Denne artikkelen syner kor demokratisk det vert om me skal få lov å røysta på alleuropeiske parti...
Er det nokon som veit korleis denne planen vart lagt fram? Artikkelen er frå The Times, og dei har eit lekka dokument som kjelde.
Magnus Bernhardsen
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WEDNESDAY JANUARY 17 2001
Tory fury at EU plan to fund Labour
BY TOM BALDWIN, DEPUTY POLITICAL EDITOR
A NEW EU subsidy of political parties to be proposed today would benefit both Labour and the Liberal Democrats, but exclude William Hague’s Euro-sceptic Tories.
The plan, a direct consequence of last year’s Treaty of Nice, aims to help parties dedicated to building a “European political consciousness”.
It will be launched this afternoon by Romano Prodi, the European Commission President, and is expected to make £4.6 million of taxpayers’ money available for political parties. However, according to a leaked draft of the proposal seen by The Times, parties will qualify for the funds only if they have representation in at least a third of member states. They also have to be part of a political group in the European Parliament that has seats in at least three states.
That would mean that Labour, as part of the Socialist Group in the European Parliament, and the Liberal Democrats, who are part of the Liberal Democratic and Reform Group, would be eligible.
The Conservatives, as “allied members” of the right-of-centre European People’s Party grouping, would be entitled to nothing. Under Mr Hague, the Tories have refused to be a full member of the EPP because it would mean endorsing the policies of European Christian Democrat parties for further EU integration.
Other criteria which might disbar the Tories include the condition that parties sign up to the fundamental principles of the EU, which include the aim of striving for an “ever closer union”. One Labour source suggested last night that the exclusion would “serve Hague right” because it would mean he was “hoist by his own Eurosceptic petard”.
Signor Prodi’s plan, which is understood to have been drawn up in consultation with the major political groups in the European Parliament, will be discussed at a forthcoming meeting of the EU Council of Ministers. The proposal follows a recommendation from the European court of auditors, which said that EU money allocated to MEPs was leaking into political parties and that the subsidy should be made more transparent.
A Foreign Office source indicated last night that Britain would be broadly supportive of the measure, but made clear that there would be unease if the money could be used for campaigning.
The EU funds would pay for up to 80 per cent of expenditure on political research for European parties and, the Tories claim, also campaigning in EU-wide elections. Most of it would be distributed according to the number of seats each group has in the Strasbourg Parliament.
The money could not be used for British general elections, but it would be seen as cross-subsidy, allowing Labour and the Liberal Democrats to divert resources from their European operations into other activities.
Francis Maude, the Shadow Foreign Secretary, said: “Most people will be rightly suspicious of this attempt to increase the EU’s control over the political process. This is bad for freedom of speech and bad for democracy. This policy will give a major boost to parties campaigning for an EU superstate.”
Although the Conservatives do not believe that the proposal has been deliberately framed to exclude them, they are deeply concerned that its effect would be to discriminate against parties whose support is based only in one country.
The recent controversy over donations to British parties has fuelled calls for state funding, an idea supported by Clive Soley, the chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party, and Charles Kennedy, the Liberal Democrat leader.
Many European countries already have state funding for their political parties. But the system has caused scandals in Germany and Mr Blair has said that he does not believe the British people are ready to support it.
Labour has disclosed this month that it has received three donations each worth £2 million from single benefactors. However, the Conservatives, traditionally the richest party in Britain, are thought to be struggling to raise the £15 million which the party is allowed to spend in the election.
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