The Prime Minister says that the coalition partners supported her proposal to suspend the indexation of state funding, which is currently tied to the level of the minimum wage.
At the moment, work is underway on creating the next year’s budget and the fiscal space for 2025 is negative, therefore the ministries have been given the task of evaluating their budgets, and by limiting the spending of the ministries, they hope to save 50 million euros.
At the same time, the government supported the 2025 compensation fund growth limit of no more than 2.6% compared to the 2024 updated plan on July 31 this year.
There have also been calls on social networks to limit the increase in the funding of political parties. According to the information of the Office for the Prevention and Combating of Corruption (KNAB), 5,675,351 euros were paid from the state budget to 12 political parties or their associations in 2023.
KNAB data show that the state budget funding for political parties and their associations in 2024 will be 6.65 million euros in total. The most, or 1.12 million euros, was allocated to the “New Unity”, 898,761 euros – to the Union of Greens and Farmers, 790,482 euros – to the “United List”, 752,007 euros – to the National Union. Three parties – “Stability”, “Progressive” and “Latvija first” – will receive around 0.5 million euros, but in total there will be six more political forces among the recipients of money, some of which are not represented in any power structures and carry out minimal political activity.
The law stipulates that state budget funding is given to political forces for which more than 2% of voters voted in the last Saeima elections. The allocated funding is linked to the amount of the minimum wage, so raising it also means increasing the state funding of the parties. It is planned that in 2025 the minimum wage will increase from EUR 700 to EUR 740, in 2026 – to EUR 780, in 2027 – to EUR 820, and in 2028 – to EUR 860, which, according to the law, will also mean a regular increase in funding paid to parties increase.
added paragraphs 6 and 7
2024-09-06 17:02:24