Election funding: a quarter of private donations in Europe go to populists and extremists

Extremist and populist parties win the battle of private funding. With the elections for the European Parliament now imminent, a survey has revealed a massive inflow of private funds to far-right, far-left and populist parties, with a quarter of all private funding to political parties in the European Union now flowing to these movements. A million euro increase, which could have a significant impact on electoral results.

The project, led by Follow the Money and supported by The Guardian and 26 other media partners, produced"Transparency Gap", the largest ever analysis of political financing in the European Union. Data collected from the annual reports of more than 200 parties in 25 countries show that around €150 million, equivalent to one in four euros of all private donations between 2019 and 2022, went to parties with extremist political orientations.

The research shows that far-right groups receivedover EUR 97 million, while funding for populist and intransigent parties captured nearly EUR 500 million over the same period. This considerable inflow of non-public money, which includes donations from members, politicians and other private supporters, has seen a significant increase in countries such as France, Italia, Hungary and Poland, where nationalist and far-right forces are on the rise.

Despite the obligation for parties to declare their income from both public and private sources, the survey revealed a significant "black box" of funding, with three quarters of the countries not publishing full information on who the donors are. This transparency gap, even when parties comply with national rules, did not show signs of wrongdoing, but there are questions about potential corruption, as highlighted by a study commissioned by the European Parliament.