06/10/2026
From European Question Time by Alberto Alemanno
Lecornu’s accusations against La France Insoumise have put a little-used EU mechanism back in play. Regardless of their merits, its invocation shows that the EU’s values regime is acquiring a new role
The office of French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu has accused La France Insoumise (LFI) of organising school protests in France, some of which turned violent. LFI is the French member of the European Left Alliance (ELA), whose members include Podemos, Italy’s Left, Enhedslisten and Bloco de Esquerda.
On that basis, ECR Vice Chair Charlie Weimers has begun collecting signatures for a motion to be voted on in Parliament’s plenary on 19 October. It would ask the Authority for European Political Parties and European Political Foundations (APPF), the EU body that registers and monitors European political parties, to check whether the European Left Alliance (ELA) respects the values in Article 2 TEU – from human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality to the rule of law and human rights – in its programme and activities.
This is because of LFI’s membership of the ELA. The Regulation on European political parties expressly requires a European party to ensure that its member parties respect those values too.
That does not mean, however, that the ELA has breached Article 2. The Regulation permits removal of a European party only in the event of a “manifest and serious breach” by the European party or one of its member parties (Arts. 13(7), 21(1)(b)). The allegation here concerns LFI’s conduct, not an established breach by the ELA.
The motion requires the signatures of 180 MEPs from at least three political groups by 16 October. In plenary, it would in practice require EPP support, which has not made any public statement yet on the matter.
What is at stake is also more limited than a national ban. Removal from the European register ends a party’s European legal personality and eligibility for EU funding. It does not dissolve the party in its member state.
The immediate question, therefore, is not whether the ELA should be sanctioned. It is whether the allegations can trigger the EU’s values-enforcement procedure, and what happens when a mechanism created to protect European democratic values becomes part of partisan political conflict.
What the mechanism is for
The Treaties recognise European political parties as contributing to European political awareness and expressing citizens’ will (Art. 10(4) TEU). Since the early 2000s, they have been able to register at European level, acquire European legal status and receive EU funding.
Compliance with Article 2 values is the condition attached to that status.
The values clause originated partly in the debate over public funding. The Commission’s 2001 proposal reasoned that public money should not finance parties preaching intolerance (Morijn 2019). The resulting system can be understood as a party-level counterpart to Article 7 TEU, which allows the EU to address serious threats to its values by Member States, while preserving freedom of association and political pluralism (Alemanno & Pech 2019). The mechanism does not give the EU a general power to ban political parties. Instead, it merely determines whether parties can enjoy European legal status and funding.
How it works
The procedure deliberately mixes administrative and political safeguards.
First, registration. A European party declares that it respects the values of Article 2. Since the 2025 recast, it must also ensure that its member parties respect them.
Second, a request. Parliament, the Council or the Commission can ask the APPF to verify compliance. The APPF cannot initiate proceedings itself. It can alert the institutions to facts raising doubts, but an institution must decide whether to request a formal check.
Third, assessment. The party has an opportunity to respond and remedy the alleged breach. A committee of six independent persons then gives a public opinion.
Fourth, decision. The APPF can remove the party only for a manifest and serious breach. This requires an actual breach, not a speculative risk.
Finally, political review. Parliament and the Council can object to the APPF’s decision before it takes effect.
This sequence is key to better grasp the present case. A parliamentary request would merely start a verification process, and not per se establish that the ELA has breached Article 2.
A mechanism long neglected
Despite its potentially significant consequences, the mechanism has been used rarely.
Under the earlier regime, no penalties were imposed between 2007 and 2011. Since the APPF began work, it has imposed two financial sanctions (of €47,020 on the ID Party in 2023 and €35,960 on FEPS in 2025), both for funding or information breaches. No European party has been removed for violating Article 2 values.
The citizens’ route has also been largely dormant, but it exists and could be used.
In 2018, Laurent Pech and I used it to ask Parliament and the APPF to review the EPP and ACRE over the conduct of their national members, Fidesz and PiS respectively. Parliament’s President declared the request inadmissible. Following a complaint to the Ombudsman, it was established that Parliament had failed to clarify how such reasoned requests could be submitted. Parliament subsequently put the procedure in place for future use.
The mechanism has now entered a different phase.
On 7 July 2026, Parliament voted 414 to 224, with 18 abstentions, to request an APPF verification of the Europe of Sovereign Nations (ESN) party’s compliance with EU values.
That vote matters not because it set a new precedent on the merits, but because it showed the instrument can be activated.
This is how dormant institutional powers can acquire significance. As I recently showed in the case of the European Citizens’ Initiative, an instrument can be ignored for years and then become consequential once political actors begin to use it.
An opportunity and a warning
On the evidence publicly available so far, the ECR’s proposed request does not itself establish the statutory threshold for removal. An allegation concerning the conduct of one member party is not automatically a “manifest and serious breach” by the European party. That is precisely what the APPF procedure is designed to determine.
But the attempt to invoke the mechanism has a significance beyond this particular case.
Rules acquire authority partly through their use. By invoking Article 13 against the ELA, the ECR implicitly accepts the legitimacy of the EU’s values-based party regime, including the principle, made explicit in the 2025 recast, that a European party has responsibilities to its member parties.
That is notable given the history of opposition to the values clause on parts of the right, as reconstructed by Morijn. The European party that preceded the ECR group, ACRE, was itself – as previously mentioned – the subject of a citizens’ request in 2018.
Whatever the motive, invoking the rule therefore also means accepting the rule’s authority.
The same development carries a risk.
A mechanism designed to protect the conditions attached to EU political status can itself become part of partisan political competition. The Regulation excludes requests during the two months preceding European elections (Art. 13(5)), but contains no equivalent restriction during national campaigns.
That gap is increasingly relevant as Europe approaches the 2027 electoral year. The French presidential and legislative political landscape is already being reshaped by the school protests, while national electoral contests elsewhere will bring European parties and their member parties under heightened political scrutiny.
The central question is therefore larger than the case against the ELA.
Can an EU mechanism created to defend European democratic values be used consistently enough to retain legitimacy when political actors discover that it can also be used as a weapon?
The real test is whether the EU can enforce its values without politicising them. If this mechanism is to defend European democracy rather than become another weapon in partisan conflict, its legal threshold, evidentiary standards and safeguards must apply equally to everyone, including those now invoking it.