In the course of last year, only 26 of the 36 political parties that were entitled to receive allocations from the state budget benefitted from such allocations. Under the Central Election Commission’s report that was presented in Parliament, 42 million lei was to be distributed last year to 36 political parties according to the results achieved by these in the snap parliamentary elections of July 11, 2021, in the presidential elections of November 1, 2020 and in the local general elections of October 20, 2019. Some of the political parties could not collect the money because they didn’t present bank account details. In the case of six parties, the transfer of allocations from the state budget was suspended after these were penalized. A sum of 38 million lei was distributed in total, IPN reports.

The representatives of the CEC said that contravention proceedings were instituted last year against two political parties due to the use of state budget allocations for the wrong purpose.

Under the decision adopted by Parliament following the examination of the report, the Central Election Commission is to propose amendments to normative documents concerning the supervision and control over party and election campaign funding in accordance with the new provisions of the Election Code and to develop new mechanisms for monitoring and assessing the observance of the normative framework by subjects involved in party and campaign funding.

The CEC is to also contribute to ensuring transparency in the field of political financing and to preventing and combating political corruption, including to diminishing the reprovable practices of money laundering related to party and campaign funding. Parliament recommended the Commission to identify conceptual mechanisms for striking inactive political parties off the Register.