Reforming European political foundations and beyond
Executive Summary
In June 2026, the European Parliament adopted its report on the implementation of the regulatory framework on European political parties and foundations. Following general considerations, the report focuses on European foundations, and formulates observations and reform proposals for the European Commission's consideration. In particular, it addresses the amount and structure of funding, the regulatory burden faced by regulated entities, and legal uncertainty. Our report analyses this document in depth: we provide contextual information and data to better understand Parliament's proposals and their impact, and list additional paths for reforms or counter-proposals. We find reform a necessity to meet the goals set out in the treaties, and recalled by Parliament, and argue in favour of a wide-ranging reform effort following a sequential approach, based on topics and not targetted entities.
Note: Unless indicated otherwise, cited articles refer to recast Regulation 2025/2445, and all emphases are added for the purpose of this report. Those already familiar with Parliament's reportmay wish to move straight to the analysis section.
Introduction
On 16 June 2026, the European Parliament adopted its 2026 report on the application of Regulation (EU, Euratom) No 2025/2445 and on the activities funded (2026/2013(INI)), also referred to as the "implementation report".
While Art. 45 and 47 of Regulation 2025/2445 mandate the European Parliament to publish this report, the entry into force of the Regulation in December 2025 means, as Parliament recognised, that "data on and experience with [...] the Regulation is as yet limited" (recital F and para. 3).
Noting an "[increasingly volatile] geopolitical and technological environment" since the Commission's 2021 recast proposal requiring "long-term policy planning, democratic education and cross-border dialogue" to which European foundations can contribute (para. 7), as well as undefined "unforeseen policy challenges [that] have emerged in the immediate aftermath of the Regulation's entry into force, notably regarding the funding of political foundations" (recital F), Parliament chose to focus its report on European political foundations.
Parliament's decision orients the entirety of the evaluation report. However, while argumentation is limited to European foundations, the scope of Parliament's proposals often goes beyond foundations, and their implementation would impact European political parties.
This report by the European Democracy Consulting Stiftung (EDCS) highlights the issues and proposals made by the European Parliament, analyses the impact of the suggested reforms, and formulates recommendations for the European Commission's follow-up to the implementation report.
While our report focuses solely on the issues examined by Parliament, its appraisal for the reform of Regulation 2025/2445 should be done in conjunction with previous research, including the Comments on Reforming Regulation 1141/2014, written for the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (based on the Guidelines on Political Party Regulation of the OSCE/ODIHR and of the Venice Commission), the response to AFCO's draft report on the implementation of Regulation 1141/2014, the Logos Project on the visibility of the link between European parties and their member parties, the policy brief on a smarter funding system for European parties published by the Austrian Society for European Politics (Österreichische Gesellschaft für Europapolitik, ÖGfE), as well as recent theme-specific posts by EDCS.
Overall considerations
Parliament recalls that European parties and foundations "are essential for the development of a truly European public sphere" (recital A), that they should "play a more central role in the European election process" (recital B), and that they should "cooperate with their national member parties and partners to support them in bringing the EU and its policies closer to citizens and to enhance democratic legitimacy" (recital C).
In addition, Parliament notes the importance of ensuring political diversity "for public discourse and for expressing citizens' choices" (recital B), and of paying "particular attention to the Regulation's implications for the position of small European [parties and foundations]" (recital H).
While parties are also mentioned, the report goes on to focus on the specific case of European political foundations, "part of the EU's democratic architecture" (recital I), to "[raise] political awareness of and [contribute] to the debate on EU policy issues and the process of European integration" (recital J and para. 6), and to "prepare effectively for the challenges in the period up to 2040 and beyond" (recital L).
Main issues
Parliament's report highlights three main issues: the amount and structure of funding, the regulatory burden faced by European parties and foundations, and legal uncertainty.
It argues that those factors "limit the financial autonomy and sustainability" of foundations, and "underlines that a sustainable funding framework is essential to preserve their independence and prevent undue private influence" (para. 13).
Amount and structure of funding
Parliament states that "the current level and structure of EU funding available to European political foundations is no longer commensurate with the scope, strategic relevance and increasing complexity of their tasks" (recital N), and that, "in view of their expanding responsibilities, European political foundations require the necessary financial tools and appropriate and stable resources to fully assume their institutional role" (para. 8).
Regulatory burden
Parliament's report conveys political foundations' complaints of a "disproportionate regulatory burden", and their call for simplification, "notably with regard to reporting and transparency obligations" and the "reinstatement of the corrective measures" (recital O), found in Art. 29 of Regulation 1141/2014, but curtailed in Art. 35 of Regulation 2025/2445.
For reference, according to the APPF's letter to European political parties and foundations of 28 November 2025:
There is no longer an opportunity to take corrective measures before decisions on sanction for quantifiable infringements (i.e. in particular for infringements related to donations, and the prohibition to fund directly or indirectly parties/other foundations or candidates), nor in the case of sanctions under Article 32(1)(vii) to (ix) of the Regulation (exclusion under the Financial Regulation, intentional omission to provide information or intentional provision of incorrect or misleading information, deliberate attempt to influence European elections by taking advantage of a data protection infringement). Subject to the right to be heard, such infringements therefore will be sanctioned, without possibility to avoid this by remedying the situation (Article 35(1));
Parliament further notes the "importance of effective and proportionate corrective measures as a tool to ensure compliance with the Regulation" (para. 4).
Legal uncertainty
Finally, Parliament notes the "legal uncertainty and operational constraints still faced by European political foundations, particularly as regards the classification of eligible costs", adding that these issues require "timely clarification" (para. 5), and "underlines the need to ensure that European political foundations are provided with a sound legal framework and financial security" (para. 9).
Proposals for improvement
Amount and structure of funding
In order to gather more information, Parliament first asks the Commission to carry out a "targeted review of the funding provisions applicable to European political foundations under the Regulation" (para. 18) and, in particular, to "review whether any national regulatory or policy framework prohibits or hinders the payment of contributions by national entities, including political foundations, to European political foundations" (para. 19).
The review in question would then form the basis of a "recast legislative proposal revising the funding rules for European political foundations" (para. 20) comprising, among others, the following proposals.
Firstly, Parliament suggest to "increase the cap on financial contributions or grants from the EU's general budget to 100 % of the eligible costs incurred by a European political foundation" (para. 20).
Secondly, it recognises efforts made by European foundations "to diversify and stabilise their sources of funding" and "encourages the […] use of available own-resource mechanisms" (para. 17). For instance, it proposes to increase the cap on donations from natural or legal persons beyond the current EUR 18 000 per year and per donor, for "greater flexibility" and as part of "diversification of own resources" (para. 14 and 20).
