EU plan “against all democratic principles”
EUobserver 2001-01-17
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.

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.

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EU will give money to pro-European parties
Electronic Telegraph 2001-01-17

The European Union has put forward plans to give a financial subsidy to political parties engaged in building "a European political consciousness".

The proposal, to be announced by Romano Prodi, the president of the European Commission, later today, will benefit parties who are represented in a third of the 16 EU member states and have seats in at least three countries.

In Britain, such conditions would benefit both Labour and the Liberal Democrats, members of the Socialist and Liberal Democratic groups of the European parliament. respectively, but not the Conservatives.

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