Overview
- The European Parliament voted to refer the Europe of Sovereign Nations (ESN) to a formal review, with 414 MEPs in favor, 224 against, and 18 abstentions on Tuesday, July 7, 2026.
- The referral starts an APPF process based on a dossier of more than 250 pages that raises doubts about ESN member parties' compliance with EU core values and cites the February Cologne administrative court ruling and specific online posts.
- Under the procedure the ESN has one month to answer the charges, an expert committee will then take roughly two months to assess the material, and a final authority decision could take several more months before any deregistration is proposed.
- If the APPF and EU institutions find an "obvious and serious" breach the ESN could lose its registration as a European party and roughly €2 million a year in EU funding yet its MEPs and the ESN parliamentary group would keep their mandates and group funding.
- The ESN and AfD deny the allegations and call the move politically motivated while politicians across the chamber frame the vote either as enforcement of post‑2025 rules on party values or as contested political policing ahead of national elections.