Transparency International Croatia (TIH) has assessed that the current Law on Financing Political Parties, Independent Lists, and Candidates does not allow for insight into party financing, which is why it needs to be amended.
Unlike the old law, which allowed data on party revenues and expenditures for the previous year to be available in March, the new Law leaves room for manipulation and the under-the-table purchase of political influence, said TIH President Zorislav Antun Petrović at a press conference. According to this Law, parties are required to report their revenues and expenditures to the competent authorities by the end of February and submit them to the Tax Administration of the Ministry of Finance by the end of June. However, as Petrović stated, the Ministry of Finance rejected TIH’s request for data at the beginning of July, citing tax secrecy as the reason. TIH believes that this undermines the Law, which they argue should take precedence over the general tax law, which the Ministry cited when it refused to provide the data.
To avoid such situations in the future, TIH believes that the existing Law should be corrected, and as a short-term solution, they see that all parties should give written consent to the Tax Administration for the presentation of data. They also point out as a flaw in the Law that it does not specify exactly when parties should publish their data. So far, only HDZ and HSU have not done so among the larger parties, said Petrović, who believes there is no reason not to publish this data. TIH presented the results of a survey conducted by the agency Promocija plus at the press conference, which was conducted in early August, according to which the majority of citizens (52.8 percent) consider parties and politicians who do not disclose their sources of financing to be dishonest.
