BRUSSELS ― The far-right Patriots for Europe is taking legal action after the European Parliament suspended access to millions of euros in public funds over alleged misspending.
In two separate cases, the Patriots party is contesting rulings by the Parliament and the EU’s party watchdog that resulted in it losing access to more than €4 million in funds, arguing the decisions were illegitimate and the product of bias and lack of impartiality.
The far-right political family, home to France’s Marine Le Pen and Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, has consistently complained of being sidelined from EU policymaking and key positions of power since the 2024 European elections, where it surged to become the third-largest group in Parliament.
Mainstream politicians have kept the Patriots at arm’s length under the so-called cordon sanitaire — an informal pact to avoid cooperation with factions on the far right and far left. Now, the Patriots are also accusing EU officials of sabotaging their access to public cash earmarked for political parties.
“There is a problem with certain agents of the administration of the Parliament,” said Belgian MEP Gerolf Annemans, honorary president of the Patriots party.
The Patriots scored its first win on Wednesday when the European Court of Justice annulled a sanction by the party watchdog, the APPF, which had required the party to pay a €47,000 fine.
The sanction came after the party wrongly referred to one of its lawmakers as being part of its board in a social media post, which the APPF took as a sign the party had lied in its entry to the authority’s register — a serious offense that could lead to all public funding for the party being withheld.
The APPF ruling enabled the European Parliament to cut the Patriots party off from accessing €4 million of EU funding in 2023, documents obtained by POLITICO show. That meant a substantial cut to the party’s available budget for the 2024 elections — where other European political parties carried their 2023 funds over for the following year.
Wednesday’s court ruling will allow the Patriots to try to claim part of these funds back — and will likely bolster the party’s claims of bias from the Parliament’s administration.
Equal treatment
In a separate lawsuit filed mid-July, the Patriots accused the Parliament of bias and lack of impartiality after it ruled the party had misspent funds in a campaign in Czechia.
The Parliament’s Bureau, composed of MEPs and tasked with taking decisions on administrative issues, ruled the Patriots should pay for that campaign with their own money and give back the EU funds spent on it, which came to €228,000.
The decision violated “the principles of equal treatment and non-discrimination, as it deemed similar campaigns by other parties to be reimbursable,” the Patriot’s case document, seen by POLITICO, read.
They also argue that the decision was not impartial, as the Bureau is composed mostly of center-right, liberal and left-wing lawmakers, with no far-right MEPs from the Patriots present to defend the case.
On top of that, they contend the Parliament violated their rights to defense as it censored big chunks of the letter the Patriots had sent to the bureau to defend themselves.
In the first version of the letter, the Patriots compared their campaign with that of another EU party. In the letter that the administration circulated in the bureau, the justification was redacted.
‘Very good lawyers’
The Parliament refused to comment on the ongoing judicial proceedings. The APPF “remains committed to protecting integrity of European democracy” in accordance with its obligations under EU law, it said after the ruling.
These two lawsuits follow threats of a separate challenge from the Patriots group — a distinct legal entity from the Patriots party, which represents the far-right camp in Parliament.
At the beginning of September, the Parliament’s budgetary control committee recommended the administration seek the reimbursement of €4.3 million from the group in reparations for alleged misspending by the now-defunct far-right Identity and Democracy. The ID group dissolved in the summer of 2024, with many of its members and staff joining the new Patriots.
“We will fight it in court if necessary,” said a Patriots group official, granted anonymity to speak about sensitive matters. “We have very good lawyers, and we are sure we are right.”
The post Europe’s far right launches legal battle against EU over withheld funding appeared first on Politico.
