Panel to include People's Assembly proposals in amendments to party law

Photo: Andres Haabu

The Estonian parliament's constitutional committee during the discussion of a package of amendments to the Political Parties Act on Thursday decided to include in the bill proposals made by the People's Assembly crowdsourcing initiative.

The standing committee on Thursday reviewed matters relating to parties' loan agreements, donations made to parties by third persons, the link between donations and citizenship, division of the allocation from the state budget, making the requirement for a party to have positive net assets mandatory, expanding the competence of the committee for supervision over of the financing of parties, and sanctions applicable to parties for illegal donations and presentation of incorrect information, spokespeople for the Riigikogu said.

In principle, the committee backed a proposal to reduce the size of the mandatory deposit required from persons registering as candidates in an election.

"Today the general outlines that we will be following are clear, but the phase of transforming these outlines into a bill still lies before us," said the chairman of the standing committee, Rait Maruste.

The constitutional committee will continue discussion of the amendments to the Political Parties Act at its session on April 9, the day the proposals from the People's Assembly deliberation day are to be formally filed. The committee's wish is to put the bill before the plenary before the end of April.