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What changed
ORDINARY LEGISLATIVE procedure
SHORT JUSTIFICATION
Follow up to the European Parliament legislative resolution on the statute and funding of European political parties and foundations
Your rapporteur welcomes the Commission’s proposal to recast Regulation 1141/2014 (the ‘Regulation’) on the statute and funding of European political parties (EUPPs) and European political foundations (EUPFs) in order to improve the legislative framework of the EUPPs and EUPFs ahead of the 2024 elections to the European Parliament. This Regulation will enable EUPPs/Fs to continue building EU political awareness, ensuring political diversity while respecting sound financing management and increasing transparency as regards EUPF/F’s activities and spending.
1. Rapporteurs: Loránt VINCZE (EPP/RO) and Charles GOERENS (RE/LU)
He welcomes the introduction of own resources as new category of revenues as this will capture the EUPPs’ actual sources of revenues and guarantee the completeness of their reporting. He also welcomes the lowering of the co-financing rate for EUPPs from 10% to 5% in line with the current rate applied for EUPFs and the lowering to 0% during the year of the elections to the European Parliament that will safeguard the pluralism of EUPPs. He believes that it is necessary to enable countries outside the EU to contribute to EUPPs/Fs but at the same time calls for prudence in order to avoid unwanted political interference. He agrees that funds from the EU budget could be used to finance national referendum campaigns for issues directly related to the European Union.
2. References: 2021/0375(COD) / A9-0223/2022 / P10_TA(2025)0239
He supports the amendments to strengthen the reporting and controls mechanisms aiming at protecting the financial interest of the EU and ensuring that EUPPs/Fs respect the values on which the EU is funded. He therefore welcomes the new common repository for the disclosures of European political parties, including on political advertising. He advocates that the financing of such repository should be borne by the budget of the Authority and not by the Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values (CERV) programme as indicated by the Commission in its proposal. He calls for prudent budgetary approach when allocating human and financial resources to the Authority during the budgetary annual procedure, while ensuring that it has sufficient resources to fulfil its mission. He agrees with the abolition of the 3-month period between a de-registration decision by the Authority and its entry into force.
3. Date of adoption of the resolution: 21 October 2025
He believes that a direct link between the names of the EUPPs and later their names as a group in the European Parliament during the European political campaigns, including referendum, is necessary to ensure that the visibility obtained by the promotion and branding of the EUPPs at national level is kept at the European Parliament’s level. He believes that in the context of European Parliament elections both the name and logo of EUPP is equally important as the name and logo of EUPP political group in the European Parliament (in case they are different). The Regulation should allow using either logos and names of both EUPP and its group or one of each at the EUPP discretion during the European Parliament election campaign. The usage of EUPP or groups name and logo during the European Parliament election campaign should be allowed to be equally financed by the party. This approach would promote awareness and engagement.
4. Legal basis: Article 224 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union
Furthermore, he would like to highlight that, while Member States establish the rules regarding financing of political campaigns, the Commission should engage in aligning the rules amongst Member States, so EUPPs are not discriminated and face equal access to the public in every Member State. It is crucial that national member parties according to national regulation are not affected by these campaigns, neither from accountancy point of view, nor with respect to any other limits or constraints. EUPP campaigns should not be linked with national member parties’ activities, booking, accountancy or spending limits.
5. Competent Parliamentary Committee: Committee on Constitutional Affairs (AFCO)
Finally, he believes annual spending limits per EUPP per Member States should be introduced based on a per capita approach in order to prevent EUPP to intervene in Member States’ domestic issues with non-proportional, excessive spending.
6. Commission's position: accepts all amendments
AMENDMENTS
The Committee on Budgets calls on the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, as the committee responsible, to take into account the following amendments:
Amendment 1
Proposal for a regulation
Recital 12 a (new)
Or. en
Justification
To concretize the requests from paragraphs 19 and 33 of the European Parliament resolution of 11 November 2021 on the application of Regulation (EU, Euratom) No 1141/2014 on the statute and funding of European political parties and European political foundations and allow specific and sui generis type of research partnerships, like for instance with internationally wide known researchers not acting on behalf of any organization.
Amendment 2
Proposal for a regulation
Recital 37
Or. en
Justification
Not all countries that are members of the Council of Europe fully share the EU values; this is even more important during the elections campaigns to avoid unwanted political interference.
Amendment 3
Proposal for a regulation
Recital 40 a (new)
Or. en
Justification
This change aims at aligning the names of European political parties with the names of political groups of the European parliament during the European political campaigns. This will avoid that funds spent for the visibility of the European political parties during the European political campaigns is lost in case the name of that political party changes after being elected to the European Parliament.
Amendment 4
Proposal for a regulation
Recital 41
Or. en
Amendment 5
Proposal for a regulation
Recital 50
Or. en
Justification
This change aims at aligning the recital with Annex II - paragraph 1 - indent 2 regarding the disclosure of the actual amounts. Own resources are a new source of funding and should be reported, along with contributions, donations and benefits in kinds.
Amendment 6
Proposal for a regulation
Article 2 – paragraph 1 – point 4 – point d
Or. en
Justification
To concretize the requests from paragraphs 19 and 33 of the European Parliament resolution of 11 November 2021 on the application of Regulation (EU, Euratom) No 1141/2014 on the statute and funding of European political parties and European political foundations and allow specific and sui generis type of research partnerships, like for instance with internationally wide known researchers not acting on behalf of any organization.
Amendment 7
Proposal for a regulation
Article 2 – paragraph 1 – point 10
Or. en
Amendment 8
Proposal for a regulation
Article 8 – paragraph 1
Or. en
Justification
This change is to ensure that contrary to what the Commission proposes, funds to procure a pilot of the Repository wont be financed by the Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values (CERV) programme, but will be made available in the dedicated budgetary line of the Authority, under Title 5 of the European Parliament’s budget.
Amendment 9
Proposal for a regulation
Article 23 –paragraph 5 – subparagraph 1
Or. en
Justification
The proposed threshold would put on the European Political Parties and Foundations an excessive administrative burden.
Amendment 10
Proposal for a regulation
Article 23 – paragraph 9
Or. en
Justification
Not all countries that are members of the Council of Europe fully share the EU values; this is even more important during the elections campaigns to avoid unwanted political interference.
Amendment 11
Proposal for a regulation
Article 23 – paragraph 10 – subparagraph 1
Or. en
Justification
Not all countries that are members of the Council of Europe fully share the EU values; this is even more important during the elections campaigns to avoid unwanted political interference.
Amendment 12
Proposal for a regulation
Article 24 – paragraph 2
Or. en
Amendment 13
Proposal for a regulation
Article 25 – paragraph 1
Or. en
Justification
As a matter of coherence, the exceptions introduced by the European Commission to the benefit of European political foundations or relating to the common interest, in the articles 2 (4) b and 2 (10) respectively, should also apply to European Political parties.