Material support of the State for electoral campaigns

(1) State material support for electoral campaigns shall be carried out by granting State budget allocations to political parties, under the Law No 294/2007 on political parties, free broadcasting time, interest-free loans and other forms provided for by legislation.

(2) In any type of elections, with the exception of referendums, the Central Electoral Commission shall set, by a decision, the amount of interest-free loans that may be granted to the electoral competitors.

(3) In parliamentary and local elections, the amount of interest-free loans shall be set for political parties, electoral blocs of parties and separately for independent candidates, regardless of the number of registered candidates and/or the elective positions for which they are running. In the case of presidential elections, the amount of non-interest loans shall be fixed on a single basis for all electoral competitors.

(4) The Regulation on granting and reimbursement of interest–free loans to electoral competitors for electoral campaign is being approved by the Ministry of Finance.

(5) State budget loans shall be received only by a financial agent appointed by the electoral competitor to this end. Financial agents can be individual or legal persons registered with the Ministry of Finance. Both the agent and the electoral competitor that appointed them shall have equal liability. The application for a loan shall be submitted to the Ministry of Finance.

(6) The loans received from the State budget shall be partially cleared by the State on the basis of the total number of votes received electoral competitor in the concerned Electoral District. The amount of money, determined by dividing the amount of loan by the number of voters who took part in voting, then by multiplying the obtained result by the valid number of votes cast for the relevant electoral competitor, will be cleared from the State budget.

(7) An electoral competitor who withdrew its candidature is obliged to reimburse the loan allocated from the State budget for the conduct of its electoral campaign within 2 months after the withdrawal of the candidature.

(8) Political parties, electoral blocs of parties and independent candidates shall reimburse the interest-free loans, up to the amount determined in accordance with paragraph (6), within 3 months after the Elections Day.

(9) The provisions of paragraphs (2)-(8) do not apply to the initiative groups and participants in the referendum.

(10) Political parties which have established initiative groups, electoral blocs of parties and/or have nominated candidates in elections who are entitled to receive allocations from the State budget, shall have the right to transfer to the bank accounts with the reference “Electoral Fund” / “Intended for initiative group” at most 70% of the amounts allocated from the State budget, which are present in the political party’s account at the beginning of the electoral period, complying with the national general ceiling of the funds which may be transferred for each type of elections.