According to EU law, European parties’ public funding stems from the budget of the European Parliament, which is in charge of its disbursement. However, once European public funding has been paid out, who is there to provide the necessary oversight?
As MEPs consider the Commission’s proposals for the reform of European parties, they must secure their own rights as individual actors in the European party system, free from national party affiliations, and ensure institutional oversight — first and foremost, by extracting European parties’ funding from the Parliament’s budget and entrusting the APPF with its disbursement, under the control of the European Court of Justice.
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Image Credit: Julien Warnand/EPA-EFE
