Data

The dataset

The data used for the Observatory is obtained directly from the European Parliament via its procedure for public access to documents. The vast majority of the data obtained from the European Parliament were in PDF format and required transcription. This was done in working files, where a coding system allows a matching of income and expenditure by category and sub-category. Minor corrections of discrepancies were done where necessary.

In the case of donations and contributions, the data was obtained and processed by Dr. Wouter Wolfs of KU Leuven and should be cited accordingly. Data was processed to add information on donors and contributors, and recategorise donations and contributions as necessary.

Our dataset contains:

the original files received from the European Parliament (most of them PDF files);
the working files in which we transcribed the data of the European Parliament (in open, machine-readable format – ODS); and
the data files extracted from our working files and powering the Observatory (in open, machine-readable format – CSV).

Here, you will find:

the most recent version of our working files;
the index of files obtained from the European Parliament; and
our current archive of files obtained from the European Parliament:

The Observatory and its dataset will be periodically updated as we procure new documents from the European Parliament and the APPF. Click here to receive e-mail notifications when our data is updated. Alternatively, you can subscribe to our RSS feed . For more information, see the cycle of European party funding.

Copyright and citation

The data of the European Party Funding Observatory is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

You are free to:

Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format
Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material

Under the following terms:

Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
NonCommercial — You may not use the material for commercial purposes.
ShareAlike — If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same license as the original.
No additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.

For more information on this copyright, see our Impressum.

For proper attribution, please use the following:

For data other than donations and contributions: “European Democracy Consulting Stiftung. European Party Funding Observatory Dataset, Year, version X.”; and
For data on donations and contributions: “Wolfs, Wouter and European Democracy Consulting Stiftung. European Party Funding Observatory Dataset, Year, version X.”

Changelog

All notable changes to this project will be documented below.

Format

The format is based on Keep a Changelog, and this project seeks to adhere to Semantic Versioning.

Title e.g. [0.0.1] - YYYY-MM-DD

Structure

Added: for new features or data
Changed: for changes in existing functionality or data.
Deprecated: for soon-to-be removed features or data.
Removed: for now removed features or data.
Fixed: for any bug fixes.
Security: in case of vulnerabilities.

Full changelog

Display changelog

[Released v1.7] – 2024-04-19

Added

epfo_audit_data.csv: Added final amounts of public funding for the financial year 2021.
epfo_public_funding.csv: Added European parties' final report data for the financial year 2022, including final amounts of public funding for the financial year 2021.
epfo_mep_membership_by_country.csv: Added MEP data for the financial year 2024.

[Released v1.6] – 2024-03-29

Added

epfo_audit_data.csv: Added audit data for the financial year 2022.
epfo_public_funding.csv: Added European parties' maximum grants for the financial year 2024.

[Released v1.5] – 2024-02-06

Changed

epfo_public_funding.csv: Corrected the lump sum amount allocated to the AEMN in 2011 down to zero, as the party was not granted public funding in that year (source: European Parliament).

[Released v1.4] – 2024-01-23

Added

epfo_public_funding.csv: Added draft figures for funding decisions for the financial year 2024 based on the 2024 draft EU budget and European parties' number of member MEPs (source: European Commission and APPF).
epfo_mep_membership_by_country.csv: Added a breakdown of MEPs members of European parties by Member State.
epfo_mep_membership_by_polgroup.csv: Added a breakdown of MEPs members of European parties by political group of the European Parliament.

[Released v1.3] – 2023-12-14

Added

epfo_donations_and_contributions.csv: Added data on donations and contributions for the financial year 2022 (source: APPF).

[Released v1.2] – 2023-12-11

Added

epfo_individual_members.csv: Added December 2023 figures for European political parties' individual membership (source: European Parliament).

[Released v1.1] – 2023-11-27

Added

epfo_donations_and_contributions.csv: Added new data from expert.

[Released v1.0] – 2023-11-13

Added

epfo_european_party_identity_cards.csv: Added logo file names.
epfo_national_member_parties.csv: Added ISO country codes.
EPFO - Electoral results.ods: Added file for upcoming public funding simulator.
epfo_european_party_identity_cards.csv: Added date_activity_note column and logos.
epfo_audit_codes.csv: Added to the CSV files.
epfo_donations_and_contributions.csv: Added new data from expert.

