Revisiting the Very Essence of Europarties

Pierre Jouvenat
Former UN/WTO senior official and active member of UEF-France

Key points

• The current review of the Regulation on Europarties must go beyond funding and procedural considerations to address the key issue of clarifying the nature and role of these parties.
• Over time, there has been a growing tendency to see Europarties as having a specific mission, as distinct from national parties, and that they should exist on their own (supranational approach). Alternatively, one can argue that the trans-nationalization of politics requires “multi-level” parties, whereby the Europeanization of national parties is just as important, if not more so, than the strengthening of Europarties (bottom-up approach).
• In view of the long-term objective of truly transnational parties, party legislation should foster synergies between existing national and European parties, and be shaped to foster a “mutualisation” of their mission.
• The specific issue of the recognition of new political movements with a European vocation, which may not yet meet all the conditions for acquiring full Europarty status, must be addressed, in particular to allow them to stand in European elections.

Considerable academic research has been undertaken on European political parties (hereafter Europarties), their relevance, the context in which they operate, their mission and functioning in comparison with national parties, etc. Despite this, since the need has emerged to regulate the functioning of the so-called “political parties at European level” (in treaty terminology), AFCO's work from the Tsatsos report in 1996 to the Giannakou report in 2011 has not really succeeded in clarifying conceptual issues such as the nature, role and positioning of Europarties within the European political space. Therefore, the existing Regulation^[i] remains largely focused on conditions to access European funds. The European Parliament's recent evaluation of its application confirmed this shortcoming, with the few references to the essence of these parties revealing strong divergencies of opinion on this issue. It is now up to the Commission to address the issue and make proposals for legislative amendments which, we hope, will go beyond mere operational considerations.

The current trend

In view of the absence of Europarties from the political scene, a consensus was formed on the need to “strengthen” them. This consensus is built on two assumptions. Firstly, with reference to the Treaties, which stipulate that “political parties at European level shall contribute to forming European political awareness and to expressing the will of the citizens of the Union”, it is assumed that Europarties have a specific mission that is different from the one of national parties. It is then generally advocated that Europarties should provide direct links with European civil society; connect EU-level democracy with Union citizens; stimulate citizen mobilisation on European issues; and more generally contribute to the making of a demos.

Secondly, and consequently, it is believed that Europarties should evolve towards full-functioning organisations to become true laboratories of ideas and militant forces. To this end, they should emancipate from their institutional members, the national parties, and broaden their base, notably by encouraging the direct membership of “individual members”. Europarties should exist on their own. This makes a clear distinction between two categories of parties – Europarties vs. national parties – and even opposes them against each other. Illustrative of this evolution is the change in terminology from “political parties at European level” (Treaties) to “European political parties” (Regulation 1141/2014).

A better route

Taking full account of contradictory academic debates, this paper builds on several premises: (1) An “ever closer Union”; (2) the differing contexts in which national and European parties operate, resulting in different functions (representative, governing, ...), will fade over time; (3) citizens' ownership of European integration requires a bottom-up approach where the territorial roots of political parties are essential.

In federal states such as the United States, Germany or Switzerland, a limited number of parties interact with institutions at all levels of the federation, from local to federal, with the same identification. In the EU, given the diversity of national political systems and the resulting high ideological dilution, as well as the many non-concordant cleavages that characterize European politics, such a level of homogeneity is inconceivable in the foreseeable future.

Nevertheless, the EU integration process implies a change of scale and a trans-nationalization of political parties' activities. All parties, particularly national parties, must adapt their modus operandi accordingly. Hence the spontaneous creation in the 1970s, in anticipation of direct elections to the European Parliament, of transnational party federations. Not only do the decision-making level and party action level go hand in hand, but it is also a question of determining which level is the most appropriate for creating a European demos. For instance, without contradicting the Treaties, the mission of “forming European political awareness” is not exclusive to, nor even should be the preferential role of, Europarties. National parties have a territorial base and are therefore best placed to provide European integration with a local foundation citizenry participation. It is therefore as important, if not more so, to europeanise the national parties as to empower the Europarties.

Consequently, instead of separating national parties and Europarties, one should bring them together with the ultimate objective of creating genuine transnational political families and favoring the emergence of a transnational party system. Parties of the same political family must become “multi-level” parties that operate at all levels, from municipal to European. To this end, and given the sui generis nature of European integration, the right strategy is to reinforce synergies between existing national parties and Europarties, as a first step.

