Citizens' panel We Need To Talk comes up with balanced but strict proposal
'All the pieces of the puzzle are laid out on the table to work towards reform. The citizens' appeal is clear: now it's time for politicians to act.'
During the citizens' panel We Need To Talk, a diverse group of sixty members of the public, drawn from a diverse group of sixty members of the public, spent six days discussing party funding. Today, they present the result: a refreshing, constructive and ambitious package of 34 recommendations, which can be summarised in 7 main ideas:
- The expenditure should be regulated.
- There should be stricter rules on communication.
- Parties should remain largely funded by public money, but non-public sources of revenue should be heavily regulated.
- The amount of the federal endowment was much debated. Participants felt more than anything else that all parties should receive enough money to guarantee their basic operation and that the financial differences between large and small parties should be somewhat reduced.
- Limits on savings and investments.
- Greater transparency and external control.
- Lower threshold for new parties.
On Wednesday 24 May, all the recommendations were presented in a hearing organised by the parliamentary Committee on Constitution and Institutional Renewal.
Read the comprehensive summary here: Dutch︱French.
The full report with all recommendations can be found here: Dutch︱French
All information on the We Need To Talk citizens' debate can be found at weneedtotalk.be
