Financing of parties in 2024: Return to controversial practices. The art of bypassing the law without violating analysis

An extensive report made by Expert Forum on parties' revenues in 2024 shows that the money has often come from the same source, in some cases through Paravan companies. Thus, an older practice of politicians, which has produced important changes in the legislation on the financing of parties 10 years ago, is reborn.

PHOTO Inquam Photos / George Călin

The report indicates cases in which a financier has transferred money to two or more parties. In others it is about people or companies affiliated with one party who donated to another. “The financing of several parties at the same time is a good way to buy influence or bet on several parties if one does not come out.”stresses Efor.

At the same time, the report shows that in the chapter the financing of the parties by legal persons, several networks of financiers who donated through several companies, but also private, and in the case of companies have been identified, the short time from the establishment is noted until the loan to a party.

In fact, last year he brought record amounts in the accounts of the parties. “We must look, first of all, at the context of 2024. It is a year in which there were four elections, everyone has pulled money, including big parties. Again, big parties, we see some absolute records. I mean, for example, PSD has reached loans to almost 100 million. I think they all had much more money than they would have normally ”, Points Septimius Pârvu, author of the Expert Forum report, for “Adevărul”.

Loans through companies

The Think-Thank also emphasizes the return of financing from companies, a practice used especially before 2015, when the legislation regarding the financing of the parties was radically changed and the refunds were introduced.

“An explanation is that a natural person can give less, have a smaller limit of money and then, prefer to give through the company. Some of these payments, practically, seem to come from individuals. I mean the natural person borrowed the company, the company has given, because the limit is higher on the loans. I mean, as a rule, it works.

Although, according to the law, you are not allowed to donate and wait for something in return. I mean you can't have an economic benefit. In reality, things think they are a little more different. We did not have the capacity, for example, to see, I do not know, if some of these people reach a public office or receive purchases. I think, from here we could receive more answers ”says Septimius Pârvu.

“The problem is that our parties, certain politicians will always know how to benefit, take advantage of legal instruments” – George Jiglău, politicalologist

The 2015 modification came precisely to correct such practices, explains the politicalologist George Jiglău. “It was tried, somehow breaking the monopoly of the donations instrument on the financing of the parties, because those donations were considered to be some electoral payments that encouraged clientelism.

In 2015, this legislation appeared a little more complex and more flexible at the same time to give the parties more tools, including this payment from the state budget. And that's why I say that we can talk from several points of view until we get to loans. Because I, so principle, do not have a problem with payments from the state budget, which is extremely blamed. ”

The modification of the legislation at that time brings theoretically a transparency of the financing, the parties, despite the public debates on the current financing modalities. However, the real problem is different, explains the political scientist:

“In the case of state subsidies is about Public money, but then you discourage the dependence of the parties from the private money. (…) This part with the loans again was an element introduced to be loans in sight, assumed as loans, not to mask the loans in the form of those donations that appeared before. So loans as an idea, as a principle, again it sounds like something useful.

The problem is that our parties, certain politicians, people from whom I call political entrepreneurs, that there are characters who manage to sit on the legal tools they have available to achieve their goals, are not necessarily handled by ideology, sympathies for one party or another, but they simply seek to reach. So these people will always know how to benefit, to take advantage of the legal instruments, regardless of the good principle or not, which was behind the introduction of that principle in the legislation ”.

The annual financial limits for the funds paid to a party are the following: the equivalent of 200 gross minimum wages (SMB) for donations and loans from natural persons, 500 SMB for donations and loans legal entities, 48 ​​SMB for contributions. In 2024, the SMB was 3,300 lei, so the limits are: 660,000 lei, 1,650,000 lei and 158,400 lei. The parties can transfer these funds in the campaign, within the maximum limits for expenses, and can recover them by refund from the state budget, if they get more than 3% of the votes and submit a request to the AEP, according to Expert Forum.