Thirdly, Parliament proposes "increasing the overall level of EU funding for political foundations under the forthcoming multiannual financial framework for 2028-2034, to take account of the absence of budgetary indexation in recent years and the rising inflation and increasing operational costs, with a view to ensuring appropriate, stable and predictable financial resources" (para. 21). This increased funding is considered "a strategic investment in the EU's democratic resilience and long-term governance capacity" (para. 22).
Finally, Parliament calls on the APPF and Commission to exchange with national authorities to "[raise] awareness of the impact of national funding frameworks […] and [identify] practical solutions aimed at avoiding unintended constraints on their financial sustainability" (para. 15).
Regulatory burden
Parliament only makes one substantial proposal with regard to regulatory burden, in part because recast Regulation 2025/2445 already abandoned the obligation to provide "annual financial statements on the basis of the international accounting standards" (Art. 23.1(a) of Regulation 1141/2014), the removal of which reporting entities had long asked for.
In this report, it proposes to "[establish] a single online reporting and disclosure system for EU funding, donations and contributions to European political foundations". This system is meant to "ensure adequate transparency for citizens, improve compliance monitoring and reduce reporting entities' administrative and compliance burden" (para. 16).
Beyond this, Parliament only promises to "further investigate and follow up on this matter in its upcoming systematic evaluation" (para. 4). In the same paragraph, it also emphasises "the importance of effective and proportionate corrective measures" and "undertakes to review the use of these measures in recent practice".
Legal uncertainty
Parliament does not provide many substantial proposals to increase legal uncertainty regarding funding.
Firstly, it merely "[commits] to working with the foundations [...] to the extent possible within the existing framework" (para. 9) and "encourages [them] to maximise financial possibilities under the existing framework" (para. 10).
Secondly, Parliament recalls several possibilities already existing under the current framework, such as the fact that the Regulation "does not prohibit a flexible and participation-based membership fee model through which member organisations contribute on the basis of their level of involvement in joint activities" (para. 9), that it authorises financing "via the own resources of the European political parties" (para. 10, see below), and that it "does not prohibit national foundations, other than political foundations, from becoming members of and paying a membership contribution" (para. 11).
The only proposal meant to improve legal uncertainty is to "[clarify Article 25] to confirm explicitly that participation fees can be charged to member organisations for their involvement in activities organised by a European political foundation" (para. 25).
Analysis
In this section, we will dive into each proposal highlighted above, with contextual information and data analysis.
Amount and structure of funding
EP proposal #1. Review national funding provisions
Gathering additional information ahead of formulating proposals is indeed sensible, especially to ensure that the proposals in question adhere to the overall considerations above and properly address the issues that Parliament seeks to remedy.
This being said, Parliament's proposed review of national frameworks is not unlike the APPF's 2023 study of Provisions of national law affecting European political parties and European political foundations, which compiles provisions of national law that, in addition to the provisions of EU law, directly or indirectly impact European parties and foundations.
→ given our own work on European parties and their funding, we could update and expand upon the APPF's work, focusing on aspects relevant to Parliament and the Commission.
EP proposal #2. Increase public financing rate to 100 % of eligible costs
Raising public financing to 100% of European foundations' eligible costs is a false good idea. The arguments in favour are well understood, and are mostly the same as those used to justify raising the public financing rate from 90% to 95% for European parties in Regulation 2025/2445. In its initial recast proposal, in 2021, the Commission had even proposed to raise the public financing rate for European parties to 100% during election years.
An understandable premise
From the perspective of a party or foundation, these proposed increases make sense. In the EU's current political system, neither European political parties nor foundations are major players, and raising private funding can be demanding. European parties and foundations have thus long complained that raising private funding is difficult. In particular, while European parties raise member contributions on a yearly basis, European foundations complain that their member foundations are not able or willing to pay membership fees.
In addition, this private funding comes with strict reporting requirements, in order to trace the money and avoid undue influence, which can be burdensome. Consequently, this requirement diverts their time and attention away from substantive matters to administrative and fundraising issues, implicitly considered a waste. Increasing this rate is therefore portrayed as way to make parties and foundations more effective in the delivery of their core mission.
Fundraising is implicitly portrayed as a waste of resources.
The argument also takes an additional edge when raising the rate to 100%. In previous discussions, the focus was simply to make life easier for parties and foundations. However, for the vast majority of them, almost the entirety of the private funding raised to match public funding is made up of member contributions. Therefore, the fundraising in question is far less an exercise in seeking donors in the dark, rather than agreeing with known members on contribution amounts. As a result, roughly the same amount of work is required whether this private funding represent 25% or 5% of eligible costs. This means that, as the required share of private funding decreases, the same amount of time spent on fundraising yields less and less private money, leading parties and foundations to think "all that work just for just 5%". Raising the rate to 100% would eliminate this work entirely, for entities choosing not to raise private funding.
Another argument, raised in the case of European parties, is that smaller parties are particularly disadvantaged and that, therefore, the requirement to raise private funding is damaging to political pluralism and democracy.
Data analysis
A look at financial data paints a slightly different story.
First of all, data analysis of European political foundations shows that, over the past decade, most foundations consistently receive close to their maximum entitlement.
Between 2015 and 2024, in 58% of cases, a foundation received over 90% of its entitlement, and, in 75% of cases, they received more than 80% of it. Figures even increase to over 68% and over 83%, respectively, over the past five years.
Likewise, previous research on European parties' donations and contributions does not find that smaller parties are facing more difficulties in raising private funds as a share of their budget. While differences are small and not always consistent, smaller parties actually tend to receive a slightly higher share of their income from private sources.
Unsustainable trend
As indicated, European parties and foundations have complained about their co-funding requirement since the inception of European public funding in 2004 (since 2007 for foundations). The initial private co-funding requirement stood at 25%; as of 2008, it was brought down to 15%. Starting in 2019, private co-funding was further reduced to 10% for parties and 5% for foundations, and the 2025 recast harmonised this requirement at 5% for all.
Increase after increase, their difficulties in private fundraising have remained.
Overall, the recent harmonisation of European parties' rate with that of foundations, the Commission's proposal to bring the rate for parties to 100% in election years, as well as Parliament's current proposal to bring it to 100% for foundations make it very likely that a rate of 100% would soon be proposed for European parties as well. This seems hinted at in the implement report, which refers to "the cap on financial contributions or grants from the EU’s general budget", since "contributions" refers to the funding of European parties, while "grants" refers to the funding of European foundations (see the calls for contributions and proposals on the European Parliament's Open tenders page).
This current proposal is therefore part of a long-term trend that aligns with requests from parties and foundations, but also one that does not seem to have assuaged their private funding issues. Each time, parties and foundations claim the increase in the rate of public funding will be the solution to their fundraising woes. Yet, increase after increase, their difficulties in private fundraising have remained.
