Romania’s political parties allocated the subsidies they received from the state to the press and political advertising between January and October 2023, a report published on Tuesday by the Bucharest-based think tank Expert Forum reveals.

In 2023, subsidies to political parties amounted to 258 million lei (about €52 million), with expenditures reaching 198 million lei (about €40 million) by October. The largest share of these funds, 98 million lei (about €18 million), or 49% of total expenditure, was allocated to press and political advertising.

The main spenders in the first ten months were the PSD with 46.7 million lei (67% of expenditure up to October), the PNL with 37.7 million lei (65%) and the USR with 11.9 million lei (33%). Surprisingly, the far-right party AUR, which had refrained from spending subsidies in previous years, invested 1.04 million lei (4%) in promotional activities in 2023.

In 2024, subsidies are set to rise to 314 million lei (€63 million), an increase of one-third compared to the 2023 allocation.

According to Expert Forum, press contracts lack transparency, with only limited information available in a handful of articles published by online publications.

Despite efforts to increase transparency, a bill aimed at marking political advertising materials transparently and requiring continuous financial reporting by parties has stalled in the Chamber of Deputies. It has little chance of passing before the 2024 election year.

Political advertising remains unmarked, leaving citizens uninformed about the origin of advertising materials. Legal loopholes make the situation worse. Outside of election campaigns, television stations are forbidden to receive funds directly, but parties redirect money to the stations’ websites.

An investigation by the daily Libertatea suggests that parties use unmarked news items on their websites to secure favourable coverage on affiliated television channels.

(Sebastian Rotaru | Euractiv.ro)

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