Parties took €2 million each in public funds since 1994 - Alternattiva Demokratika

The PN and PL have each received €2,000,000 in public funding over the past 20 years, according to Alternattiva Demokratika.

The claim comes in an open letter to finance minister Edward Scicluna ahead of the budget speech, calling on him to ensure that the budget is amended to reflect a proposal made by Alternattiva Demokratika distributing the allocated funds “in an equitable manner among the political parties which contested the last general elections in 2013 and which obtained more than 1.5% of valid votes.

The government had declared that the public funding of political parties is not on the agenda for now but would be at a later stage when the party financing law would have come into force and started to bear fruit.

AD say that this does not reflect the truth, because  “for the past 20 years, since 1994, the Government has been allocating in the budget an annual state funding amounting to €200,000 for the two parties in parliament, for international and Mediterranean activities. Basically, the PN and PL have obtained €2 million each in terms of state funding when this public funding is not supposed to be taking place for the time being.”

“Now that the law about state financing and registration of political parties will soon be approved by parliament, we expect that in next Monday's budget, this budget line will be amended to reflect the proposal made by Alternattiva Demokratika that the allocated funds are distributed in an equitable manner among the political parties which contested the last general elections in 2013 and which obtained more than 1.5% of valid votes.”

“The absence of such an amendment, would mean that PL and PN will continue to take state financing only for themselves, excluding all other regularly registered political parties” reads the letter.