Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-03-22-Speech-3-217"
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"en.20060322.17.3-217"2
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"Mr President, Madam Vice-President, ladies and gentlemen, the regulation on the financing of the European political parties that we adopted in 2004, has been a resounding success. The separation between Parliament and its political groups on the one hand and the political parties on the other has been a success. This was something that the Court of Auditors had been demanding for many years, a demand that this regulation responded to.
In the meantime, 10 party families have registered; they also receive support from the relevant budget line. This demonstrates that political culture at European level is still diverse and thriving. To have 10 party families is quite an achievement – before there were only four, so their number has more than doubled.
Our experience with the financing of the political parties has been good. Nevertheless, there is a short wish list enumerated in the new report, wishes for planning certainty and wishes for flexibility in the way the European parties function. There is also the desire that the Committee on Budgets and the Bureau should, at the beginning of the parliamentary term, create planning certainty for that entire parliamentary term. This does not make the annual budget that we adopt superfluous, but I believe that it would be advisable to ensure that this budget line is preserved and can develop in line with enlargement or an increase in the number of political parties.
The parties do have their own resources: donations and membership subscriptions. It cannot of course be the intention of the EU funding regulations that these own resources should be forfeited if they are not spent within the same year. That is why I am grateful that in Strasbourg we have already complied with one requirement found in the report, that is to say that the parties should be able to use up to 25% of their own resources to build up reserves. It is after all their own money and the EU funding regulations should not place disproportionate restrictions on the parties.
Another wish, however, is that it should also be possible to carry forward up to 25% of contributions into the first quarter of the following year. Politics is an unpredictable business and in the case of unforeseeable events it must be possible to spend a certain amount in the next quarter, so that the parties do not have to embark on an end-of-year spending spree in December.
The report also includes some other proposals. I would, however, now like to move on to the second stage that we are introducing with this report. We need a genuine European party statute. It is not acceptable for the European parties to have to register themselves in accordance with and be governed by the law prevailing in a Member State. All the parties are in favour of identical rights and obligations applying in all the Member States, and that is only possible if there is a single statute. The Committee on Constitutional Affairs is willing to lead the way here. Madam Vice-President, I would be delighted if the Commission took our proposal on board and used its right of initiative to bring forward a new legislative proposal.
The second idea that we should give expression to is the importance of cross-border political communication. In many countries political foundations exist for that purpose. We believe that political foundations should also be created at European level. In this area too we are calling on the Commission to bring forward either a legislative proposal or a budgetary proposal.
We should consider whether in future European elections there should not also be European lists, so that our citizens would virtually have two votes: one for the national or regional list and one for a common European list for the parties, because only with a list of that kind would a common electoral campaign be possible. At present we have 25 different election campaigns during the European elections, and European lists would bring them together.
In conclusion, I would like to mention the youth wings of the parties. Our young people represent our future. We need to pay special attention to promoting political youth organisations and movements, which represent the future of the parties, and the parties are part of the democratic process. The report take us a significant step further forward. I would like to thank the secretaries-general of the parties and also Parliament's administration for their effective management of resources. I would also like to thank the secretaries-general for the excellent proposals which have been incorporated into this report."@en1
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