Expert Forum requests the Government, the Parliament and the Permanent Electoral Authority to take a series of measures as soon as possible to increase the transparency of political financing and to make political parties responsible for the allocation and spending of public funds.
Expert Forum calls for the drastic reduction of subsidies for political parties. Archive photo
“We notice that Romania leaves the 2024 election year with many question marks regarding the legality and correctness of the way in which the money is spent in politicsto the efficiency of control mechanisms and legislative coherence, in the context where subsidies and reimbursements for electoral campaigns have exceeded one billion lei”claim the representatives of the Expert Forum.
They request the reduction of subsidy allocations in 2025. According to Article XIV of GEO 156 of December 30, 2024 (trenulet ordinance), the subsidy allocated to political parties is reduced by 25% compared to the level granted in 2024.The normative act does not provide any justification regarding the reasons why this value was reached. The supporting note, in turn, is minimalistic and only mentions that “It is proposed that the subsidy granted in 2025 to political parties be reduced by 25% compared to 2024.” It is not clear why 25% is proposed and not 50%, for example”say the representatives of the Expert Forum.
According to them, last year political parties reached 387 million lei after the September rectification.
“We remind you that the Ciolacu Government secretly increased subsidies from 314 million lei, although savings had been recorded. If we apply the 25% reduction to the total budget, it would reach 290 million lei. However, this value remains very high and unjustified. Even though 2024 was an election year, we noticed that the parties used the subsidies very limited in the campaign, preferring to declare private funds, which are reimbursed in turn. So the grants aren’t even used for campaigns, so a significant budget isn’t warranted.
In addition, observing the precedents, there is a very high possibility that in 2025 the budget will be increased in place through budget rectification. This reduction is probably a delusion, like the one that Prime Minister Florin Cîțu boasted about in 2020. After declaring that he would reduce subsidies by 30% in 2021, he finally increased them from 162 million lei by 90 of millions of lei, non-transparent“, says the quoted source.
In addition to reducing subsidy budgets, Expert Forum also calls for accountability from political parties in spending these funds, as well as effective controls from the Permanent Electoral Authority. “In 2024, almost 60% of the funds were spent on press and propaganda (214 million lei in the first 11 months of the year), both through non-transparent contracts that further undermined the independence of the press, but also in the pre-campaign, on propaganda materials street, without any kind of transparency. In the end, as the public, we don’t know where that money went. Perhaps most importantly, the Tik Tok campaign paid for by the National Liberal Party and used by Călin Georgescu (it remains to be seen how), shows that the funds are being spent irresponsibly, for campaigns that undermine democracy and are being controlled late and limited. The parties should provide explanations to the public regarding the context in which such campaigns are carried out and paid for, and the AEP should report if the funds are spent contrary to the law”, they say
Expert Forum made a series of proposals to be able to eliminate the risks that political financing brings at this moment, which we reproduce in full:
Subsidy budget reduction in 2025
Modifying the mechanism for establishing the annual budget for subsidies and regulating more predictable criteria. Currently, the allocation is made according to the results of the parliamentary and local elections, in an annual budget range of 0.01% – 0.04% of GDP. But this formula leaves room for a lot of unwanted flexibility and can lead to the approval of much larger budgets than the current ones. The allocations could reach almost 700 million lei, if the parties allocated their maximum amount. See a more detailed analysis of alternative regulatory models in the EFOR report Subsidies for political parties: the European experience and the situation in Romania
Developing sound rationales for how annual grant budgets are set. In general, the value was set by the AEP (in whose budget these funds are found) relative to the previous year, which is nowhere near a sufficient standard. To date, we have not seen a well-argued or compelling rationale for the need for these significant annual budgets.
Renunciation by the government of the harmful practice of amending annual budgets in a non-transparent manner through budget rectifications and regulating the situations in which the annual budget can be amended. We remind you that in 2021 the AEP requested the budget supplement up to 446 million lei, without a clear motivation or request.
Return to the budget of unspent subsidies at the end of the year.
Transparency of contracts by publishing all service providers, introducing frequent reporting and marking all promotional materials. The parliamentary debate on the draft PL-x no. 516/2023 (blocked in the Chamber of Deputies from October 2023), which would introduce obligations for the marking of all political advertising materials outside the election campaign period and would oblige parties to report periodically how this money is spent.
Strengthening the control of these expenses, including by verifying the content of the promotion campaigns carried out by the political parties, by the Permanent Electoral Authority. Even if the parties decide how to spend the money, the correctness of reporting and compliance with legal conditions should be established by rigorous, timely controls and should not be limited to financial verification alone. The methodology for monitoring revenues and expenses by AEP needs to be updated, and the institution should show more efficiency in solving complaints from third parties.
The rules on electoral propaganda in the campaign and the pre-campaign period – when a lot of money is spent in a non-transparent way – and the definition of electoral propaganda materials, which are outdated and restrictive, must be changed. These rules allowed some political parties in 2024 to abuse the rules and principles of transparent and fair financing and monopolize the electoral campaign.
Strengthening mechanisms for verifying private funds that are brought into campaigns and subsequently reimbursed. EFOR showed that in the last parliamentary elections there were candidates who did not register any income in the wealth declaration, but brought tens of thousands of euros to the campaign, funds that are reimbursed from public money.