Not only is this trend of continuously alleviating parties' and foundations' private financing requirement not sustainable, but, if none of the previous attempts to support private financing by increasing the public financing rate have failed, it is hard to justify that yet another reduction will be any more successful.
Failure to free funds
This situation was on display when officials from the European Parliament's DG FINS, in charge of handling the public funding of parties and foundations, talking to EDCS, suggested that Regulation 2025/2445's increased public funding rate for European parties meant that the private funds not allocated to eligible costs could be transferred by parties to foundations, an idea also entertained in Parliament's proposal (para. 10).
While it is too early to assess the consequences of this recent regulatory change, for this argument to hold, previous increases in the share of public financing should likewise have led to stable member contributions and donations, as a share of parties' public funding entitlement. With contributions and donations remaining around the same level but less used to cover eligible costs, more private funding would have remained available for non-eligible costs, such as supporting foundations.
However, looking at the largest European parties before and after the increase of the public co-funding rate from 85% to 90% (between 2018 and 2019), we see an immediate drop in contributions as a share of parties' maximum grant.
The EPP and PES, in particular, are good examples for two reasons. Firstly, as the largest parties, they have a broader membership, and both have large and well-endowed national parties as members, meaning that these parties' capacity to transfer funds to their European is not in jeopardy. Secondly, both parties rely almost exclusively on member party contributions, and are therefore not impacted by the whims of donors. Up to 2018, the EPP and PES raised, respectively, 13-14% and 16-19% of their entitlement in contributions; as soon as the reform came into effect, rates for both parties immediately dropped to 10-11%.
The data therefore shows that the increase in the public co-funding rate did not "free up" private funds that continued to be raised for use on non-eligible expenditure, such as financial support for political foundations. Instead, European parties simply raised less private funding — just enough to avail themselves of their new and lower private co-funding rate.
Impact on European democracy
But even more worrisome than the limited rate of success of this measure is the decreasing reliance of European parties and foundations on private funding, in particular small individual donations, which are key to creating ties between political parties and citizens.
By contrast, increasing the public co-funding rate will further entrench the disconnect between European citizens and their political representatives at EU level – this is particularly true of bringing the rate of private funding down to 0% in elections years, precisely when European parties should most reach out to citizens as part of their campaigns.
Private funding is an essential part of democracy.
For reference, in Germany, which has a similar system of large and well-endowed political foundations, foundations indeed receive 95% of their budget from public funding. However, political parties are required to raise at least 50% of their funding from private sources, and this for much larger budgets and far fewer citizens and companies potentially donating; this relatively high level of private funding has contributed to maintaining a higher level of trust in political parties than in most member states. While the role of political parties between the national and European levels can, of course, not directly be compared, this is a reminder that the private funding of political parties is an essential part of representative democracy.
Likewise, DG FINS itself has pushed back against a rate of 100% of public funding, arguing that private funding helps tie parties and foundations to civil society and their members. In addition, they insisted that private funding is essential when some expenses are declared non-reimbursable, and must therefore be covered by private funds. In the absence of a co-funding requirement, a party or foundation could find itself without the means to reimburse Parliament for the funds it advanced.
Building a sustainable and democratic public funding
Of course, European parties' and foundations' struggles to raise private funding must be listened to, but eliminating the need to raise private funds is neither an effective nor sustainable way to address this concern, and it risks further undermining the conditions for a sound representative democracy. Instead, parties and foundations must be allowed and encouraged to reach out to citizens.
A more productive reform to build a more sustainable and democratic public funding system would be to increase the overall amount of public funding (which is already proposed by Parliament, see below), progressively increase the required rate of private funding (especially for parties), and progressively decrease the share of national party contributions in private funding. Such a reform would increase European parties' reliance on individual member contributions and on private donations, preferably with a cap to focus on small donations, creating stronger ties with citizens and strengthening European democracy.
These proposals must go hand-in-hand with other measures to reforme private funding and ensure the visibility of European parties for citizens, including ensuring that national parties properly display their affiliation to European parties at all times, displaying the logo of European parties on electoral propaganda and on ballots for European elections, and allowing European parties to financially support their national parties when these share their name and logo.1
→ given our previous work on European parties and their funding, we can provide detailed research and data analysis on the proposals above to inform the Commission's reflection and decision-making.
EP proposal #3. Increase the cap on donations from natural or legal persons
Increasing the cap on private donations is another seemingly sound idea, but one that is unlikely to reach its goal and instead create undue risk.
An understandable premise
Parliament's report proposes to "to increase the cap on donations for European political foundations, therefore ensuring greater flexibility and diversification of funding sources". For context, however, two amendments, submitted jointly by the co-rapporteurs and which introduced this provision to the report, proposed both to increase the cap on donations for foundations to €30,000 and to "to allow donations of up to a value of €30,000 per year and per donor for both parties and foundations", to "[ensure] greater flexibility and diversification of funding sources". Another amendment, put forward by the ECR, went further and "[urged] the Commission to double the maximum amount of donations" to €36,000. These proposals constitute, respectively, 67% and 100% increases of the donations cap.
As indicated above, while donations account for a small amount and share of private funding, fundraising can be time and resource consuming. When a donor is found, it would therefore make parties' and foundations' fundraising easier if the donor were allowed to make a more sizeable donation, so as to increase the value of the fundraising effort.
This proposed increased donations cap for European foundations creates risks on three counts: concentration of donations, undue influence of wealthy donors, and likely extension to European parties.
Concentration of donations
Firstly, it is unclear how increasing the cap on donations can diversify the origin of private funding, as it does nothing to incentivise or legalise donations from donors who could not donate before. Parliament does not provide an explanation on this point. Instead, it is likely to increase the amounts of donations already reaching the current ceiling, increasing the importance of a few donations of high value.
Looking at national regulations, the EU's current cap of €18,000 for donations from individuals places it in the lowest bracket, which is in line with its public funding scheme, more generous than in many member states. Conversely, the proposed increase would place it around the middle of the fray. Meanwhile, with regard to donations from legal persons, the EU is already far ahead of many member states, given the widespread ban on donations from legal persons at the national level.
Risk of ondue influence
Secondly, this proposal paves the way for increased, and perhaps undue, influence for wealthier stakeholders, and therefore risks undermining political pluralism. This is especially true given both the limited total amount of private funding and its importance in leveraging much higher amounts of public funding. For smaller European parties with more limited member party contributions, high donations may prove enticing enough to grant influence.
High-value donations represent a high share of donations for the parties pushing for an increase cap.
Data from national and European parties shows that a donation to a European party or foundation matching an increased cap could easily become a significant share of this entity's total donations, and play a crucial role in securing public funding, at a much higher rate than at the national level. In practice, for most European parties, a single €30,000 or €36,000 donation is several times more than the total amount of donations they currently receive. This risk should be particularly concerning at a time when economic inequalities are increasing.
