Political parties collected record low dues last year
Estonian parties collected the lowest amount of membership fees in the last eight years in 2019, on average each party was paid less than €2 by each member for the year.
The Political Parties Financing Surveillance Committee's website has published data on party membership dating back to 2013. According to the data, a record low amount of fees, also known as dues, were paid by members in 2019, totaling €109,370.
Commercial Register data shows nearly 57,000 people belonged to political parties as of January 13, which means they paid an average membership fee of €1.90 per year.
However, if only contributors are counted, who numbered 5,028 last year, then the average donation paid by each person was €21.
Dues paid also fell last year for most political parties.
Between 2015 and 2018, dues paid to the Center Party were in excess of €60,000 per year, but last year they halved to €29,470.
The Reform Party also saw a considerable drop. Between 2015 and 2018, annual dues consistently exceeded €25,000 in total, but last year dropped to €12,097.
Members of the Social Democratic Party (SDE) followed a similar trend, which saw revenues from membership fall from around €30,000 a year to €18,630.
Dues paid by the Conservative People's Party of Estonia (EKRE) dipped slightly from €17,288 in 2018 to €15,859 last year, but this was still higher than any other year between 2013 and 2017.
However, Isamaa saw revenue from dues increase significantly. Isamaa's total, which had hovered around €10,000 since 2013, increased to €25,556 last year.
However, last year, a record amount of donations were raised — over €3.5 million in total. The previous record high of €2.1 million was set in 2015. Both of these years were election years.
All major parties also set records last year with the amount of donations they received. The €843,000 raised by the Center Party is also the largest amount ever raised by a political party in Estonia over the course of one year.
Isamaa's €730,000 and Reform Party's €690,000 were also the highest amounts each party had ever received.
At the same time, 2019 was also a record-breaking year in terms of party spending. In the Riigikogu and European Parliament elections, political parties spent a total of approximately €11.1 million. In 2015, the year of the last Riigikogu elections, €8.5 million was spent.
The Reform Party had the highest expenses, totaling €2.9 million. Not far behind was the Center Party with €2.4 million and Isamaa with €1.9 million. The costs for the SDE were nearly €1.6 million and for EKRE they amounted to almost €1 million.
The biggest expense ever recorded was made by the Center Party in 2017. In that year, where local government council elections were held, the Center Party's costs amounted to €3.5 million.
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Editor: Helen Wright