The Public Administration Ministry has put up for public discussion its new bill on the financing of political parties, election campaigns, and referendums, which proposes that referendum initiatives' organising committees would have to submit transparent financial reports on their financing and advertising.

By Croatian law, a citizens’ initiative must collect signatures of at least ten percent of the electorate in two weeks, before submitting a formal request for a referendum to be held.

The new bill is set to equate the status of these referendum initiatives with political parties in many ways, with organising committees only able to collect financial contributions for their activities via a special bank account set up for that purpose.

The bill also sets limits to contributions. As is already the case with political parties, donations coming from individual persons cannot exceed 30,000 kuna (€4,050), while businesses can donate a maximum of 200,000 kuna (€27,000) for a state referendum or 30,000 kuna for a local-level one. In addition, for all contributions exceeding 5,000 (€675), the donor and the recipient would have to sign a contract.

Furthermore, referendum activities would be banned from receiving financing from state and local government-owned companies, religious communities, and humanitarian organisations, other countries, as well as foreign political parties and registered companies.

Comments on the bill may be submitted by September 12.

The bill also sets limits to expenditures, saying that spending on referendum activities cannot exceed 8 million kuna (€1.08 million) for a country-level referendum, 1 million kuna (€135,000) for a local-level referendum in the City of Zagreb, 600,000 kuna (€81,000) for a local referendum in any other county or city, 250,000 kuna (€34,000) for a referendum in local government units with a population over 10,000 people, 100,000 kuna (€13,500) for those with 3,000-10,000 inhabitants, and 50,000 kuna (€6,700) for initatives proposing referendums in municipalities with less than 3,000 people.

Also, anonymous contributions to referendum campaigns would no longer be possible.

(€1 = 7.41 kuna)

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