socialist Group, Enrique Baron, also welcomed this "timely initiative" by the European Commission. He considers that the proposal deserves to be debated, however, and that changes should be envisaged concerning donations and sponsoring, that should be more transparent. "European political parties have become a reality in the political life of the European Union. It was high time to give them a solid legal and financial basis", said Finnish president of the Green/EFA Group, Heidi Hautala. She hopes, however, that there will be a "more specific definition of the purposes for which funding can be used to prevent misuse". Spanish national Gorka Knörr said, on behalf of the members of the European Free Alliance, that he hoped the eligibility criteria for a party to gain European party status should be reduced from one third to a quarter of the Member States. As already indicated in EUROPE, the Liberal Group is also in favour of this proposal. The GUE/NGL Group, on the other hand, is bothered by the fact that the left-wing parties have not formed a European party. Others are opposed to this because they would not fulfil the eligibility criteria (democratic commitment or 5% representation in at least one third of the Member States): extreme-right, radicals and anti-Community parties.