This year, political parties received a combined total of €5,240,582 in state support, meaning next year's amount is lower by €1,382.

The Reform Party, which has 34 seats in the Riigikogu, will receive around €1.73 million in support from the state budget next year.

The Center Party, with 26 seats, will receive around €1.32 million.

EKRE, which has 19 Riigikogu MPs, will receive nearly €970,000.

Isamaa, with 12 Riigikogu seats, will get almost €610,000.

And the Social Democratic Party (SDE), which has 10 Riigikogu MPs, will receive nearly €510,000 in state funding.

The extra-parliamentary party Eesti 200, which received 4.4 percent support in the 2019 Riigikogu elections, will also receive €100,000 from the state budget.

The subsidies (one twelfth of the total annual subsidy) are paid into the accounts of the political parties by the fifth day of each calendar month.

Political parties in Estonia can receive financial support in four different ways: (1) party membership fees, (2) state budget allocations, (3) donations, (4) transactions involving party assets.

According to the Political Parties Financing Surveillance Committee (ERJK), the majority of Riigikogu parties' income comes from this state budget support, followed by donations and then membership fees.

All political parties that exceed the electoral threshold (five percent) receive an amount of state budget support proportional to the number of seats they hold in the Riigikogu.

Those parties, which fall below the electoral threshold but manage to collect at least two percent support also receive state subsidies. A party receiving between two and three percent of the vote, receives €30,000 in state funds per year. For support of between three and four percent, the amount is €60,000. And if a party has between four and five percent support, as was the case for Eesti 200 in 2019, the level of financial support from the state budget amounts to €100,000 per year

--

Follow ERR News on Facebook and Twitter and never miss an update!