Further data shows that donations above €12,000, which are considered high enough to warrant immediate reporting and disclosure, account for over 40% of total donations for seven parties and foundations, almost of them on the right side of the political spectrum. This includes ALDE and its foundation, the EPP's foundation, and the ECR and its foundation, namely the very parties proposing the increase in the donation cap.
Extension to European parties
Finally, taken together with the call to remove European political foundations' private co-funding requirement (which, as pointed out, could easily be later extended to European parties), this would mean that foundations (and potentially parties) would have no need for small donations or member contributions, and could instead just rely on a few large donors as a top-up to their guaranteed public funding.
Ways forward
An understandable way forward could be to account for inflation and to increment the donations cap accordingly, either indexed on real inflation rates or on a fixed percentage. This increase could kick in on an annual basis or every few years. At any rate, the increase would be far from the figures proposed by MEPs in their amendments. For instance, assuming an annual increase of 2% decided in Regulation 1141/2014 alongside its new €18,000 cap, which applied as of 2018, the amount by 2026 would be around €21,000 — far from the proposed €30,000-36,000.
However, the goal of diversifying and stabilising private funding can be much better achieved by strengthening the role of small donations from citizens via a dedicated matching fund, which would also encourage European parties to reach out to citizens, or via a subsidy rewarding European parties' number of membership fee-paying individual members. Both of those measures, which exist and function well in Germany and the Netherlands, would increase connections between European parties and citizens, thereby strengthening European democracy.
→ given our previous work on donations and contributions and on the public funding of political parties, we can provide detailed research and data analysis on the proposals above to inform the Commission's reflection and decision-making.
EP proposal #4. Increase EU funding
Parliament's report does not substantiate its claim that "the current level and structure of EU funding available to European political foundations is no longer commensurate with the scope, strategic relevance and increasing complexity of their tasks", which presumably stems from European foundations' own statements at the exchange of views of 18 March.
Looking back
A first look at European political foundations' final grants between 2015 and 2024 shows that public funding, with the notable exception of WMCES in 2020-2021, has been on an slow, upward trajectory.2
However, inflation in the EU has indeed been higher than planned for the past several years. Data from the ECB for the Eurozone shows rates almost consistently above 2% since July 2021, with a peak above 10% in October 2022; while values have receded, inflation remains between 2 and 3%. Meanwhile, the total amount of European public funding for European parties has remained stable at €46 million since 2021,3 and the amount for foundations has rather stable, around €23-24 million since the same date. And this, despite a 20% increase in the number of European parties and foundations.4 As a result, the average per-entity amount of public funding allocated to European parties and foundations has grown less than inflation in all but one year for the past five years.
Finally, the overall picture of the evolution of public funding for European parties and foundations is one of extreme instability, with constantly large year-on-year variations, both positive (20% in average) and negative (10% in average) since 2004, including with a net 17% decrease for foundations in 2026 and a 23% decrease for parties in 2025.5
Faced with raising costs and stagnating or decrease entitlements, European parties and foundations understandably complain about their loss of purchasing power and action.
Stabilising public funding
A first measure to stabilise public funding and increase financial predictability for European parties and foundations is to replace the current yearly decision-making for the total amount of public funding with a planned adjustment included in the Regulation. As for the donations cap, this can be based on real inflation rates (either the whole rate or a fraction of it) or on a fixed value. The adjustment can be annual or take place every few years, to provide stability. Finally, an mechanism could allow the APPF or the Commission to submit an exceptional change without requiring an amendment of the Regulation.
There is no reason for a party's funding to be impacted by the presence or absence of others.
Going one step further, financial predictability can be more sustainably and more easily ensured by moving away from the split-envelope model, which is constantly affected by the registration or de-registration of parties and foundations. While the envelop itself could be made to account for the number of entities qualifying for funding, it would still remain dependent on the number of MEPs members of a European party in each given year. Additionally, since there is no objective reason that a party's public funding entitlement would be affected by the presence or absence of other parties, or by the membership of MEPs with no relation to this party, the calculation of entitlements should be independent of the fate of other parties. A more efficient and fairer way is therefore to replace the current percentages with fixed amounts.
For instance, in the current system, with a total envelope of €46 million for 12 European parties, each party was entitled, for the financial year 2026, to a lump sum of 46 x 10% / 12 = €383,333 and to another 46 x 90% / 663 = €62,443 per MEP. Instead, the lump sum could be a fixed amount (e.g. €400,000) initially calculated based on real operating costs faced by parties and foundations, including real estate, staffing, and basic operations. Likewise, a fixed amount per MEP would reward each party's own elective performance. Both amounts can then automatically be adjusted for inflation, as proposed above.
Finally, this fixed amount per MEP could be replaced with a fixed amount per vote received in the previous European elections. This would contribute to stabilising the public funding calculation between elections, though other parts of the calculation, if based on donations or membership, could still fluctuate. Basing the calculation on votes would also more closely respect the choice of European citizens and European parties' electoral performance, and avoid the practice of national parties taking their funding with them as they switch European parties.
→ given our previous work on the public funding of political parties, including via our European Party Funding Observatory and its upcoming public funding simulator, we can provide detailed and customised scenarios and compare them with the current funding scheme to inform the Commission's reflection and decision-making.
EP proposal #5. Raise awareness of the impact of national funding frameworks
This proposal goes hand-in-hand with the proposal to "Review of national funding provisions". The fact that national political parties and foundations are regulated under national law naturally leads to diverging frameworks, if only for historical reasons whereby some members have not introduced a differentiation between European political parties and foundations and other non-national similar entities.
While European institutions are welcome to contribute to this awareness-raising, and the related advocacy for a streamlining of national provisions with a view to enabling European parties and foundations to properly carry out their mandated role, this mission is probably best undertaken by the APPF.
In practice, however, the APPF has shown a tendency to limit its activities to its explicit mandate, with the notable exception of its school competition. The APPF also regularly liaises with national contact points, which is not directly part of its mandate (Art. 8.1), but nevertheless mentioned in the Regulation (Art. 34.1).6 As a result, a slight broadening of the APPF's mandate to include awareness-raising and advocacy relating to the sound implementation of the Regulation and of Art. 10.4 TEU7 would be beneficial to legally empower and direct the APPF to carry our these tasks.
Going further
Beyond Parliament's goal to endow foundations with "appropriate and stable resources", numerous additional proposals can be considered to improve European parties' and foundations' funding system, and to increase funding transparency for citizens. For each of the proposals below, we have more detailed research and data analysis that can be provided.
