Plans to overhaul the rules on funding European political parties could leave them open to foreign interference from organisations outside the EU, the European Court of Auditors warned on Wednesday (13 April).
Last November, the European Commission unveiled plans to revamp the law that governs the activities and funding of European political parties and their affiliated foundations, aimed at making them financially more viable, cutting red tape and making it easier for them to contribute to and take part in national campaigns.
One of its proposals is to allow European political parties and foundations to collect contributions from member parties or organisations located in countries belonging to the Council of Europe. These contributions could be worth up to 40% of the total budget, according to the Commission.
“In our view, the proposal does not contain measures to adequately mitigate the risk of foreign interference in European political parties by members providing contributions and having their seat in the countries belonging to the Council of Europe and outside the EU,” the Auditors contend.
The Court added that it would be difficult to ensure that outside contributors shared ‘EU values’.
The issue of foreign interference in election campaigns across the EU, and elsewhere, has grown in importance following attempts by Russia and other actors to influence elections.
The Court of Auditors added that “it would be not advisable to enable financing national referendum campaigns by European political parties,” arguing that it would be too difficult to determine whether campaigns had been funded by national or EU money.
European political parties became independent in July 2004, when new EU regulations permitted them to receive annual funding from the European Parliament. In 2007, they were joined by the foundations and the rules can currently cover up to 90% of the expenditure of a party.
The total amount of EU funding available for European political parties has increased from €6.5 million in 2004 to €46 million in 2021, while funding for European political foundations increased from €5 million in 2008 to €23 million in 2021.
The rest is covered by own resources, such as membership fees and donations.
However, party officials have expressed concern about the way that the Regulation works in practice, particularly the role of the ‘Authority for Political Parties and Foundations’, appointed by the European Parliament, which is responsible for supervising the regime.
One party official told EURACTIV that the current financing regulation is “one of the most restrictive and complicated bits of European Parliament. It is very hard to find sources of income that can be accepted by the Parliament’s services – we should be able to operate without legal studies over each euro”.
Meanwhile, many groups, particularly smaller parties, have struggled to raise their own finance, with the Auditors pointing out that “parties and foundations were increasingly taking out loans to reach the own resources requirements,” raising compliance problems.
The Auditors also expressed concern about the Commission’s plans for the parties and foundations to be allowed to be entirely financed by the EU in the year of the European Parliament elections.
They described this as “not coherent with the concept of co-financing, which means that resources shall not be provided entirely from the EU budget. Therefore, we are of the opinion that a minimum contribution should come from the own resources of European political parties.”
In March, national governments set out their own position on the file, including amendments to specify the type of activities (other than referendum campaigns) that European political parties may organise jointly with their member parties.
They also want to require European political parties and European political foundations to submit an annual written declaration on their compliance and their members’ compliance with EU values and lower the annual threshold per donor from €3,000 to €1,500.
Ministers also want to limit own resources to 2% of their annual budget.
[Edited by Nathalie Weatherald]
Source: euractiv.com
