Case T-470/25: Action brought on 16 July 2025 – Patriotes.eu v Parliament
Date: 2025-07-16
Institutions: General Court
Subjects: budget, closing of accounts, election campaign, equal treatment, expenditure, party financing, political parties, rights of the defence








C_202505351EN.000101.fmx.xml












Official Journal of the European Union


EN
C series













C/2025/5351


13.10.2025






Action brought on 16 July 2025 – Patriotes.eu v Parliament


(Case T-470/25)

(C/2025/5351)
Language of the case: French

Parties


Applicant: Patriotes.eu (Paris, France) (represented by: P. Prigent, lawyer)

Defendant: European Parliament

Form of order sought

The applicant claims that the Court should:






—


annul the decision of the Bureau of the European Parliament set out in its minutes of the meeting of 10 March 2025, which was not notified to the applicant, which ‘took note of the information provided in the note dated 4 March 2025 from the Secretary-General entitled “Final reports of European political parties and European political foundations for the financial year 2023” (PE 766.112/BUR and annexes); took note of the analysis and conclusions made by the authorising officer by delegation with regard to the reclassification of certain expenditure as non-reimbursable or ineligible; approved the final reports and the financial statements of all 20 beneficiaries, taking into account the adjustments proposed; established for all 10 European political parties the final funding amounts for the financial year 2022 as indicated in Annex 1 to the note from the Secretary-General, and instructed the authorising officer by delegation to recover the relevant amounts under the terms specified in that note; established for all 10 European political parties the reimbursable costs and the first part of the final funding amount of the financial year 2023 and the amount of unspent funding awarded for the financial year 2023 that is to be carried over to the financial year 2024, as indicated in Annex 1 to the note from the Secretary-General, and instructed the authorising officer by delegation to recover the relevant amounts under the terms specified in that note’;










—


order the European Parliament to pay EUR 9 600 to Patriotes.eu in respect of lawyers’ fees incurred in order to assert its rights.





Pleas in law and main arguments

In support of the action, the applicant relies on 10 pleas in law.






1.


First plea in law, alleging infringement of Article 8 of the decision of 1 July 2019 laying down the procedures for implementing Regulation (EU, Euratom) No 1141/2014, (1) which requires the adoption of a decision on the budget of a European political party at the latest by 30 September of the following year, failure to comply with such a formality resulting in the invalidity of the act adversely affecting an individual. The decision on the applicant’s 2023 budget was adopted on 10 March 2025 and that delay was not justified by the processing of a request for information from the applicant.










2.


Second plea in law, alleging breach of the requirement to state the grounds of decisions adversely affecting an individual in so far as the contested decision did not do so.










3.


Third plea in law, alleging failure to observe the principles of equal treatment and non-discrimination, in so far as the Bureau of the Parliament found that the costs of similar campaigns from other parties were reimbursable.










4.


Fourth plea in law, alleging breach of the rights of the defence, in so far as the contested decision was delivered after the Secretariat-General of the Parliament censored part of the applicant’s arguments in the file submitted to the Bureau of the Parliament.










5.


Fifth plea in law, alleging failure to observe the principle of impartiality, in so far as the Bureau of the Parliament accepted to adjudicate despite the manifest truncation of the applicant’s observations by the Secretary-General in the version of the correspondence between them that was submitted to it.










6.


Sixth plea in law, alleging failure to observe the principle of impartiality, in so far as the contested decision originates from a body exclusively composed of declared opponents of the applicant, who was not represented in that body, unlike all the other parties of the Parliament.










7.


Seventh plea in law, alleging failure to observe the principle of impartiality, in that the contested decision of the Bureau of the Parliament classified other similar campaigns of other political parties as reimbursable.










8.


Eighth plea in law, alleging failure to observe the principle of impartiality having regard to all of the circumstances mentioned above.










9.


Ninth plea in law, alleging an error of classification in so far as the notice at issue did not actually seek to promote a national political leader or a national party.










10.


Tenth plea in law, alleging a manifest error of assessment and a distortion of the facts, on the ground that the notice at issue did not actually seek to promote a national political leader or a national party.






(1)  Regulation (EU, Euratom) No 1141/2014 of the European Parliament and of the Council on the statute and funding of European political parties and European political foundations (OJ 2014 L 317, p. 1).


ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/C/2025/5351/oj
ISSN 1977-091X (electronic edition)