Regulation 2025/2445 requires European parties and foundations to "transmit a list of all donors with their corresponding donations, indicating both the nature and the value of the individual donations". For contributions, the same article states that this "shall also apply to contributions from member parties from the Union and member organisations from the Union" and "to contributions exceeding EUR 1 500 made by individual members".
This phrasing leaves an arbitrary distinction between donations from individuals under €1,500 (which are reported, albeit published together as "minor donations") and voluntary contributions from individual members under €1,500 (which are not reported). This distinction was presumably introduced to respect the privacy of individual members. However, while individual members' identity may be kept private, there is no strong basis to support an exemption from reporting voluntary financial contributions made by individuals on the mere basis on their membership. By contrast, mandatory contributions deriving directly from membership could be kept private (under a given threshold), while voluntary contributions would follow the same reporting standards as donations.
We propose to redefine donations and contributions in Art. 2.9-10, whereby contributions would be defined as mandatory financial transfers, offerings in kind, or provision below market value of good and services8 deriving from membership obligations. Meanwhile, donations would be the voluntary provision of the same. As a result, individuals only contributing their membership fee will see their privacy respected. Donations by individual members separate from membership fees will then be reported with all other donations – published grouped as "minor donations" under a given amount, and together with the donor's identity above this amount.
Regulation 2025/2445 distinguishes three cases for the reporting of donations made by individuals:
- If the annual sum of donations by an individual is above €3,000, their name and the value of their donations is published;
- If the annual sum of donations by an individual is below €1,500, their name is not disclosed, and their donations are grouped with other low-value donations as "minor donations"; and
- If the annual sum of donations by an individual is above €1,500 and below or equal to €3,000, the name of the donor and value of the donations are only published with the written consent of the donor, otherwise their name is not disclosed and amounts are reported as minor donations.
In practice, no information has ever been reported for annual donations between €1,500 and €3,000.9 Since it is highly unlikely that no individual donor has ever made an annual donation ranging from €1,500 to €3,000, it would seem like no donor has ever given their consent, which means that the effective threshold for information to be published on individual donors is indeed €3,000. This is six times the threshold set by Regulation 2004/2003, which, between 2004 and 2015, stood at €500.10
While donations above €3,000 per year and per donor account for the majority of European parties and foundations' total amount of donations from individual members, they only account for a small fraction of their number of donations. For instance, between 2018 and 2024, European political parties received €722k from individual donors; donations above €3,000 per year per donor accounted for €406k, or 56%, of this amount. Meanwhile, donations below or equal to €3,000 accounted for €316k, or 44%. By contrast, in the same period, there were only 40 donations above €3,000 from individual donors out of 4,172 such donations, or under 1%. Meanwhile, there were 4,132 donations below or equal to €3,000 from individual donors, over 99%.11
For purposes of clarity and simplicity, we propose to amend Art. 25.2 and 39.1 to remove the €1,500-€3,000 bracket, in order to simply publish the identity of a donor and the value of their donations above a given value, and an aggregate amount of donations below this value. We also propose to amend Art. 25.2 and 39.1 to lower the threshold for the publication of a donor's identity. This should be done with due regards for the balance between the obligation of transparency and the respect of donors' privacy, which contributes to political pluralism.
Regulation 2025/2445 requires that single donations exceeding €12,000 be immediately reported to the APPF (Art. 25.4). While the Regulation does not contain an explicit deadline for publication, the APPF strives to publish these donations on an expedited basis, usually within a week of their reporting. This contrasts with "regular" donations, which are currently reported to the APPF, within six months of the end of the financial year. These contributions are then published on the APPF's website between 6-12 months following this deadline.
Expedited reporting therefore makes a dramatic difference in the transparency of donations: while donations exceeding €12,000 will be published within one to two weeks of the donation date, donations under €12,000 may not be publicly available until around two years later.12
Proposal
We propose to amend Art. 25.4 and 39.1 to lower the threshold for the immediate reporting of donations.
Regulation 2025/2445 requires European parties and foundations to report "a list of all donors with their corresponding donations, indicating both the nature and the value of the individual donations". For donations between €1,500 and €3,000, European parties and foundations must also indicate whether the donor has consented to the publication of their donation and identity. The APPF later publishes "the names of donors and their corresponding donations", except for low-value donations for which only the aggregate value and the number of donors is published.
The Regulation also introduces due diligence measures for donations above €3,000, asking European parties and foundations to "request that such donors provide the necessary information so that they can be properly identified", which should be transmitted to the APPF upon request. However, the Regulation does not mention the publication of this additional information.
In practice, and despite the absence of a clear legal provision to this effect, the APPF has long published the country in which donors and contributors are based, and, as of the financial year 2023, it started publishing the national registration number of legal persons making donations. Despite this welcome progress, the amount of information published by the APPF remains limited. In particular, the date on which donations are made is a useful indicator to correlate private donations, in particular large donations from private companies and lobbies, with the discussion of legislative documents. Additionally, without this information, the expedited reporting carried out ahead of European elections is later merged with regular donations, and observers lose the ability to tell whether donations were made before or after the elections.13
We therefore propose to amend Art. 25 to request that, in addition to currently reported information, European parties and foundations report the list of single donations they have received, the date on which the donations were received, and the result of due diligence verifications, including legal persons' beneficial owners. Similarly, we propose to amend Art. 39.1 to request that the APPF publish the list of single donations accepted by European parties and foundations and, for each, the date on which the donation was received, the type of donation (financial, in kind, etc.), and the identity of the donor.
Regulation 2025/2445 requires that the APPF "erase all personal data collected [to ensure the legality, regularity and transparency of the funding] at the latest 24 months after the publication of the relevant parts in accordance with Article 39" (Art. 40.3). As a result, after 24 months, lists of donations and contributions published by the APPF are redacted and the names of all individual donors are erased.
More worryingly, the provision contained in Art. 40.3 states that this data must be erased "at the latest" 24 months after publication, but does not even provide a minimum amount of time during which the information must be retained online. As a result, we note that the names of individual donors for the financial year 2023, which were only published around December 2024, were already redacted by early 2026, or barely a year later.
While the privacy of political donors can be taken into account, this deletion of information on political donations runs directly against the principle of funding transparency and the recommendations of the Venice Commission, which states in its Guidelines on Political Party Regulation 2nd Edition, that "it is good practice for such financial reports to be made available on publicly available resources in a coherent, comprehensive and timely manner over an extended period of time" (emphasis added). There also seems to be no record, in member states, of similar provisions mandating the deletion of funding data.
While it may be warranted to request the APPF and European Parliament to redact some records and delete personal data, we propose to exclude information on donors from the scope of Art. 40.3 in order to ensure the transparency of political funding. Should the legislator insist on a redaction, a much longer duration should apply, with a hard minimum duration.