Changed

epfo_national_member_parties.csv: Changed data format.
epfo_individual_members.csv: Changed data format.
epfo_timeline_funding.csv: Changed data format.
epfo_european_party_identity_cards.csv: Split APPF registration dates.
epfo_audit_data.csv: recategorised several instances of negative income for the PES and ECR.

Removed

epfo_public_funding.csv: Removed final Lump sum and MEP-based funding.

[Unreleased v0.7.1] – 2023-07-04

Added

epfo_european_party_identity_cards.csv: party colours for charts.

Changed

epfo_eu_population.csv: updated figures using Eurostat’s latest DEMO_GIND database (updated 13/07/2023).

Fixed

epfo_audit_data.csv: corrected 2011 data for the PES, based on audit information outside budget table.

Removed

epfo_audit_data.csv: removed ITE data.

[Unreleased v0.7] – 2023-08-31

Added

epfo_public_funding.csv: data from funding decision for the financial year 2023 and final reports for the financial year 2021.
EPFO - Files Index.ods: data from funding decision for the financial year 2023 and from final reports for the financial year 2021.

Changed

EPFO - Files requested.ods: updated information on requested files.
epfo_public_funding.csv: updated figures for funding decisions for the financial year 2022.
epfo_eu_population.csv: updated figures using Eurostat’s DEMO_GIND database, added the source data in the file, and provided a reference and link to the source data.

Fixed

EPFO - Files Index.ods: date for final reports for the financial year 2020.

[Unreleased v0.6.1] – 2023-05-31

Added

epfo_european_party_identity_cards.csv: added start and end columns for date_activity and date_funding.

Changed

epfo_public_funding.csv: final lump sum (column J) set to “dnya” if final grant (column I) is “dnya”.
epfo_european_party_identity_cards.csv: renamed date_activity to date_activity_note for supplementary information.

Removed

epfo_european_party_identity_cards.csv: remove column date_activity (replaced with date_activity_start and date_activity_end).

[Unreleased v0.6] – 2023-04-27

Fixed

epfo_public_funding.csv: fixed formulas for final grant (column H) since 2018, and resulting errors for final lump sum and final MEP-based funding (columns I and J).
epfo_audit_data.csv: final grant corrected following above fix; data not yet available for final grants is set to -1.

[Unreleased v0.5.1] – 2023-04-26

Fixed

epfo_national_member_parties.csv: fixed national party column formatting.
epfo_audit_data.csv: fixed typos in labels.

[Unreleased v0.5] – 2023-04-24

Added

epfo_public_funding.csv: added final lump sum and final mep-based funding columns.

Changed

epfo_public_funding.csv: data not yet available is now set to “dnya” instead of 0.

Removed

epfo_public_funding.csv: removed pre-financing, reimbursable expenditure budget, reimbursable expenditure real, and non-reimbursable expenditure columns.

[Unreleased v0.4] – 2023-04-19

Added

epfo_audit_data.csv: an index tab was added at the beginning to describe the content of the documented.
epfo_audit_data.csv: in each party tab, an extra column (H) was added, containing the same values as column F (final budget amounts) but replacing European Parliament grants (RD1.2) with the actual final amounts (when the budgets are finalised by parties, the final amount of public funding is not yet known and parties simply indicate their maximum available grant).
epfo_european_party_identity_cards.csv: new file listing additional information on European parties covered by the Observatory. This creates a new extracted CSV file.

Changed

epfo_audit_data.csv: in the audit data tab, column F (actual amounts) now takes its data from the new columns G in the respective party tabs. This affects the extracted CSV file.
epfo_audit_data.csv: name updated to match nomenclature of other files.

Removed

epfo_public_funding.csv: in the “short data table” and “useful data table”, the “party name” column (formerly column C) was removed. It was previously not properly populated. This affects the extracted CSV file.

Fixed

EPP and PES audit files and Audit data.ods: typos corrected in notes. This affects the extracted CSV file.

[Unreleased v0.3] - 2023-04-04

Fixed

CSV files: CSV conversion fixed to not include quotation marks around values, currency signs, and #N/A values, and to display percentages as decimals.

[Unreleased v0.2] - 2023-03-30

Changed

Audit files converted to ODS format.
Extracted CSV files renamed.