Political parties to be funded by state budget

The political parties in Moldova will be financed by the state budget. The sum of money from the state budget annually allocated for financing political parties makes up 0.05 % from the revenues in the state budget intended for the respective budgetary year. The Parliament passed the bill concerning political parties in first reading on Thursday, December 28. According to the bill, half of the respective sum will be distributed to the political parties proportional to the number of mandates obtained at the parliamentary elections and validated when constituting the new Parliament, which meet the following terms: registration at the Central Election Commission as electoral candidates; passed the electoral threshold; legally constituted parliamentary factions. The other part of money will be distributed to the political parties proportional to the number of votes obtained at the general local elections, providing that these got not less than 20 mandates in the representative bodies of territorial-administrative units of second level. The bill envisages that the political parties’ finances may also come from the party members; donations; fundraising activities. At the same time, the external financing and from state enterprises is interdicted. The annual incomes of a party, resulted from donations, can not exceed the equivalent of 0.05 % of the incomes planned in the state budget for the respective year. A natural person can make donations to one or more parties. The donations made by a natural person to one or more political parties during a budgetary year can not exceed in aggregate the value of 500 average salaries, intended for the respective year. A legal person can not donate in one year, to one or more political parties, sums that in the aggregate exceed the value of 1000 average salaries, set for the respective year. Another novelty of the bill is that the integral and abbreviated name, as well as the symbols must clearly differ from those of the parties earlier registered in Moldova, inclusively from those parties excluded from the Register of political parties. The bill was broadly debated in the Parliament’s plenum. Though most of MPs mentioned the necessity of adopting such a law, they stated that this was prepared and presented to the MPs in a hurry and was worked out only by the Communist and Christian democrat parties, which, in their opinion, reduces the value of the draft. Most of discussions have focused on the provisions related to the funding of the political parties from the state budget. A number of opposition MPs stated that, under the present economic conditions, the state is not able to finance political parties. On the other hand, the draft’s authors mentioned that the adoption of this law is among the commitments assumed in front the Council of Europe, as the parties are funded by the state budget in all the European countries. They rejected the allegations that this bill is lobbying the interests of the government party and PPCD. The bill will be forwarded to CoE experts and may come into force on January 1, 2008.