Madalin NecsutuChisinauBIRNOctober 7, 202412:45 Romania’s electoral authorities have declined to reimburse the nationalist AUR party for its expenses in the June local and European parliamentary elections, allegedly because it breached political financing rules. Romania’s Permanent Electoral Authority, AEP, has refused to allocate over 2 million euros to the Alliance for the Union of Romanians, AUR, sought for expenses incurred by its candidates in the European parliamentary and local elections on June 9. G4media news website, citing sources from the AEP, wrote that it rejected the request because the AUR had not complied with laws on the financing of political parties. It reportedly found that some loans to the party exceeded the maximum amounts allowed by law, and in other cases, that the money came from a single source, which is also prohibited. The AUR admitted on Sunday that the AEP had blocked its request for money, but without saying what sums it concerned, calling it an “abuse.” AUR leader George Simion did not respond to BIRN’s request for comment. The AEP also did not respond to BIRN by the time of publication. According to G4media sources, some of the loans for the AUR that the AEP did not approve came from the circle of Maricel Pacuraru, owner of Realitatea TV. In addition, AEP confiscated sums from the AUR for the same reasons, a procedure provided by law. Previously, on November 3, 2014, the Bucharest Court of Appeal definitively sentenced Păcuraru to four years in prison in a case related to damages to Romanian Post worth almost 3 million euros. In a separate development on Sunday, the Central Electoral Bureau removed the candidate of the far-right pro-Kremlin party SOS Romania, Diana Sosoaca, from the race for the presidential elections in Romania in November.
via balkan insight: Romanian Election Body Refuses to Pay Far-Right Party’s Campaign Expenses