In a long article published on Friday 31 May, the European investigative media Follow the Money revealed that more than three-quarters of the funding received by European political parties between 2019 and 2022 came from unknown sources.
“Political parties in the European Union received almost a billion in donations between 2019 and 2022. For hundreds of millions of euros, the public doesn’t know who donated the money”, they write in their preamble. The name of the donor is only made public for €3 out of €10.
It should be noted that the transparency of donations is much more respected in countries with a Communist past than in the democracies of Western Europe. The survey shows that around 75% of anonymous donations in the EU go to German parties.
In France, Spain and Belgium, the names of donors are not accessible for privacy reasons. In Germany, names are only disclosed if a person or company transfers more than €10,000 to a political party.
On the other hand, the Baltic States stand out for the complete transparency of the origin of financial donations to parties.
In Estonia, the names of the 50,000 members of the country’s thirteen parties and their monthly contributions are made public. All donations, even those of just €1, are visible to everyone.
This investigation was carried out by a European consortium of investigative journalists who collected and analysed 1,200 financial reports and some 500,000 individual donations.
See the survey: https://aeur.eu/f/chc (Original version in French by Isalia Stieffatre)