A NEW LAW ON POLITICAL PARTIES WAS ADOPTED

On April 1st, 2005 a new Law on political parties was published in the State gazette. It revoked the Law on Political Parties which was in force so far. The new Law provides more strict requirements on incorporation, raising of property and the financial control on the activities of the political parties.

The Law provides a more complicated incorporation procedure for political parties. It is imperative that an initiative group is set up by at least 50 Bulgarian citizens. The initiative group must adopt an incorporation declaration in written form and must publish it in at least one national daily newspaper and open a subscription list for attracting founder-members. The incorporation declaration must be filled in and signed by the persons who wish to become founders, including the members of the initiative group. The constituent assembly must be held within 3 months from the date of adoption of the incorporation declaration. The constituent assembly must adopt the statutes of the party. Compared to the previous one, the new Law provides additional elements to be included in the statute of each political party. Under the Transitional provisions of the Law, the political parties that are already incorporated must set their statutes in compliance with the provisions of the new Law by December 31, 2005.

Under the new Law like in the previous one, political parties raise their property from own earnings and from State subsidy, which is granted under the same conditions as before. The basic difference under the new regulation is that anonymous donations are no longer allowed while the previous regulation allowed these at an amount depending on the rate of the annual State subsidy. The amount of the donation which a natural person may grant to a political party within one calendar year is decreased from 30 000 to 10 000 leva. New groups of persons which are not allowed to grant funds to political parties are added to the groups before and these are: legal entities in privatization proceedings; organizers of games of chance; religious institutions or nonprofit legal entities in public benefit; foreign business or nonprofit entities. Under the new law business entities with more than 5 percent state or municipal participation may not grant funds to political parties, while under the previous law the limitation was related to establishments with more than 50 percent state or municipal participation.

The new law sets forth an additional opportunity for raising of own income –fundraising activities. According to the Supplementary provisions of the Law these are activities for raising funds through business or gratuitous transactions in the form of cash, services, or technical equipment for a political party.
The financial control on political parties is extended with the Law on political parties from 2005. The financial report of a political party for the previous year is subject to independent financial audit and certification by an independent accountant. The Law sets forth a new requirement for the body which supervises the financial activities of the political parties – The National Audit Office of the Republic of Bulgaria. It must publish in its official bulletin and in its Internet Website the results of the audit of the financial activities within one month from the audit completion, and by April 15 of the current year – the names of the parties which have not submitted their financial reports by March 31 of the current year.