Millions for politics: How money the elections in Germany influence!
Millions for politics: How money the elections in Germany influence!
Donations are a crucial source of income for political parties in Germany, especially in election years. By January 17, 2025, large donations of 3,387,500 euros were already recorded in 2025, spread over 28 donations. Most recently, the CSU received a large donation of 100,000 euros from Futrue GmbH on January 15, 2025. According to the current definition, each donation counts over 35,000 euros as a large donation, and since March 2024 such grants have to be reported immediately to the presidency of the Bundestag. This represents progress because the registration threshold was previously 50,000 euros. Nevertheless, there is a significant delay in the release of donations over 10,000 euros, which are usually transparent by parties after two years.In an analysis of LobbyControl it can be seen that the donations increase significantly in election years. The year 2021 was a record year with over 113.5 million euros in donations to the parties represented in the Bundestag. In regions with special financial interests, such as the real estate sector, at least 1.63 million euros flowed to the parties alone. It is worrying that Germany is considered the most non -transparent country in Europe in relation to party donations, which is underpinned by the fact that in 2022 the origin of around 100 million euros in donations and mandate contributions remained unknown.
transparency problems and changes
dealing with party donations raises considerable questions about transparency. According to Tagesschau.de , donations were recently evaluated during the Bundestag election campaign 2021. By the end of the following year, parties have time to put together their accountability reports, which are then examined and published by the Bundestag administration. This reporting is often carried out in the form of scanned paper lists, some of which are summarized in confusing categories. Only donations from 10,000 euros have to be named, which further increases the non -transparency.
A positive step to improve transparency is the recently introduced regulation, which prescribes a lobby foot track for laws. This measure, together with other reforms of the traffic light coalition in the area of lobbyism and party financing, aims to strengthen trust in the political landscape. Nevertheless, the demand for an upper limit for party donations remains relevant in order to limit the influence of monetary policy and to meet the requirements of modern democracy.
The role of legal persons
The origin of donations shows a clear picture of the financial landscape of the parties. A third of the donations to the CDU comes from legal entities. This is particularly striking when you consider that 60 percent of the donations of legal entities remain anonymous. On the other hand, almost all donations from private donors came to the left. This shows how different the financing of the parties is and how unequal the accessibility to financial resources is.
Especially in the current political discussion, the need to fundamentally revise the regulations on party financing. It is required that an independent control point for partyinances will be created in the future to ensure that the rules for party financing will be observed and to create real transparency.
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