Membership fee – between rules and reality

Membership fees are a key revenue for political parties, which provides them with relatively sustainable funding. Through it, formations can carry out their activities without relying entirely on external sources – donors or state subsidy, which in turn is a prerequisite for reducing the misconduct on their decisions. Financial autonomy through recruitment of membership fees strengthens the party’s ability to follow its ideological line without compromising under pressure.

Membership fees are an indicator of real support from citizens who pay their contributions and participate in party life on the ground. Thus, he engages the sympathizers much more, and they tend to join various party initiatives – meetings, volunteer activities, campaigns, etc. This affects both the voters and the media image of the party itself. Last but not least, the activity of members should be a prerequisite for the creation of healthier relationships between the party leadership and the regular members, building a sense of responsibility and belonging to a common cause.

On the other hand, membership fee rarely provides sufficient funds to cover all the costs of larger parties – especially during periods of election campaigns or to develop and maintain party structures in different settlements. This requires the search for additional funding through a state subsidy or donations. This can seriously reduce the degree of financial independence of parties.

An important problem may be the uneven collection of membership fees. The inability or unwillingness to pay regular contributions, as well as the poor discipline of members, create difficulties to plan this type of party revenue. It is also a serious deficit for parties to keep real statistics on their active membership. If there is no transparency in taking into account the use of membership fees, some of the party’s sympathizers may be demotivated to support it financially.

The membership fee in the Bulgarian conditions

In Bulgaria, membership fees for parties can be partially traced through their annual financial statements. However, there is not enough clarity on how these revenues were formed, as well as what the number of party members and the amount of contributions that the plants collect from them are.

For example, the analysis of the Institute for the Development of the Public Environment of the Annual Financial Statements of Parties in Bulgaria shows that only 44 in 126 have indicated their revenue for 2024. Their total amount is BGN 4 786 472, or 13.17% of all parties’ revenue. Detailed information on what are the sources of parties’ revenue in 2024. You can see in the graph below:

According to the Political Parties Act, « The Statute of the Political Party contains the rules for determining the amount of membership fees » (Article 14, paragraph 1, item 10). An overview of the statutory documents of the parliamentary parties shows that none of them explicitly announces the amount of the membership dues due. There is no public access to the decisions of the respective governing bodies, determining the amount that the partys should pay. There is such a people on the parties of the parties « and » greatness « the specific amounts are indicated. In the case of ITN, they range from 2 to 20 levs a month, and with « greatness » the contributions are between 5 and 20 levs per month, with the party providing an opportunity to pay online with a bank card.

On the pages of « We continue the change » and « Yes, Bulgaria » has also been created to pay membership fees.

The amounts that those wishing have the opportunity to pay start at 5 BGN for « Yes, Bulgaria » and from 10 BGN for « We continue the change ». However, it is not clear whether these subjugations were designed only to recruit membership fees, or allow donations to be collected (which is not excluded, judging by the descriptions of the different fields).

From the financial statements for 2024 of the parliamentary parties, we can get acquainted with the annual membership fee.

The data shows that the most revenue from its members has the GERB Party – BGN 2 153 000. The second place is ranked by the BSP – by BGN 978 thousand, and in the third – the MRF with BGN 794 thousand. There are details on the reported membership fee from the parliamentary formations in the next schedule:

It is noteworthy that the Revival reports zero revenues from membership fees. In the summer of 2022, former MP Elena Guncheva left the party’s ranks publicly raised the issue of the membership fee of the formation. She told Deutsche Welle:  » I paid membership fees when I was a candidate for a party from the party’s civil quota, usually between 20 and 100 levs one and two times a month. At each meeting of the organization, there is a mandatory point of membership fee and one is collected.

The sword party also did not declare revenue from their members, although the party was registered in early 2024.

The parties with the lowest revenue from membership fees, but also with representatives in the parliament, are DSB with 3000 levs, the Agricultural People’s Union with BGN 5,000 and the UDF with BGN 13,000 from the ZNS of Rumen Yonchev provided the party registration of the MRF.

It is evident that the graphic above raises the issue of the membership that sits behind the formations. It is clear that there are problems on this line. Former MP and a recent BSP coalition partner, Tatyana Doncheva, spoke about them earlier this year. She says to the BNT: « At the moment, the BSP can neither specify with the categoricality of how many people are members, nor, in the face of confidence between the main figures, not only at the top of the party leadership, but even the regional structures, cannot say how many members are and how many people have the right to vote, how many people have voted and what the result is. »

A second potential difficulty is related to the collection of membership fees. Parties that have serious electoral support do not take into account significant revenues. The statutory documents of some of them show that there are differentiated rates for the amount of membership fees – whether it is a regular member or one in an election position.

Insufficient revenue from party members makes the formations dependent on a very extent on the state subsidy and donations, especially in the series of election campaigns we have observed in recent years.

Last but not least, the available information in the public register of the Court of Auditors and the official pages of the respective parties cannot evaluate the extent to which the revenues from membership fees are correctly reported. In addition, most of the registered over 120 parties have no website.