Only one party comes away empty-handed
Parties bathe in large donations
January 1, 2024, 7:50 a.m
Listen to article
This audio version was artificially generated. More info | Send feedback
The treasurers of most parties in the Bundestag can be satisfied with 2023. Compared to the previous year, there are more than twice as many large donations. The CSU can look forward to the largest individual donation: around 565,000 euros.
The major parties represented in the Bundestag received significantly more large donations in 2023 than in the previous year. At around 2.92 million euros, they were able to more than double their result compared to 2022, as the figures published by the German Bundestag show.
The largest individual donation was recorded in 2023 by the CSU, which received 569,962 euros from the Association of the Bavarian Metal and Electrical Industry after Christmas. The CDU was behind with a donation of 500,000 euros. The AfD only received a single donation, but at 265,050 euros it was the third largest individual donation. The left came away completely empty-handed.
The South Schleswig Voters’ Association (SSW), which is represented by a member of the Bundestag, represents a special case. The party of the Danish minority in Schleswig-Holstein is supported by the Ministry of Culture in Copenhagen with quarterly payments. Last year they totaled almost 526,000 euros.
Political parties in Germany are financed primarily through membership fees, money from the state and donations. You must immediately report individual donations over 50,000 euros to the President of the Bundestag. It must publish the information promptly. Donations that exceed 10,000 euros per year must be recorded in the annual report with the name and address of the donor as well as the total amount. It will be forwarded to the President of the Bundestag.
As a result of a change in the party law, the threshold for large donations will be reduced from 50,000 to 35,000 euros from next year. This is intended to ensure more transparency in party financing. The organization Transparency International has long been calling for donations to parties of even more than 2,000 euros to be published immediately.
CDU is ahead in donations
The donations were again distributed very differently between the parties. The frontrunner was the CDU with revenue of over 1 million euros, followed by its sister party CSU with almost 830,000 euros. The two Union parties received more large donations than all other parties combined. The FDP came to just under 307,000 euros, the AfD to around 265,000, the SPD to just over 255,000 and the Greens to almost exactly 251,000 euros. Volt, which sees itself as a European party, was the only party not represented in the Bundestag. She received an individual donation of 250,000 euros.
In the 2021 federal election year, the CDU, CSU, SPD, FDP and Greens received a record sum of 12.5 million euros from associations, companies and individuals. In contrast, things looked significantly worse in 2022: at around 1.36 million euros, there was a sharp drop in transfers to the party coffers.