Agency Report
Berlin – Germany’s conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) received almost 10 times more funding from large donations than Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats (SPD) in 2024, official figures showed on Saturday.
The data revealed that German parties are heading for record fundraising numbers, less than two months ahead of elections on February 23 to the Bundestag, the lower house of parliament.
Under German electoral law, parties must inform the president of the Bundestag of all donations above €35,000 ($36,100). The threshold was lowered from €50,000 in March.
The figures for 2024, released by the Bundestag, show that the CDU received €5.37 million in large donations, compared to just €550,001 for the SPD. The CDU, along with its CSU sister party in Bavaria, is currently first in the polls.
The pro-business Free Democrats, who withdrew from Scholz’s three-party coalition in November, collected €2.77 million from large donors, while the Greens took in €957,052.
The largest single donation in 2024, totalling €4.09 million, went to the newly founded Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance. This helped to make the self-styled “left conservative” party the biggest recipient of large donations over the year, at €6.41 million.
The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), on the other hand, failed to receive a single contribution above the threshold for publication.
German companies, associations and individuals are usually particularly generous to the country’s political parties in election years.
Ahead of the 2021 election, a total of €12.4 million was donated to the parties by large contributors.
