{"id":183,"date":"2015-12-11T09:31:08","date_gmt":"2015-12-11T09:31:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/scscsussex.wordpress.com\/?p=183"},"modified":"2015-12-11T09:31:08","modified_gmt":"2015-12-11T09:31:08","slug":"german-party-finance-from-the-sublime-to-the-ridiculous","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/centre-for-the-study-of-corruption\/2015\/12\/11\/german-party-finance-from-the-sublime-to-the-ridiculous\/","title":{"rendered":"German party finance; from the sublime to the ridiculous"},"content":{"rendered":"

Strange things have recently been afoot in the normally sanguine\u00a0world of German party finance.\u00a0\u00a0 Back in October\u00a02014 the Alternative for Germany (AfD), a new(ish) right-wing party, mutated in to a gold selling business so as to claim extra funds from\u00a0the state (see here<\/a>). This was quickly followed in December 2014\u00a0by \u2018Die Partei\u2019, a satirical party with one MEP (see here<\/a>), deciding that it would take the oddness one step further. It began selling money to help it access public funds to which\u00a0it otherwise wouldn\u2019t have been entitled (see here<\/a> for an English language summary of both cases).<\/p>\n

By December 2015 the sublime was turning in to the ridiculous. The AfD was once again involved, although this time unwillingly. Despite a year marked by internal strife (see here<\/a>), the AfD was flying high in the polls. Indeed, for the first time in its history it was registering around the ten per cent mark<\/a> as it looked to make the most out of not only the Eurocrisis but also Europe\u2019s summer of immigration trauma (see here<\/a>\u00a0for more on the AfD’s rise).<\/p>\n

The AfD\u2019s successes were clearly too much for some of its opponents. Members of \u2018Die Partei\u2019 (yes, them again) and a number of small, left-wing activists\u00a0launched a campaign on the internet (see here<\/a>) that had the\u00a0potential to financially ruin the AfD. Not content with opposing the AfD\u2019s policy package they called on the AfD’s opponents to donate<\/em> money to the party.\u00a0\u00a0 How, one might ask, would donating money to a party potentially cause it problems? Surely the more money a party has, the easier it is for it to carry out its daily affairs? No, not always.<\/p>\n

How was the ruse going to work? Anti-AfD Germans were asked to donate small amounts to the AfD \u2013 the numbers in play couldn\u2019t get much smaller, in fact, with 10 cents being the amount mentioned. They were asked to do this online, by transferring money via companies such as PayPal or Sofort (simply a German version of PayPal). Every time a payment is made via one of these providers, the receiver (in this case the AfD) has to pay a commission. This varies from provider to provider, but Der Spiegel (Germany\u2019s largest weekly newspaper) reported that the costs tend to be between 0.9 and 1.9 per cent of the value of the transaction (see here<\/a>). On top of that every transaction comes with a flat fee \u2013 again this varies, but it\u2019s generally between 25 and 35 cents.<\/p>\n

So, in theory, a 10 cent donation could cost the AfD roughly 30 cents. The AfD would be able to claim back some of this via the system of state subsidies, but not enough to cover the transaction charges. For every Euro that the AfD raises it gets 38 cents from the state \u2013 it doesn\u2019t take an expert in arithmetic to work out that that would still leave the party well short of being able to cover the costs that come with these donations.<\/p>\n

On the one hand, the AfD reacted in a reasonably relaxed fashion to the threat of death by donations. It claimed, for example, that it had good relationships with the likes of PayPal and Sofort and that the contracts it signed forbad charges from being levied that were\u00a0greater than the transactions involved. If that\u2019s true, then the AfD is indeed covered and has nothing to worry about. Indeed, a few clever-dick activists trying to bring a party down can often help a party make itself look like it’s the victim of a campaign, and that can go down very well with potential supporters. A case of all attention being good attention, maybe.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, if all really is that sanguine then one wonders why the AfD has threatened to take legal action against those pushing the initiative. The background to these concerns is quite complicated, but in essence the AfD is worried about hacking campaigns and data management. Come what may, the party made it clear that if any of these \u2018campaigns\u2019 are seen to help the AfD\u2019s opponents undermine its online presence, then the AfD is clear about who it will be holding responsible.<\/p>\n

Huffing and puffing to one side, all of this might ultimately be of little real relevance anyway. \u00a0By 11 December it was being claimed that the princely sum of Euro 167.23 <\/a>had been donated in this fashion, hardly the stuff of which financial ruin is made. \u00a0But, for a party where money is very tight (see here<\/a> for more on that), it’s clear that the insurgency is nonetheless an\u00a0awkward distraction.<\/p>\n

The sight of Germans ruthlessly applying rules in absurdum is in and of itself mildly amusing, but these cases also tell us a little more about what we should and shouldn\u2019t expect from party-funding debates. The German party-funding regime is short on neither laws nor judicial attempts to\u00a0interpret them, but that hasn\u2019t saved it from parties and activists trying \u00a0to \u2018play the game\u2019. Party funding regimes never stand still as rational actors do their level best to get the most out of them – or indeed to attack their opponents via them if they can.<\/p>\n

In and of itself it is unlikely that the AfD\u00a0will\u00a0fall apart at the seams on account of these donations, but it does show\u00a0us that creative souls will use loopholes to further their own interests. \u00a0Sometimes in a decidedly comical way, but sometimes in potentially more serious ones. \u00a0One good reason to keep an eye on developments in funding regimes\u00a0(in Germany and beyond) in the years to come.<\/p>\n

Dan Hough<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Strange things have recently been afoot in the normally sanguine\u00a0world of German party finance.\u00a0\u00a0 Back in October\u00a02014 the Alternative for Germany (AfD), a new(ish) right-wing party, mutated in to a gold selling business so as to claim extra funds from\u00a0the…<\/span><\/p>\n

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