Regulatory burden
As indicated, Parliament only formulates one substantial proposal with regard to regulatory burden; it also "emphasises [...] the importance of effective and proportionate corrective measures", but stops short of formulating a reform proposal.
In the recast Regulation, corrective measures were restricted from applying to "any of the sanctions referred to in Article 27"14 (Art. 29 of Regulation 1141/2014) to applying only to "any of the sanctions referred to in Article 32(1), points (a)(i) to (vi)" (Art. 35). Most notably, this removes the possibility of corrective measures for "quantifiable infringements", where a European party or foundation "has accepted donations and contributions that are not permitted" or case of non-compliance with the provisions on the financing of campaigns for European elections (Art. 26) and on prohibition of funding (Art. 27). Subject to the right to be heard, such infringements are now sanctioned, without possibility to avoid this by remedying the situation (Article 35(1)).
Meanwhile, the APPF has sought to accompany reporting entities in this new framework via its "Regulatory Compliance Action Plan" (R-CAP). R-CAP allows European parties and foundations to request from the Authority a preventive check of important planned situations relevant to the Regulation. This includes draft statutes provisions, revenue items expected to be generated, planned new type of joint activities, draft contribution rules, draft donation policy, etc. While the APPF retains its ability to later control the implementation of such scenarios, R-CAP provides parties and foundations with advance legal guidance with regard to factors relevant to the APPF's later checks. While R-CAP was praised as a useful tool for compliance, European parties and foundations have nevertheless called to revert to the initial scope of corrective measures. A dedicated review of corrective measures and their use would be useful to determine cases where they might have been abuses, and to inform on the relevant scope of their application.
EP proposal #6. Establish a single online reporting and disclosure system
Parliament's proposal to "[establish] a single online reporting and disclosure system for EU funding, donations and contributions", if well implemented, is one the most efficient ways to improve transparency for citizens, facilitate checks by European institutions and auditors, and actively reduce the administrative and compliance burden for reporting entities.
Manual input leads to extended delays, administrative burden, duplication of work, and a higher risk of human error.
Historically, European parties and foundations have submitted the documents required of them, including lists of donations and contributions and other financial information, by email. More recently, Parliament's IT services have provided a more secure file upload system, although communications continue over email. This requires staff from the APPF and the European Parliament to manually input this information into their data systems for processing, and does not contribute to the publication of this data, which must be handled separately. The result is extended delays, administrative burden, duplication of work, and a higher risk of human error.
Conversely, an online reporting and disclosure system allows relevant stakeholders to submit data at any point, directly into the data system, and removes the need for APPF or EP staff to re-enter this information. Reviews can be partially automated and streamlined, and imported data can directly feed into a public disclosure portal, ensuring that information is provided to citizens in a timely manner.
Additionally, several European parties have reported redundant requests for information from the APPF and the DG FINS' Financing of Political Parties and Foundations Unit, as well as a perceived lack of coordination between the two. A reporting and disclosure system accessible by both entities (in case their respective roles are not merged and granted to a single entity) would avoid such duplication and help ensure data integrity and accuracy.
Designed in conjunction with all interested parties, an online reporting and disclosure system can therefore dramatically simplify data reporting, review, and disclosure. It simplifies administrative processes and increases transparency, and would also simplify the implementation of numerous other transparency-focused regulatory improvements.
We propose to amend Art. 39 to entrust the APPF with the development of an online reporting and disclosure system for all data and information to be submitted by European political parties and foundations. This exceptional task should be matched with additional human and financial resources allocated to the APPF for the development of this tool.
→ a online reporting and disclosure mechanism is a substantial endeavour and requires ample study and analysis; given our own development of the European Party Funding Observatory, as well as consultations we have already undertaken with the majority of European parties and foundations on this topic, we can provide detailed guidance for the development and implementation of this essential tool.
Legal uncertainty
EP proposal #7. Clarify that participation fees can be charged to member organisations
The scope of this proposal is very limited, and does not bring anything new or meaningful to the Regulation. At any rate, clarifications on this point, or of other elements mentioned in its report by Parliament (such as financing from the own resources of European parties or the possibility of membership from entities other than national political foundations)15 are welcome in a review of the Regulation.
Going further
Beyond Parliament's core issues of funding, regulatory burden, and legal certainty, numerous other proposals, numerous additional proposals can be considered to strengthen the European public sphere and enhance the EU's democratic legitimacy, which are the goals stated by Parliament.
In line with Parliament's report, the proposals below affect European political foundations, but also European parties; however, additional proposals relating exclusively to European parties (such as the reform of registration criteria) were not included, although they remain extremely relevant for the EU's democratic legitimacy. For each proposal, we have more detailed research and data analysis that can be provided.
Timely publication of data and information
European political parties and foundations are required to report donations made within six months of elections to the European Parliament to the APPF on a weekly basis; likewise, they are required to immediately report accepted single donations above €12,000 to the APPF. While the APPF has worked to publish these donations on an expedited basis (usually a few working days), the Regulation itself does not impose a deadline on the APPF for the publication of this information.
We propose to amend Art. 39.1 to request that the APPF publish these donations within a few days of their notification to the APPF. The APPF's workload can be eased in this regard with the use of an online reporting and disclosure system – both for European parties and foundation to report to the APPF via an online platform, and for the APPF to easily publish this information on its website.
Transparency provisions in Regulation 2025/2445 require the APPF and the European Parliament to publish information regarding European political parties and foundations, including their public funding, the donations and contributions they receive, or their list of member parties or organisations. However, no deadlines exist for the publication of this information.
For the financial year 2024, for instance, information on donations and contributions was provided by European parties and foundations by the end of June 2025 at the latest. Yet, it was not until late March 2026, another nine months later, that a consolidated list of donations and contributions was published by the APPF. This means that donations made early in a financial year were not available to the public for over two full years.
We propose to amend Art.39 to include specific and reasonable deadlines for all documents to be published by the APPF or the European Parliament. A disclaimer may be added, where relevant, to indicate that information is under review, as the APPF already does for its expedited publication of donations ahead of elections to the European Parliament or single donations above €12,000.
European parties and foundations are required to submit their financial documents within six months of the end of the financial year, or by 30 June of year N+1. However, these documents are not made available to the general public by the European Parliament until much later. For instance, as of August 2026, the most recent audit documents and financial statements cover the financial 2024 and were uploaded in June 2026, or 18 months following the end of the financial year.
We propose to amend Art. 39 to request that audit documents and financial statements be published upon their reception by the APPF. As is already common practice, these documents can be labelled as "subject to further scrutiny".
