The group of far-right parties is made up of 36 European deputies, of which more than half are members of French far-right leader Marine Le Pen’s conservative Front National (FN) political party.
The ENL group also includes Matteo Salvini, the leader of Italy’s anti-immigrant League party who is tipped to become Italy’s next prime minister following Sunday’s general election there.
According to a draft opinion written by the EU parliament’s budget control committee, the ENL group has, and this since 2016, “insufficiently justified” some 38,889 euros (£34,668) paid out in expenses and violated the rules of tender on another £346,140 (€388,278).
The “unreasonable” expense money was spent on lavish gifts and dinners, including meals costing more than 400 euros (£356) per head and “hundreds” of Christmas presents costing more than £89 (€100) each.
The parliament’s budget committee also wants to know “to whom” the group sent 230 bottles of champagne, including six worth more than £72 (€81).
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Nicolas Bay, the FN’s vice president and co-president of the ENL group, told AFP that it was all “a question of interpretation of the rules,” but that the conservative MEPs had not wanted to “break the rules”.
The ENL has “conformed with the tightest interpretation” to the parliamentary rules since 2017, he added.
The parliamentary document is at this stage just an advisory opinion that can be amended up until March 12, after which it will be submitted to the European parliament bureau.
The bureau will then formally decide whether to bill the hard-right group for the “unjustified” payments. Its decision could be announced on April 16 or May 28, according to a parliamentary source.
The money owed would be deducted from the ENL’s next budget envelope, the source added.
In December, the FN was officially charged with giving party members suspected fake jobs as assistants at the European parliament.
The party allegedly used about £4million (€5million) of EU funds to pay for FN assistants it claimed were working for MEPs but were in fact doing party work in France. The FN has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.