Fighting Europarties' Democratic Backsliding: Arguments for a Multilevel Approach

According to art. 3, para. 1, point c) of Regulation (EU, Euratom) no. 1141/2014 on the statute and funding of European political parties and European political foundations, «[a political alliance that wishes to apply to register as a European political party] must observe, in particular in its programme and in its activities, the values on which the Union is founded, as expressed in art. 2 TEU (…)». For this reason, the same Regulation provides for an ad hoc verification procedure (art. 10, para. 3 and 4) that may end with the deregistration of a transnational political alliance which is deemed to violate EU's founding values. This article aims at understanding whether European political parties showing complicity with their "illiberal" member parties (such as EPP and ECR with regard to, respectively, Fidesz and PiS) can be targeted by means of the horizontal rule of law oversight mechanism. Although - at least at first reading - legislation currently in force seems to take a "unit" approach that leaves no room for assessment of national (member) parties' behaviour, at a closer look, the formulation of art. 3, para. 1, point c) of the 2014 Regulation does not seem to completely prevent a "multilevel" approach: in fact, by stating that Europarties must respect EU's founding values «in particular» in their programmes and activities, the provision allows the Authority for European political parties and European political foundations to: 1) assess transnational alliances' actions/omissions aimed at condoning or conniving members' activities that favour the erosion of liberal democracy at the national level; 2) consider such attitudes as evidence of an EU values breach. However, the above clearly suggests that the scope of art. 3, para. 1, point c) should be more clearly set out, in order to determine the relevance of the national party dimension when it comes to verifying transnational alliances' observance of art. 2 TEU.