Following the end of the financial year , European parties and foundations have six months to provide their annual financial statements, an external audit report on the annual financial statements, and the list of donors and contributors and their corresponding donations or contributions. However, while establishing and auditing financial statements takes more time, donations and contributions are usually recorded on a rolling basis as they are received. Therefore, bundling the list of donations and contributions with financial statements and audits only adds an unnecessary delay to the release of data on donations and contributions. In addition, national parties are often requested to provide their financial documents within two to four months following the end of the financial year.
We propose to amend Art. 28.1 to create separate deadlines for the provision of financial documents, and to shorten those separate deadlines for the provision of data on donations and contributions (first) and annual financial statements and an external audit reports (later).
European political parties are required to provide an updated list of member parties each year; changes after which a European party would no longer meet its registration requirements must be reported within four weeks. Additionally, European parties and foundations must provide any amendments to the documents or statutes submitted as part of the application for registration; but Regulation 2025/2445 does not provide a deadline for this submission.
We propose to amend Art. 11 to request that changes in European parties' party membership (including candidates or observers becoming full members), as well as changes to documents or statutes submitted for registration, be notified to the APPF within a fixed time frame.
Publication modalities
Regulation 2025/2445 requires the publication of "an updated list of members of the European Parliament who are members of a European political party" and of the list of member parties of European political parties.
However, when the APPF publishes a list of member MEPs (usually once a year), it removes previous data, leaving only membership information for two consecutive years; in a reply to EDCS, the APPF argued that the Regulation "does not impose an obligation to retain or republish superseded versions once a more recent list becomes available". In addition, the APPF also publishes separate lists of MEPs per party, despite Art. 39.1.m requesting the publication of "an updated list", in the singular. This makes it difficult to track the evolution of European parties' MEP membership. With regard to lists of member parties, the APPF has begun leaving more files online, but going back two-three years at most.
We propose to amend Art. 39.1.m to request that the APPF publish a consolidated table of all MEPs past and present, together with their membership of a European political party (or lack thereof), including membership dates, past membership (where applicable), and political group affiliation. All this information is a matter of public record and is not subject to data protection regulations. The same should be made available, mutatis mutandis, for member parties and foundations' member organisations.
Following European parties' and foundations' application for public funding, the European Parliament decides how much of taxpayers' money these entities are entitled to. These entitlements depend on the overall amount of European funding allocated for party funding in the EP's budget, on European parties' number of member MEPs, on their planned reimbursable expenses, and on the amounts they actually applied for (Art. 22.4 and 24.1).
However, these entitlement amounts are only published without details by the European Parliament in a PDF document on a page of its sub-website dedicated to "contracts and grants" several months later. The underlying calculations can only be found as an annex of the note of Secretary-General of the European Parliament presented to the Bureau, and which citizens must request via the EP's access to documents procedure. The European Parliament has systematically delayed the publication of these documents.16
We propose to amend Art. 39.1 to request that the APPF publish European parties' and foundations' entitlements to European public funding on its website, including their detailed calculations, following their adoption by the Bureau of the European Parliament.
Following European parties' and foundations' submission of their financial statements, external audit, and lists of donations and contributions, the APPF and Parliament review these documents, in particular whether expenses qualify for reimbursability. An entity's precise reimbursable amount in turn determines its final amount of public funding. Following this review, the Secretary-General of the European Parliament shares a note with the Bureau for the adoption of those amounts.
However, these final amounts are only published later without any calculation details or analysis by the European Parliament in a PDF document on a page of its sub-website dedicated to "contracts and grants". The detailed expenses incurred by European parties and foundations, up to 95% of which are publicly funded, are not made public.
We propose to amend Art. 39.1 to request that the APPF publish European parties' and foundations' final reports of public funding on its website, including their detailed calculations, following their adoption by the Bureau. We also propose the publication of a detailed list of expenses made by European parties and foundations in machine-readable format, alongside financial statements, external audits, and donations and contributions, at the time of their transmission to European institutions.
Regulation 2025/2445 stipulates that "the European Parliament, or the Authority, in accordance with the distribution of their responsibilities under this Regulation, shall make public in an open, machine readable format on a website created for that purpose". This phrasing, updated since Regulation 1141/2014 places Parliament and the APPF on more equal ground, and more clearly attributes responsibility for publication in line with these institutions' respective remits under the Regulation. However, it maintains the requirement that the information, published by either institution, shall be published "on a website created for that purpose" and, in doing so, confirms the use of the singular for "website".
In practice, the European Parliament and the APPF have consistently published information separately: the APPF on its own website, which is dedicated to its party- and foundation-related work, and Parliament on a few pages of its sub-website dedicated to "Contracts and grants". This continued practice has nullified the legislator's intent to see all information under Article 39.1 made available to citizens on a single website.
We propose to amend Art.39.1 to clearly designate the website of the APPF as the website referred to in this article, so as to ensure that all information mandated by law to be made available may finally be found on a single website, as per the legislator's intent. The APPF should be explicitly entrusted with the publication of this data, part of which should be procured from the European Parliament in line with these institutions' obligation to cooperate (Art. 34.1-2).
In line with its argument that it should not publish documents that are not "part of its remit", the APPF has not only declined to publish relevant financial information for the years in which it was active, but it has also refrained from publishing past information, arguing that it "would be in no position to ensure that the information contained in those documents is correct and up to date", despite an explicit obligation of cooperation between the APPF and Parliament. This includes audit reports provided by European political parties, which are not susceptible to later updates, and information on donations and contributions prior to 2018. The absence of this information prevents an observation of the evolution of European party funding.
We propose to amend Art. 39 to request that the APPF publish all available official information on the funding of European political parties and foundations since the entry into force of Regulations 2004/2003, in particular information on the public funding of European parties and foundations, their donations and contributions, and their spending.
The APPF and European Parliament publish the requested information and data, mostly in PDF files and sometimes in Excel spreadsheets. However, they never accompany this data with interactive tools, such as charts, searchable tables, or infographics, which would enhance visibility. Since the publication of information mandated in Art. 39 aims not merely at publishing data but explicitly at achieving transparency, this goal could be more fully reached by the use of charts showing data per year, per party or per member state, and the evolution of data over time.
We propose to amend Art. 39 to request that the APPF and the European Parliament accompany their data publication with relevant charts, tables, maps, and infographics necessary to achieve proper transparency of financial and other data.
Institutional and other improvements
Beyond the information that must already be made public under Regulation 2025/2445, European citizens' knowledge of their common parties should be actively promoted, albeit in a non-partisan manner. Given the historical weight and greater institutional role of national parties, this mission is particularly important in order for European political parties to fulfil their treaty-mandate role.17
The APPF should therefore publish contextual and historical information, including using infographics and visualisations, ranging from the history and role of European parties and foundations, to the results of European elections from the perspective of European parties. This could also include pre-election awareness-raising efforts to bolster European citizens' awareness of and interest in their common parties.
