Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-05-17-Speech-4-039"
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".
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, it is regrettable that a number of meetings are taking place at the same time as this debate, despite the fact that this is an issue which actually concerns the whole Parliament. Parties are the foundation stone of democracies. Without parties, which ideally fight to establish a model which maximises the welfare of state and society, democracy is inconceivable. Today, all 15 Member States of the European Union are ruled by democratic forms of state, and therefore by governments composed of varying combinations of political parties. As citizens of democratically governed Member States we are right to attach importance to them; as Europeans we can rightly be proud of them.
I should like to address one more point: the Council was present yesterday, and I received the speech of the President-in-Office on behalf of the Council Presidency. I should very much like to hand it over to the President of Parliament. In it the Council says that it is interested in our completing our work as early as today if possible. The Council is full of good intentions to do all it can to bring this dossier to a conclusion, possibly even under the Swedish Presidency. I should therefore like to thank the Swedish Presidency for showing such commitment in its efforts to allow the European parties to stand on their own two feet, by conferring legal status on them and making their funding transparent. This is a very difficult task which, in the interests of democracy, will hopefully be crowned with success. I hereby hand this speech over to the President of Parliament.
Many people ask whether we need a statute for European parties. The European Parliament is the only institution of the European Union which is legitimated by direct, free elections. The European Parliament is also regarded as the cradle of European parties. Cooperation in the groups required there to be increasingly close contacts between their constituent parties and with the national parties. In this way, new international party structures and European parties gradually developed. I should simply like to refer to the fact that the European People's Party has been in existence since 1976, the Party of European Socialists since 1992, the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party since 1993 and finally the European Federation of Green Parties also since 1993.
If my information is correct, two more European parties have apparently been founded since then, which means that we already have at least six European parties now. The party political landscape is hardly uncomplicated. The number of parties represented in national parliaments varies considerably across the Member States. Our 626 Members of the European Parliament, at any rate, hail from 130 different national parties. Italy, with 21 parties in the European Parliament, is represented by the greatest number of parties. These different national parties have combined in the European Parliament to form eight groups, alongside the 14 non-attached Members.
In response to these various developments, Parliament has been calling for a legal base for European parties since the eighties. The adoption of the Treaty of Maastricht ten years ago brought a breakthrough for the European Parliament in the shape of Article 191, which was adopted unanimously by the governments of the Member States. This article reads: "Political parties at European level are important as a factor for integration within the Union. They contribute to forming a European awareness and to expressing the political will of the citizens of the Union."
In the Treaty of Nice, Article 191 is amplified to turn that article, on its own, into a legal base. "The Council, acting in accordance with the procedure referred to in Article 251, shall lay down the regulations governing political parties at European level and in particular the rules regarding their funding." European parties therefore make a valuable contribution to European integration, which should not be underestimated. This work cannot be done by a national party. To continue this work, European parties need, for example, office space and employees, which means, in other words, money. Up until now the European parties have been supported by their groups in the European Parliament. However, it is precisely this indirect funding by the groups which the European Court of Auditors has criticised on the grounds of lack of transparency and the improper use of parliamentary funds, and it will not tolerate this any longer.
The European Union budget already provides funds for the current financial year in line B3-500: EUR 7 million for all parties. This is certainly no cornucopia, as we hear from resentful quarters. How the funds are to be distributed is also laid down in the Regulation. The Commission generously tabled a proposal for a regulation in February to establish the conditions which would need to be met. One of these is for statutes to be submitted, providing evidence that a European party is committed to the principles of democracy, respect for fundamental rights and control of income and expenditure, which are enshrined in the Treaty on European Union. This goes further than existing national legislation on parties.
In addition, a European party has to prove, amongst other things, that it has been successful in elections in at least five Member States or that it is represented in the European Parliament by Members from at least five Member States. There are also precise rules on how the Regulation is to be implemented and on control. The European parties are not permitted to use their funds to finance national parties. This ban also applies to the funding of election campaigns. The Committee on Constitutional Affairs has added several points in its opinion, including the reference to the Charter of Fundamental Rights, a definition of the party as having legal personality so that it can conduct legal transactions, and further-reaching proposals on controls, including on revenue from donations.
Thanks are also due here to the Committee on Budgets and the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market for their good proposals. In addition there are now a further 40 amendments, which I should like to classify under three headings: those which make the text of the Regulation more precise, those which propose detailed rules and those which reject the proposal. You will understand that, as rapporteur, I cannot support the proposal's rejection because, after all, it is Parliament itself which has been calling for a regulation for a long time. There is another reason why rejection is also incomprehensible to me. It arouses suspicion that we want to prevent party financing being made transparent at European level.
I cannot recommend detailed rules at present. This Regulation is a temporary solution until the entry into force of the Treaty of Nice, when we will be in a position to draft comprehensive legislation with the Council. Today we are taking the first step and until the Council makes a unanimous decision we can unfortunately only deliver an opinion. It is in the interests of the European Parliament for a neat solution to be found which will enable the criticisms of the European Court of Auditors to be taken into account as quickly as possible."@en1
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