Luxembourg, 29/10/2001 (Agence Europe) - On Monday in Luxembourg, the General Affairs Council reached a political agreement on the remuneration of MEPs from the general budget of the Communities as well as on Community taxation of such remuneration, together with the possibility for Member States to make it subject to national taxation provisions, while avoiding double taxation. The agreement, which has still to be made official, but which is acceptable for the European Parliament (see EUROPE of 29 June), allows the problem of the derogation requested by Sweden, Denmark, Finland and the United Kingdom to be settled. It should also allow resumed review of the other aspects of the statute of MEPs still outstanding, mainly concerning the amount of the allowance.
The Council did not, however, manage to make any progress on the statute and the funding of European political parties. The debate showed considerable divergence reflecting as many different traditions and national conceptions, to such a point that the Council President was forced to conclude that it would perhaps be preferable to wait for the Treaty of Nice to take effect, which provides for a qualified majority vote, in order to resume examination of this issue remaining, for now, subject to unanimity. EUROPE has reason to believe that divergence also concerned three vital aspects of the statute of European parties: (1) political eligibility criteria: several ministers challenged the possibility for the European Parliament to (indirectly) determine whether a political movement recognised at national level deserves or does not deserve to be so; (2) the number of Member States in which a political party must have elected members to be recognised at European level: the Parliament had approved one third (five countries at the present time) and the Presidency proposed a compromise of three Member States, but Austria and Italy felt that two countries was enough to benefit from Community financing; (3) private contributions to party funding: the Parliament was opposed to private funding, but the Presidency proposed to accept it by limiting the amount in donations to EUR 5000 per year and per donor. Here again, the Member States are divided with some in favour of a lower limit (EUR 3000) and others, like the United Kingdom, in favour of total freedom in so far as total transparency of financing is assured. Others again, like France, are for placing a ban on private donations.