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European political parties play an important role in the EU’s political process. Democracy is one of the fundamental values on which the European Union is founded. To ensure the functioning of a representative democracy on the European level, the EU Treaties determine that the citizens of the European Union are directly represented in the European Parliament, a point reinforced in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. Therefore, European political parties and foundations receive funding from the EU budget.

A European political party can be formed subject to meeting several criteria, in particular that that it observes the values on which the Union is founded, as expressed in Article 2 of the Treaty on European Union.

Proposed changes to the current Regulation on European Political Parties

In practice, despite some progress, the criteria to fulfil the requirement of representation in at least one quarter of EU states allowed the creation of parties with an artificial European dimension, composed mainly of individual politicians and dominated by one or two national political parties, failing to be transparent with voters and gaining a disproportionate share of EU funding when compared to their democratic representation.

The proposal*) can be seen at:

http://ec.europa.eu/info/law/better-regulation/initiatives/com-2017-481_en

Commission’s proposal includes the following legislative changes:

·         To ensure a genuine European dimension of European political parties and to prevent the same national party or individuals from artificially sponsoring several European political parties, only political parties and no longer individuals should be taken into account when calculating the representation requirements for forming a party.

·         The funding of European political parties should better reflect the true share of each party's vote in the European elections. At present, 15% of the total budget is distributed evenly across all parties, however large or small their vote share. The Commission has therefore proposed to improve the democratic legitimacy of EU funding for political parties by linking it more clearly to their representation in the European Parliament, allocating 95% of the total budget on the basis of vote share in European elections.

·         Citizens have a right to know who and what they are voting for in European elections. To provide for greater transparency, and to strengthen the democratic accountability of European political parties, the Commission also proposes that European political parties ensure that their member parties should publish its programme and logo on their websites, while also indicating the current gender balance of their Members of the European Parliament.

Among other changes in funding political parties and foundations, Commission proposes that European political parties would absorb a larger part of the existing dedicated funding allocated to them in the European Union budget.

To deal with European political parties and foundations having difficulties in meeting the current co-financing threshold of 15%, it should be lowered, enabling more of the existing public funding set aside for European parties and foundations to be directed appropriately, for example in the 2019 European election campaign.

The Commission proposes to lower the co-financing requirement to 10% for European political parties and to 5% for European political foundations.

New rules and taxpayers’ money

For reasons of legal certainty and transparency it will be explicitly provided that where a European political party or political foundation, due to a change in circumstances, no longer fulfils the conditions for registration, or where the party or foundation has provided false or incomplete information, it should be removed from the Register.

The protection of the EU financial interests will be strengthened by providing for more effective recovery of funding in case of breach of the rules. Unduly paid funds will be recovered, including from natural persons responsible for the infringement in question.

More information in the following links: = 2017 State of the Union speech; = Proposal for a regulation: Amendment on statute and funding of European political parties and European political foundations; = Press release: Reform of Citizens' Initiative and Political Party funding

Source: http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-17-3168_en.htm?locale=en

*) Proposal for a Regulation (European Parliament & the Council) amending Regulation No. 1141/2014 of 22 October 2014 on the statute and funding of European political parties and European political foundations. In: