2023-08-01 15:00:52
In 2022, a few large donations flowed into the coffers of the parties, this year things are different. The front runner in the first half of 2023 was the AfD.
Demands almost 100 million euros back from the parties: Bundestag President Bärbel Bas (SPD) Photo: Michael Kappeler/dpa
BERLIN dpa | The parties represented in the Bundestag are again receiving more large donations from companies, associations and individuals. For the first half of 2023, the German Bundestag reports income totaling EUR 994,444 for the SPD, CDU, Greens, FDP and AfD – more than twice as much as in the same period of the previous year. In the whole of 2022, the income was only around 1.21 million euros – a sharp drop compared to the federal election year 2021. Large donations are donations from 50,000 euros.
The CSU and the Left received nothing in the first six months of the current year. The South Schleswig Voters’ Association, which is represented by one member of the Bundestag, received a further EUR 251,221. The party of the Danish minority in Schleswig-Holstein is supported by the Ministry of Culture in Copenhagen with quarterly payments and is therefore a special case.
Repayment request from Bärbel Bas
Political parties in Germany are mainly financed by membership fees, money from the state and donations. Individual donations of more than 50,000 euros must be reported to the President of the Bundestag immediately. You must publish the information promptly. Donations that exceed EUR 10,000 per year must be recorded in the statement of accounts with the name and address of the donor and the total amount. It will be forwarded to the President of the Bundestag. Critics bump into each other at the threshold of 50,000 euros. The organization Transparency International has long been demanding that donations to parties of 2,000 euros or more should be published immediately in order to increase transparency.
The front runner in the first half of 2023 was the AfD. She received a donation of 265,000 euros, the largest single donation so far this year. It is followed by the CDU with income of 216,000 euros. The CDU benefited by far the most from large donations last year. The positive development from the party’s point of view continued at the beginning of the second half of the year. In July, two major donations totaling around 100,000 euros flowed into the account of the CDU and a transfer of almost 84,000 euros to that of the CSU.
The parties are happy about every donated euro – also because they are confronted with a high repayment demand from Bundestag President Bärbel Bas (SPD). It’s about a total of almost 100 million euros, of which by far the largest part goes to the parties represented in the Bundestag. These are sums from the state partial financing of the parties. Bas wants her back because in January the Federal Constitutional Court rejected the 2018 decision by the Bundestag to increase the absolute upper limit for annual grants by 25 million euros.
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