1. Parties entitled to public funds pursuant to Article 18, Para. 4 of the Law on Political Parties
As a result of the votes polled, the following 18 parties were entitled to public funds in 2000 (listed in descending order of votes obtained):
| Bundestagsparteien | Sonstige Parteien | ||
| SPD | REP | NPD | |
| CDU | DVU | STATT Partei | |
| CSU | Pro DM | GRAUE | |
| GRÜNE | Tierschutzpartei | BFB | |
| F.D.P. | ödp | AFB | |
| PDS | SSW | FAMILIE | |
2. Calculation of public funds for 2000
The amounts of public funding allocated to the parties for 2000 were calculated in line with the attached table (Annex 1, as at 6 February 2001). The following points apply to the table:
2.1 The second column of the table contains the "vote account" of the parties on the qualifying date (31 October 2000) pursuant to Article 19, Para. 3 of the Law on Political Parties. This comprises the sum of the valid votes cast for the party lists, and qualifying for public funding, which were polled in total by each party in the most recent European, Bundestag and Landtag elections. In this context, the final updated official results replace the earlier results. In 2000 this applied in relation to the elections in Schleswig-Holstein on 27 February 2000 and in North Rhine-Westphalia on 14 May 2000. Changes to the "vote account" are taken into consideration up to 31 October for the calculations in the same year (cf. annex 2).
2.2 The third column, headed "Contributions", lists the subscriptions and donations to be taken into account when calculating public funding. Pursuant to Article 24, Para. 5 of the Law on Political Parties, parties must show these contributions separately in their statement of account for the preceding year - in this case, 1999. The figure represents the sum of the membership subscriptions and donations from natural persons up to a total amount of DM 6,000 per person per year. If a natural person contributes more to a party within one year, only the first DM 6,000 is shown in the breakdown of contributions pursuant to Article 24, Para. 5 of the Law on Political Parties. The remainder, over and above DM 6,000, is not included for the purposes of this calculation. However, it is taken into account when calculating the "relative limit" (on this point, cf. Section 2.7 below and Column 8 of the table).
2.3 The fourth column - headed "Funding by votes" - shows the amount of funding for each party calculated on the basis of the number of votes it received (cf. no. 2.1 above). For parties with more than five million votes in their "vote account", this yields a figure equivalent to the number of votes in the "vote account" plus DM 1.5 million (i.e. 5 million x DM 0.30). For all the other parties, the number of votes in their "vote account" is multiplied by a factor of 1.3.
2.4 The fifth column - headed "Funding by contributions" - shows the financial assessment of the donations and subscriptions shown in Column 3, based on DM 0.50 for each DM received in contributions. Accordingly, the amounts listed in Column 5 are equal to 50% of the amounts shown in Column 3.
2.5 The sixth column - headed "Total" - shows the sum of the two previous columns, i.e. "Funding by votes" and "Funding by contributions". It states the amount which parties would receive on the basis of these figures if no absolute limit applied. The total - around DM 337 million - shows that the absolute limit of DM 245 million has been exceeded by some DM 92 million, or more than 37%.
2.6 As the total amount of public funds may not exceed the absolute limit of DM 245 million, the amounts accruing to the individual parties in Column 6 ("Total") must be reduced proportionally, in line with the provisions of Article 18, Para. 5 of the Law on Political Parties, so that the final total equals DM 245 million. This calculation is shown in the column headed "Absolute limit". The result of this reduction is that instead of DM 1.30 or DM 1.00, the parties actually received only DM 0.95 or DM 0.73 per vote, and only DM 0.36, rather than DM 0.50, for each DM received in contributions.
2.7 Due to the constitutional ban on the funding of political parties "predominantly" by the state, the amount of public funds may not exceed a party's own income in the previous year. Pursuant to Article 18, Para. 5 of the Law on Political Parties, the amounts calculated in Column 7 must therefore be compared with the party's own income, shown in Column 8 (headed "Relative limit").
For 2000, it is apparent that the annual income of the Tierschutz (animal protection) party, amounting to DM 122,674.53, is less than the public funding calculated taking the absolute limit into account, i.e. DM 235,239.52. As a result, the public funds granted in this instance must be restricted to the amount set by the relative limit (DM 122,674.53). For the other parties the amount of public funding is less than their own annual income, so there is no reduction of the amount calculated, taking into account the absolute limit.
2.8 In connection with valid rulings made on the basis of Article 23 a Para. 1 first sentence of the Law on Political Parties, as a result of accepting unlawful donations or breaching the duty to disclose large donations, the CDU loses its entitlement to state funding in the total amount of DM 6,588,213.00 (twice the amount donated) so that the "Final amount" and the "Share disbursed by the Federal Government" (see under no. 2.10 in respect of the latter) are reduced accordingly. The party has challenged a further loss of entitlement in the amount of DM 1.2 million.
So far as the loss of entitlement is due to the acceptance of unlawful donations (DM 2,174,106.50), Article 23 Para. 1 second sentence of the Law on Political Parties states that the party must pay an amount equal to the unlawful donations to the President of the German Bundestag. Pursuant to Article 23 a Para. 3, Law on Political Parties, the President will pass on all such monies received during 2000 to an institution whose objects are charitable, ecclesiastical, religious or academic by the beginning of 2001.
2.9 Pursuant to Article 19, Para. 8 of the Law on Political Parties, the public funds payable for valid votes in state elections are drawn from the total amount of public funding allocated to the individual parties and are disbursed by the Länder from Land funds to the party associations at Land level at the rate of DM 1.00 per vote. The figures are shown in the penultimate column (headed "Share disbursed by the Länder").
2.10 Pursuant to Article 21, Para. 1 of the Law on Political Parties, the remaining public funds are disbursed to the parties' federal associations (or, if the party is only represented at Land level, to the Land association) by the Federal Government via the President of the German Bundestag. The amounts are shown in the last column of the table ("Share disbursed by the Federal Government"). The resultant amounts paid out as "Final payment", from which any previously advanced amounts are deducted, are shown in the table headed "Federal Government" (Annex 3).
3. Federal Government/Länder share and share of state funding
The total amounts in the final two columns show that, overall, in 2000, the federal states provided approximately DM 38 million (approx. 15.6%), and the federal government around DM 207 million (approx. 84.4%), of total public funding.
The difference between parties' total own annual income for 1999 (approx. DM 561 million, shown in Column 8, headed "Relative limit") and total public funding for 2000 (approx. DM 245 million, shown in Column 9, headed "Final amount") reveals that parties' own finances exceed public funding by a substantial margin, i.e. by DM 316 million. Thus, the share of state funding in total party funding of DM 806 million (DM 561 million + DM 245 million) is on average 30%.