Legal incentives

Given that a single European law or a uniformization of national laws on such sensitive issues are not conceivable, it is necessary to build on the existing Regulation on the statute of Europarties towards a kind of “mutualisation” of the missions of European and national parties. This is not an easy task, as the EU Council is likely to oppose coercive measures. In particular, care must be taken not to violate the often constitutionally guaranteed freedom of association. Symptomatic of the resistance to party trans nationalisation is the recent failure of the European Commission to introduce into the Regulation a provision requiring a Europarty seeking funding to provide evidence that its national member parties publish the political programme and logo of the Europarty on their websites. The final text added “as a rule”, but that is not very binding in this respect (Regulation 2018/673, new Art.18(2a)). The European Parliament has faced similar difficulties in its attempts to push for the double logo on campaign materials and ballot papers in European elections.

Nevertheless, some of the current provisions are in line with the trans-nationalisation of parties as envisaged in this paper. Two examples: (1) Now that Europarties have been endowed with European legal personality, they “... shall enjoy legal recognition and capacity in all Member States” (Art. 13). A provision which has not yet achieved full understanding in Member States! (2) As from the recent amendment (2018/673, new Art.3(1b)), only political parties, and no longer individuals, may sponsor the registration of a Europarty. However, we need to be more ambitious.

However, the fact remains that the new double logo provision proves to be insignificant. Pursuing this path alone leads to a dead end. Other avenues must be explored to ensure that national parties take their European affiliation seriously, beyond the current occasional alliances of circumstance which have no effect on public debate, and that Europarties are no longer mere conglomerations of national parties but become supranational organs of transnational parties, dealing with supranational issues. The double logo will thus become naturally and voluntarily visible.

The most promising way forward is to encourage parties of the same political family to undertake joint activities, thereby enhancing synergies, both vertically and horizontally. Joint campaigning in European elections could be a good starting point and one should therefore consider introducing in the European electoral law the two-dimensional system (so far called “double-proportionality” and recently renamed “Tandem Electoral System”) whereby votes are cast for Europarties, thus making them more visible. Similar avenues must be pursued through incentives in the Regulation on Europarties that would encourage transnational debates on European issues, joint campaigning in referendums with a European scope, and various forms of interaction between national and Europarties, and between sister national parties, particularly for the formulation of common policies.

Such an approach implies banning the exclusion of Europarties from national campaigning and referendums, as well as the interdiction to use European funds to finance national parties. On the contrary, European financial support should be formally extended to national parties for any action that contributes to their Europeanisation.

If legal incentives for the convergence of national parties and Europarties are considered as being too coercive and therefore difficult to get accepted, it is at the very least necessary to avoid further disincentives through a European legislation that would perpetuate the prevailing misconception that Europarties are a separate category of parties having a specific mission.

A subsidiary issue

Denouncing the opportunist alliances of national parties without a coherent agenda for Europe and arguing that it is inappropriate to transpose to the European level what does not work at the national level, new political parties, such as Volt, which claim to be “transnational”, have been created ex-nihilo with the sole aim of talking more about Europe, or doing it differently, emphasizing their ideological and programmatic cohesion. These movements have the merit of providing a stimulus for politics to take a transnational dimension, even if only the transformation of the major traditional political families will enable the creation of a European civil society that is not merely marginal. Recent AFCO's debates illustrate the difficulty of precisely defining these parties, which are finding it difficult to establish their position in relation to the recognised Europarties.

Consequently, the Regulation should clarify the situation and grant formal recognition to such parties with a European vocation, which are still in their infancy and therefore might not yet have elected members in their national chapters. A streamlined political space should not mean a close space. In particular, the Regulation must distinguish between the conditions for accessing European funds and the minimum requirements for standing in European elections.

Conclusion

Debates on political parties' legislation must take a conceptual dimension in order to devise incentives for the creation of a European political space animated by multi-level parties, ultimately forming a transnational party system, where each component plays the role that suits it best for both citizens' mobilisation and partisan confrontation on European issues.

[i] Regulation 1141/2014 on the statute and funding of European political parties and European political foundations, as modified by Regulation 2018/673 of 3 May 2018 and Regulation 2019/493 of 25 March 2019. Article 38 of the Regulation foresees an evaluation of its application by the European Parliament by the end of 2021, to be followed by a report by the Commission proposing, if appropriate, legislative amendments. At the time of printing this article, the AFCO proposal for EP resolution was made available here: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/A-9-2021-0294_EN.html