OUR REF A(2019)3591

Dear Mrs Cann,

The European Parliament hereby acknowledges receipt of your application
for access to documents, registered  under reference A(2019)3591.

Your application will be handled within 15 working days upon registration.

Your attention is drawn to the fact that you have lodged your application
via the AsktheEU.org website, which is a private website not officially
related to the European Parliament. Therefore, the European Parliament
cannot be held accountable for any technical issues or problems linked to
the use of this system.

TRANSPARENCY UNIT

European Parliament

Directorate-General for the Presidency

Interinstitutional Affairs and Legislative Coordination

[European Parliament request email]

OUT REF: A(2019)3591

Dear Ms Cann,

In reply to your request, we inform your that in accordance with the rules
governing the funding of European political parties and foundations, for
each financial year, the parties and foundations that were granted funding
submit a final report for their financial situations to be assessed and
the final amount of the grant to be determined on the basis of the
eligibility for funding of the expenses incurred.

A recovery procedure can have different grounds. For example, when the
pre-financing amount exceeds the final funding amount, for various
reasons, the Parliament recovers the difference. Parties must also
reimburse any remaining part of the contribution awarded and paid to them
for year N that is not spent until the end of the year N+1. Other
situations of recovery: percentage of the profit, interest on
pre-financing (only parties), late-payment interest, offsetting against
any sums owed to the party/foundation.

The decisions concerning the recovery of funds received by political
parties/foundations are taken by the Bureau and recorded in its minutes,
publically available under the following link: 
[1]http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegistreWe...

You can identify and retrieve relevant decisions using different key words
as "recovery of funds", "recover", "political parties" "political groups"
or acronyms of the specific parties/foundations. For instance, the
following contain discussions/decisions in preparation of the final
amounts, either for specific parties (when there is a need for specific
analysis) or for all of them:

- minutes 07.20.2015

[2]http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/or...
(see point 9)

- minutes of 23.11.2015:

[3]http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/or...
 (see point 4)

- minutes of 12.09.2016:

[4]http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/or...
 (see point 8)

- minutes of 21.11.2016:

[5]http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/or...
  (see point 6)

- minutes of 12.12.2016:

[6]http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/or...
  (see point 4-6)

- minutes of 03.07.2017:

[7]http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/or...
 (see point 10)

- minutes of 11.09.2017:

[8]http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/or...
 (see point 7)

- minutes of 02.10.2017:

[9]http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/or...
 (see point 9)

- minutes of 13.11.2017:

[10]http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/or...
(see point 12)

- minutes of 10.09.2018:

[11]http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/or...
(see points 11-13)

- minutes of 10.12.2018:

[12]http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/or...
(see points 16-17)

As regards the Political Groups :  
[13]http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/or...

-----------

There exist no list of all sums paid back by political parties or groups.
 In this respect we would like to stress that the public's right of access
to documents of the EU Institutions as established by Regulation (EC) No
1049/2001, only covers existing documents and not information on the wider
meaning of the word.

However on Parliament's web site you can find documents containing
information on the initial and final amounts established in the financing
for each financial year:

tables with initial and final amounts

[14]http://www.europarl.europa.eu/pdf/grants...

[15]http://www.europarl.europa.eu/pdf/grants...

The difference between the initial and final amounts can be interpreted
according what is explained above and can be correlated with the
information from the minutes of the Bureau and from the financial
documents of the parties/foundations, which you can find using the
following links:

financial documents for each party/foundation (under “Audit reports”):

[16]http://www.europarl.europa.eu/eng-pub/co...

financial documents for the political groups: 
 [17]http://www.europarl.europa.eu/groups/acc...

On the basis of the provided documents, should you identify other more
specific documents to which you would like to have access to, please do
not hesitate to submit a new request.  Parliament considers this file
closed.

Best regards,

[18]cid:image001.png@01D4D2A2.737920C0 TRANSPARENCY UNIT
European Parliament
Directorate-General for the Presidency
Interinstitutional Affairs and
Legislative Coordination
[19]www.europarl.europa.eu/RegistreWeb

[20][European Parliament request email]

References

Visible links
1. http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegistreWe...
2. http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/or...
3. http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/or...
4. http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/or...
5. http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/or...
6. http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/or...
7. http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/or...
8. http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/or...
9. http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/or...
10. http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/or...
11. http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/or...
12. http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/or...
13. http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/or...
14. http://www.europarl.europa.eu/pdf/grants...
15. http://www.europarl.europa.eu/pdf/grants...
16. http://www.europarl.europa.eu/eng-pub/co...
17. http://www.europarl.europa.eu/groups/acc...
19. http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegistreWeb
20. mailto:[European Parliament request email]