994,444 euros for the parties
AfD collects the largest large donation, left none at all
8/1/2023 7:28 am
2022 was a bad year for party treasurers. Large donations of more than 50,000 euros are only sparsely received in their accounts. In the meantime, donors are more generous again. The AfD is happy about the biggest rain of money. The left gets nothing.
The parties represented in the Bundestag are again receiving more large donations from companies, associations and individuals. For the first half of 2023, the Bundestag reports income totaling 994,444 euros, which goes to the SPD, CDU, Greens, FDP and AfD. This is more than twice as much as in the same period last year. Overall, the income in 2022 was only 1.21 million euros – a sharp drop compared to the federal election year 2021.
In the first half of the year, the AfD was the leader in terms of large donations of more than 50,000 euros. She received a donation of 265,000 euros and thus the largest single donation this year so far. 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 CSU and the Left did not receive any major donations 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.
Three major donations to Union
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. The CSU received a transfer of almost 84,000 euros.
Political parties in Germany are mainly financed by membership fees, money from the state and donations. Individual donations over 50,000 euros must be reported to the President of the Bundestag immediately. You must publish the information promptly.
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. 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.
The parties are happy about every euro donated – also because they see themselves confronted with a high repayment demand from Bundestag President Bärbel Bas. 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.