It is important to distinguish a couple of points. First, nothing in these Commission documents is a legally binding proposal. I repeat: these have the status of recommendations, nothing more. The recommendation we are now debating is addressed to European political parties and national political parties, and it deals with how the Commission thinks they might better arrange their affairs. It is entirely up to both the European and the national political parties to decide whether they pay any attention to the Commission’s recommendations or not.
Secondly, there are provisions in the treaty on the functioning of the European Union to govern the conduct of European parliamentary elections. Those are embodied in a statute based on the relevant articles of the TFEU. For that statute to be amended, or for other changes to be brought forward, unanimity would be required under article 223, as I said earlier. The question of party political spending, including by candidates within the United Kingdom, is governed by the relevant United Kingdom statutes, including, most obviously, the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000. At the moment, there is a clear legal distinction between certain measures that are set at European level and require the
unanimous agreement of every member state, and the rules on party fundraising, party financing and election expenditure, which remain a matter for member states and are not touched in any way, even by these Commission recommendations.
I wish to conclude on the following point. I said at the start of my remarks that the Government believed there is a genuine problem of lack of democratic legitimacy within the European Union, but that these proposals suggested by the Commission do not provide the answer to that crisis. The Government’s preference would be to see a greater role for national Parliaments in holding European decisions to account. Although I will not expatiate on the detail, the ideas that my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary and I have proposed in recent weeks on the greater use of the yellow card mechanism or creating a red card mechanism, giving national Parliaments the right to block legislation that need not be agreed at European level, are intended as a contribution to a vigorous debate, which we have now launched, within Europe, not just within the UK. The absence of democratic legitimacy and adequate democratic accountability within the EU is a major political question that needs serious debate and consideration right across the European Union, but it is not answered by the proposals before us this evening.
4.24 pm