Activities of Isabel GARCÍA MUÑOZ related to 2021/2018(INI)
Plenary speeches (1)
Statute and funding of European political parties and foundations (debate)
Opinions (1)
OPINION on European political parties – report 2021
Amendments (16)
Amendment 1 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph -1 (new)
Paragraph -1 (new)
-1. Emphasises that EU political parties and foundations contribute to forming European political awareness and to express the will of citizens of the Union, as enshrined in Article 10(4) TEU and Article 12(2) of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union; stresses, furthermore, the importance of EU political parties and foundations in bringing together the European civil society and the Union institutions;
Amendment 2 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 1
Paragraph 1
1. HRecalls that Regulation (EU, Euratom) No 1141/2014 on the statute and funding of EU political parties and foundations is the legal framework establishing their rights and obligations; highlights that the funding awarded under this Regulation (EU, Euratom) No 1141/2014 is part of the general budget of the European Union and should therefore be implemented in accordance with the Financial Regulation (Regulation (EU, Euratom) 2018/1046), with an emphasis on the general principle of sound financial management; recalls the role of further instances of financial control within their respective mandates, namely the European Court of Auditors, the European Anti-Fraud Office and the European Public Prosecutor’s Office;
Amendment 3 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 1 a (new)
Paragraph 1 a (new)
1 a. Welcomes the announcement by the Commission of a new European Democracy Action Plan, including a legislative proposal to ensure greater transparency on paid political advertising and the review of the legislation on the financing of European political parties;
Amendment 5 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 1 b (new)
Paragraph 1 b (new)
1 b. Recommends a harmonised timeframe for the reporting and controls carried out respectively by the EU political parties, the APPF and the Parliament in order to avoid having to recalculate the final amounts of the funding, while taking into account the deadlines imposed by relevant rules;
Amendment 6 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 2
Paragraph 2
2. Welcomes the 2019 Annual Activity Report presented by the Authority for European Political Parties and European Political Foundations (APPF); takes note of the main activities and challenges encountered during 2019; notes that the APPF performed the first review of the accounts of EU parties and foundations in the context of the European elections, ensuring their compliance with the Financial Regulation; welcomes that the APPF did not have to impose any sanction on an EU political party or foundation in 2019; takes note that, additionally, the APPF intervened in proceedings before the General Court of the European Union, and liaised with Member States to set up a network of National Contact Points and data protection authorities;
Amendment 9 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 3
Paragraph 3
3. Welcomes the fact that the APPF developed a set of principles to render operational the right of EU political parties to campaign in European elections; highlights that the first review of the accounts identified possible improvements, particularly regarding the level of detail and comparability of the requested informationAcknowledges that the right to campaign in conjunction with the prohibition of funding other political parties, in particular national parties or candidates, may create uncertainty for EU political parties; stresses their major role in European elections to run European campaigns; welcomes the fact that the APPF, together with the Directorate- General for Finance of the European Parliament, developed a set of principles to render operational the right of EU political parties to campaign in European elections, while at the same time setting out its limits; asks the Commission to insert these principles in Regulation (EU, Euratom) No 1141/2014; Highlights that the first review of the accounts identified possible improvements, particularly regarding the level of detail and comparability of the requested information provided by EU parties and foundations; welcomes the introduction of templates to facilitate the process in 2020; takes note that in 2019 most of the resources of the EU political parties and foundations went to personnel, meetings and information costs;
Amendment 11 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 3 a (new)
Paragraph 3 a (new)
3 a. Recalls that, in its Resolution of 26 November 2020 on the stocktaking of European elections, the Parliament proposed to amend Regulation (EU, Euratom) No 1141/2014 “to allow European political parties and foundations to fully participate in the European political space, to campaign, to be able to use campaign funds and stand in European elections, to increase the transparency of their funding, especially as regards the management of funds from the EU budget and when funding comes from member parties, and to prohibit donations from private and public bodies from non-EU countries”;
Amendment 13 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 4
Paragraph 4
4. Recalls that Article 38 of Regulation (EU, Euratom) No 1141/2014 requires Parliament to adopt a report on the application of the Regulation by the end of 2021, and the Commission to present a report on the same matter six months after that, probably accompanied by a legislative proposal to amend the regulationRegulation; takes note that the evaluation will focus on tightening the financial and enforcement rules, reducing the administrative burden, enhancing transparency, and strengthening the genuine electoral representation of European citizens;
Amendment 19 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 5
Paragraph 5
5. Highlights that the funding of EU political parties and foundations must be transparent, not open to abuse, and exclusively support political programmes and activities in line with the founding principles of the Union expressed in Article 2 of the Treaty on European Union; highlights that Regulation (EU, Euratom) No 1141/2014 introduced a procedure for assessing compliance, and unfulfillment can entail financial sanctions or a decision to deregister an EU party; underlines that stronger controls together with clear and proportional sanctions are indispensable to ensure their efficiency in terms of enforceability; points out that the Authority has never triggered the values compliance procedure thus far; calls for a reinforcement of the current administrative set-up of the APPF in order to better monitor the compliance with the relevant rules and the implementation of the sanctions;
Amendment 22 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 5 a (new)
Paragraph 5 a (new)
5 a. Takes note that the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) were initially developed for companies and don’t represent an administrative added value in the framework of Regulation (EU, Euratom) No 1141/2014; suggests reviewing and facilitating the required IFRS procedure for EU political parties and foundations;
Amendment 27 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 5 b (new)
Paragraph 5 b (new)
5 b. Welcomes the efforts made by the APPF to make accessible for the citizens a wide array of information on its website; suggests, however, to make the documents published in its website more user friendly;
Amendment 33 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 5 c (new)
Paragraph 5 c (new)
5 c. Notes that EU political parties are interested in developing relations with larger international organisations and partners from outside the EU through activities such as sending delegations to international events, organising fringe events within larger manifestations, and organising their own events outside of the EU; asks the creation of explicit provisions for activities with larger international organisations and partners from outside the EU;
Amendment 34 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 5 d (new)
Paragraph 5 d (new)
5 d. Recommends the Commission to strengthen the provisions on data protection by including references to the offences defined in Articles 3 to 6 of Directive 2013/40/EU on attacks against information systems; welcomes that the APPF established a network of national data protection authorities to render the new verification procedure fully operational;
Amendment 37 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 5 e (new)
Paragraph 5 e (new)
5 e. Asks the Commission to detail rules related to ceilings, tender procedures and other means related to EU political parties and foundations’ personnel and meetings costs to ensure a sound financial management of EU funds;
Amendment 38 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 6
Paragraph 6
6. Acknowledges that the co-funding level can be challenging for EU political parties; believes that reducing the required own resources for EU parties to 5 % of the eligible expenditure could help to address this issue, as is the case for foundations already, could help to address this issue; asks the Commission to establish stricter rules on ceiling, thresholds and reporting of donations to improve the transparency and accountability of the EU political parties and foundations;
Amendment 43 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 7
Paragraph 7
7. Recalls that Regulation (EU, Euratom) No 1141/2014 requires national parties to display the logo, the political programme and the website link of their EU party of affiliation on their websites “in a clear visible and user-friendly manner” as a condition for accessing funds; calls on the Commission to clearly define the requirements related to the visibility of the European party of affiliation.;