Parti écologiste "Les Verts" v European Parliament

Facts

The Green Party challenged political party funding from the Parliament. They claimed the system was unfair in distribution against newer parties. They sought a declaration that the European Community was not entitled to give funding for political parties.

Judgment

The

23. It must first be emphasized in this regard that the European Economic Community is a Community based on the

legal remedies

and procedures designed to permit the Court of Justice to review the legality of measures adopted by the institutions. Natural and legal persons are thus protected against the application to them of general measures which they cannot contest directly before the Court by reason of the special conditions of admissibility laid down in the second paragraph of Article 173 of the Treaty. (...)

With the ruling, was declared unlawful the system by which the European political parties were financed with economic resources directly from the budgets of the individual parliamentary groups, which were funded through resources from the general budget of the European Communities. This system gave undue advantages to political entities belonging to an elective institution: for the Court, public resources should be allocated without distinction between parties present in Parliament and those willing to enter it for the first time.

See also