Judgment Recoveries
Parties fight for millions – petition to Bas
06/11/2023, 08:21 am
In 2018, GroKo approved more money for the parties. The opposition sues and wins. Parliament President Bas then wants to recover the increase paid – a good 100 million euros. This is now driving the former plaintiffs into the arms of the Union and the SPD. Together they try to save some of the money.
After the judgment of the Federal Constitutional Court on state partial financing of the parties, their treasurers are pushing for an amendment to the party law. The aim is to save in whole or in part the increase in annual grants by 25 million euros that was decided by the Bundestag in 2018 and recently rejected by the Federal Constitutional Court. This emerges from a joint letter from the treasurers of the SPD, CDU, CSU, Greens, FDP and Left Party to Bundestag President Bärbel Bas.
The increase had been decided by the Bundestag with the votes of the coalition factions of CDU/CSU and SPD. The justification was that the parties would have significant additional financial expenses for digitization and member participation. 216 MPs from the Greens, Left Party and FDP complained.
Now their federal treasurers have also signed the letter to Bas, which states that there are “comprehensible additional financial needs” in the areas of digitization and participation. In the judgment of the Federal Constitutional Court one sees “a clear mandate to the legislature to improve the party law”.
Bas demands money back
State funds are mainly available for votes won. The absolute upper limit for this had increased with the increase of 25 million euros in 2018 to 190 million euros per year at the time. Karlsruhe called this unconstitutional. Above all, the legislature did not adequately justify the amount of the increase, explained the Vice President of the Court, Doris König.
Bundestag President Bas later announced that she would reclaim the overpaid funds from all parties in full. In the meantime, the SPD politician has written to all parties concerned and asked them to comment on their financial situation by mid-July. According to media reports, Bas is demanding a total of around 100 million euros back. The CDU, CSU and SPD alone account for more than two thirds of the total.
had in May Bas informed the partiesthat in the current year a total of almost 187.6 million euros will be distributed – an increase of 5.1 percent. According to the calculations of the Federal Statistical Office and the grants regulated in the Political Parties Act, the first four million votes are worth 1.13 euros each and the next 93 cents.