11.4.2018   

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

C 129/96

Rapporteur:

Sir Graham WATSON

Co-rapporteurs:

Anne DEMELENNE

Stéphane BUFFETAUT

1.

The EESC joins the Commission in stressing that democracy is one of the fundamental values of the EU and that political parties and political foundations fulfil an essential role in a representative democracy, as recognised in Article 10 TEU and Article 12(2) of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU.

2.

The Committee recognises that Regulation (EU, Euratom) No 1141/2014 on the statute and funding of European political parties and European political foundations has assisted in the process of increasing the visibility, recognition, effectiveness, transparency and accountability of European political parties and their affiliated political foundations; but shares the Commission’s view that work remains to be done to increase the participation of citizens, enhance the inclusivity of elections and the European dimension of the political debate, highlight affiliations between national and European parties and promote political accountability.

3.

The Committee agrees with the Commission that, despite the progress made with Regulation (EU, Euratom) No 1141/2014, the existing rules have loopholes which need to be addressed and notes the call from the European Parliament (2017/2733 (RSP)) for improvements and adjustments to the rules.

4.

The Committee supports the Commission’s proposals for amendments to the Regulation regarding who can sponsor the registration of a European political party, proportionality of EU funding, the threshold for access to such funding, compliance with the registration criteria and the recovery of misspent funds.

5.

The Committee welcomes the Commission’s intention to make the electoral programmes of European-level political parties more easily accessible to citizens. It has some doubts, however, about the proposed new paragraph 3a to Article 18 of the Regulation. This requires that a European political party should include in its application for funding evidence demonstrating that its member parties have continuously published on their websites, during the 12 months preceding the moment at which the application is made, the political programme and logo of the European political party as well as information in relation to each of its member parties on the gender representation among its candidates at the last elections to the European Parliament and among the MEPs.

6.

The Committee questions in particular how the former requirement will be policed, how it can apply to new parties emerging in the Member States, and how it can apply if European political parties are tardy in adopting their political programmes; why the latter requirement focusses only on gender and not, for example, on racial or ethnic or linguistic criteria.

7.

The Committee therefore recommends to the Commission that the length of time during which the programme must be available on party websites be reduced from 12 months to three and that information about diversity of candidates on electoral lists be required not only to demonstrate relative numbers of women and men but also for ethnic origin and linguistic diversity.

8.

Moreover, the EESC once again draws attention to the worsening inequality of treatment between European political parties and foundations, on the one hand, and European associations and foundations with more general objectives (e.g. economic, social, humanitarian, cultural, environmental or sporting associations, etc.) on the other.

9.

The Committee once again laments the Commission’s decision, several years ago, to withdraw the draft statute for a European association: the barriers to the registration of companies with European statutes and once again urges the Commission to present, in the near future, an equivalent European Regulation on the statute and funding of European non-party-political associations.