GroenLinks wants stricter rules for donations to political parties. Party leader Klaver is submitting a bill to set a one-time ceiling of 25,000 euros per person. Donations by legal entities such as corporations or foundations should be banned altogether.
“It is important that people can control from whom political parties receive their money,” Klaver told Trouw. “Now donors often hide behind a foundation or company, which makes it unclear who is behind the donations.”
The reason for the proposal is the large donations that passed by last year just before the elections. Software entrepreneur Steven Schuurman donated one million to D66 and 350,000 euros to the Party for the Animals, the CDA received more than one million from investor Hans van der Wind.
“You shouldn’t want something like that in a democracy,” says Klaver. He calls it problematic that the Netherlands no longer has rules for donations.
‘Too crazy’
Tomorrow the House of Representatives will debate the financing of parties. Earlier it turned out from a tour of news hour that there are more parties who would like to tighten up the rules.
In Trouw, the chairman of the committee that investigated party financing, Veling, also says that a maximum is justifiable. In 2018, the committee still ruled that there was insufficient reason for a limit, but Veling is now coming back from that. He calls a donation of a million “far too crazy”.
Veling calls an amount of 50,000 or a ton as a defensible limit.
–
