Regulation on the Statute and Funding of European Political Parties and European Political Foundations and the Future of the Freedom of Political Association in the European Union
Abstract
The article analyses the new EU regulation of European Political Parties and its genesis. The initial proposal of a very stringent regime with questionable safeguards of legal protection has only been approximated to the European standards of freedom of political assembly in the course of the legislative procedure.
Although the European Political Parties are not fully comparable to national political parties in their nature, their potential importance in the process of European integration cannot be underestimated. Therefore their legal regulation cannot be exempt from requirements that have to be met by the regulation of political parties in the Council of Europe member states.
The genesis of the new EU regulation also begs a question on the importance of political accountability and public control for the protection of political freedom.