We propose to amend Art. 8 to give the APPF an explicit mandate to inform citizens about their common parties and foundations. This should be matched with the necessary increase in financial and human resources for the APPF, and might require extracting the budget of the APPF from that the European Parliament, in order to avoid a competition for resources between the two institutions.18
Currently, the budget line for the financing of European political parties and foundations lies, in the general budget of the European Union, with other sources of expenditure of the European Parliament. However, if European parties and foundations are to be credible actors of the European political system, and therefore autonomous from Parliament, their organisation and funding must be separate from the European Parliament. Therefore, while Parliament should have a say on this budget line — as it does for other parts of the EU budget — the appropriation of funds for European parties and foundations should not be a part of the European Parliament's budget. This is important to avoid the temptation by other actors to appropriate these funds or to prevent their evolution.
The same line of reasoning applies to the APPF, which sees its appropriations and staff-related funding included in the EP's budget. As a result, while appropriations requested by the APPF have generally been provided, Parliament has repeatedly denied increases in human resources that the APPF has called for, given the objective increase in the number of entities it monitors and the widening of its remit. For instance, in 2026, Parliament appropriated €1.05M for APPF staff, while the APPF has requested €3.57M. Appropriations only amount to €0.42M and are not meant to cover staff expenses.
We therefore propose to place the budget of the APPF under a separate section of the general budget of the European Union, akin to the European Ombudsman or the European Data Protection Supervisor, and to place the budget line for the public funding of European parties and foundations under its remit.19
An essential aspect of increasing transparency is to monitor progress made regarding citizens' "awareness and recall" of European parties and of their funding. Only with reliable and periodic data can we properly understand the impact of the measures taken, and decide on further measures as may be necessary. As part of its proposed mandate of public information, the APPF should reach out to European citizens to assess their knowledge and recall of European parties and of their funding. This can be done directly, should the APPF be provided with the necessary resources, or indirectly via the Eurobarometer surveys and by contracting sampling services.
We propose to amend Art. 8 to mandate the APPF to periodically procure and publish data on European citizens' knowledge and recall of European political parties.
Conclusion
Adopted in the wake of a major review of the legal framework on European political parties and foundations, Parliament's implementation report cannot capture the full impact of new provisions of Regulation 2025/2445. In this context, Parliament's choice to focus on European foundations, which were mostly unaddressed in the Commission's 2021 recast proposal, is sensible.
However, not only is the reform of legal provisions affecting foundations likely to also impact European parties, but the Commission's recast proposal had left aside a number of other items brought forward by Parliament in its 2021 implementation report. As a result, the development of a truly European public sphere and the strengthening of democratic legitimacy, which Parliament advocates for in its report, require a broader approach to this topic than the proposals made herein.
While a step-by-step approach dividing reform in sequential chapters may be helpful in avoiding prolonged disagreements between institutions, contrasting foundations with parties may not be the most relevant path. Instead, a first reform package could focus on "transparency, visibility, and clarifications", followed by a reform of private and public funding, and a third package dedicated to registration modalities and the relationship between European parties and their members. This staggered approach would allow tackling lower-hanging fruits, with more technical changes handled first, and give additional time and reflection for more political and broader topics.
Reforming the legal framework on European political parties and foundations is a necessity to allow European parties to meet their treaty-mandated role and meaningfully contribute to the EU's democratic architecture. The European Democracy Consulting Stiftung has carried out ample research in this field and developed unique tools, and its staff stands ready to further contribute to EU institutions' reflections and decision-making.
1 Some of these reform may also require amending the EU's Electoral Act. Up
2 Unfortunately, due to the current modalities for the publication of information, as well as the calculation of public funding, 2024 is the most recent year for which data is available. Up
3 With the exception of the financial year 2024, for which public funding for European parties increased to €50 million. Up
4 The number of qualifying European parties increased from 10 to 12 by the calendar year 2025, and in the same manner for European foundations the following year. Up
5 For simplification, we use the total amount of public funding divided by the number of European parties or foundations. Of course, in practice, not all parties are affected in the same way when the number of parties changes. For instance, the launch of ELA and ESN drew MEPs from some parties more than from others. However, all parties and all foundations, respectively, are equally impacted by the change in the lump sum amount. Up
6 "The Authority, the Authorising Officer of the European Parliament and the Member States via the National Contact Points shall share information and keep each other regularly informed of matters related to funding provisions, controls and sanctions." Up
7-17 "Political parties at European level contribute to forming European political awareness and to expressing the will of citizens of the Union." (Art. 10.4, TEU) Up 7 Up 17
8 See the current long-form definitions in Art. 2.9 and 2.10. Up
9 Wolfs, Wouter and European Democracy Consulting Stiftung. European Party Funding Observatory Dataset, 2024. Up
10 The Commission's 2012 proposal only proposed to raise this threshold to €1,000 and the Parliament did not dispute this figure in its report. The increase to €3,000 only appears following agreement with the Council. Up
11 European Democracy Consulting Stiftung, European Party Funding Observatory dataset, retrieved 17 February 2026, https://epfo.eu/dataset. Up
12 While Regulation 2025/2445 refers to "single donations the value of which exceeds EUR 12 000", the APPF has in the past also reported donations of precisely €12,000. Up
13 For instance, the list of donations published by the APPF for 2024 does not make a distinction between donations recorded as part of the pre-electoral expedited reporting and donations made later in the year. For a record of donations made in the six months prior to the 2024 European elections, see European Democracy Consulting's Donations tracker. Up
14 This provisions does not apply to "the conditions set out in points (b) to (d) of Article 3(1) and in point (c) of Article 3(2)", meaning the representation requirement, the impossibility for a national party to be a member of more than one European party, the obligation to respect EU values, the obligation to participate or plan to participate in European elections. Up
15 Indeed, Regulation 2025/2445 does not define "member organisations", merely indicating where they may have their seat: in the Union for "member organisations from the Union" and in specific other countries for "associated member organisations". Both groups are collectively referred to as "member organisations" (Art. 2.5). Up
16 In response to requests for public access to documents placed by the European Democracy Consulting Stiftung, the European Parliament has argued that the note could not be publicised until European parties and foundations had been notified and given the opportunity to submit observations and to appeal the conclusions of the Bureau. However, it has never indicated why the publication of these documents would constitute an impediment to such steps by European parties or foundations. Up
18 This would be in line with other entities such as the European Ombudsman and the European Data Protection Supervisor and Board. Up
19 In its Special Report 13/2000 on the expenditure of the European Parliament's political groups, the European Court of Auditors mentions "the inclusion in the budget of a heading specifically for contributions to European political parties", though it is not clear whether "the budget" refers to the general budget of the European Union or that of Parliament. Up