http://www.euobserver.com/index.phtml?selected_topic=9&action=view&article_id=1290
17.01.2001
EU plan “against all democratic principles”
It has been suggested that the parties and members, who qualify as European, in 2009 should be allowed to run for the European elections in all member states, regardless of origin and nationality. 10% of the seats in the European Parliament should be saved for this direct election across the EU. And the EU funding could be used for their campaigns.
A statute for European political parties to be launched in a few weeks by the European Commission is likely to discriminate against parties who have not yet signed up to the fundamental principles of the EU.
Jens-Peter Bonde, President of the Group for a Europe of Democracies and Diversities in the European Parliament, told the EUobserver.com that allocating funds to political parties only once they had met certain conditions was “against all democratic principles” of the European Union.
The proposal from the Commission, which was part of the Commission's contribution to the Inter Governmental Conference in Nice, aims at building a "European awareness and to express the political will of the citizens of Europe" by offering political parties additional funding from the EU as long as they meet certain criteria.
To be eligible for funding the party has to respect fundamental democratic principles and fundamental rights according to a statute also to be drawn up by the Commission. Other criteria are that the party has to be represented in at least a third of EU member states or have a political group in the European Parliament or have received at least 5% of the votes in a recent European election in one third of the member states.
It has been suggested that the parties and members, who qualify as European, in 2009 should be allowed to run for the European elections in all member states, regardless of origin and nationality. 10% of the seats in the European Parliament should be saved for this direct election across the EU.
Jens-Peter Bonde, President of the Group for a Europe of Democracies and Diversities, told the EUobserver.com that allocating funds to political parties only once they had met certain conditions was “against all democratic principles” of the European Union. Mr Bonde is firmly against the plan, which he argued would favour larger parties and those that were pro-European.
The Commission proposal however, does state that even though the party must adress questions of European integration this is on the basis of the party's own perspective, favourable or unfavourable of the EU.
The Commission was supposed to adopt the proposal today, Wednesday, however the decision was postponed. The Commission is due to discuss the matter again, before reaching a final decision within the next few weeks.
Written by Blake Evans-Pritchard, Marie-Louise Møller
Edited by Lisbeth Kirk
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