The Save Romania Union (USR) parliamentarians submitted on Thursday a draft law for the transparency of the expenses that the political parties make from the public money received as a subsidy, with the press and propaganda, according to Agerpres.

The USR bill amends the Law on financing the activity of political parties and electoral campaigns (no. 334/2006) and the Law on Audiovisual (504/2002) in order to make transparent the way in which public money is spent, to protect the freedom of the press and the right to information of citizens.

Concretely, the legislative initiative seeks to make the expenses made by political formations with the press and/or propaganda transparent, marking accordingly the programs made with a political contribution and defining it, as well as limiting the expenses made by parties from public money for political promotion.

According to the bill, the political parties will be obliged to post – on the website and at the headquarters, in a visible place – the contracts concluded for promotion in the press and/or for propaganda, including any additional documents. Also, the amounts received as subsidies by the parties, as well as all the contracts based on which they are spent, will be considered information of public interest within the meaning of Law no. 544/2001 regarding free access to information of public interest, without being able to invoke commercial secrecy.

At the same time, any contribution to the financing of the media service for the purpose of promoting a party, its members or their activity will be considered a political contribution, and the programs made with such contributions will have to be marked as such, so that the party or the politicians clearly appear in order to whose promotion funds were paid.

According to the same project, the expenses of parties for electoral propaganda on radio, TV, print media and online cannot exceed 40% of the total subsidy received from the state.

USR is also considering the request of the Council of Europe regarding the declassification of contracts through which public funds are transferred from parties to the press, announces a press release of the formation.

USR reminds that it posts its expenses transparently at the address: https://transparentasg.usr.ro.

Agerpres