President Nicuşor Dan declared on Monday that, in principle, the party financing law is correct, but stressed that a reduction in the annual subsidies granted to political parties would be reasonable.
"First of all, I think it is good that the Romanian state finances electoral campaigns, of course we can discuss amounts, the 3% limit, we can discuss many things, but without such a legal provision I would never have had 60 million RON with which to validate the competition that took place for the Presidency of Romania. I think it is a good thing that the Romanian state does, so that parties and competitors do not go to the same people to ask for money in exchange for the same services, as has happened for a long time in Romania," said the head of state, in a press conference at the Cotroceni Palace, agerpres reports.
The head of state presented the advantages of the party financing law, but also a negative effect of it.
"Yes, I think that, also, looking at how Romanian politics was before this financing law, I think that, in principle, this law is correct, because there were bags of money coming to the parties. This was Romanian politics as it was done before the party financing law. The pressure on the central leaderships of the parties was also greater, because the money came from the territory and then the party presidents were obliged to various measures, appointments to the local party structures. The party financing law had two advantages. It removed a lot of the black money that came to the parties and strengthened the central leadership of the parties. A negative effect was that part of this money went to buy press trusts that were no longer objective and here we need to reflect a little," said the president.
President Nicusor Dan said that subsidies granted to parties must be reduced.
"Yes, here I agree that we need to have a reduction and I hope that the package of measures includes such a reduction," he said.
Asked how much this reduction should be, Nicusor Dan replied that this will be decided by the coalition when the package of measures is approved.
"I think a reduction in party subsidies would be reasonable," he said.
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