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Re:First complaints under the GDPR lodged within hours by norswap on Saturday June 09, 2018 @06:53AM (#17272414)
In Belgium political parties are funded by the government, and companies may not fund them. I'm sure it is the same in many other European countries.
Re:First complaints under the GDPR lodged within hours by enitihas on Saturday June 09, 2018 @08:01AM (#17272598)
How are new parties formed there? What proportion of funding new parties receive there?
Re:First complaints under the GDPR lodged within hours by hyperman1 on Saturday June 09, 2018 @09:36AM (#17272940)
I understood the money is divided up corresponding to the number of votes: If you get 10% of the votes, you get 10% of the money.

There is a 'kiesdrempel' declaring you need 5% of a district's votes before you can function as a party. There are I think 11 districts, so the theoretical maximum is (100/5)*11=220 political parties.

New parties create a document, the 'voordrachtsacte' which needs a minimal number of signatures. When you get enough people to sign it (again apercentage of the inhabitants of the region that's holding an election), you have managed to start a new party.

In practice there are about 3-5 big ones for each half of the country, plus a lot of small parties which are mostly ignored as background noise and are mostly dead at the next election.

Some background noise parties I remember because of their humoristic values were WOW (Gething older with grace), and BANAAN (banana, who had a slogan like: dont be a pear, vote banana)

Re:First complaints under the GDPR lodged within hours by jdietrich on Saturday June 09, 2018 @08:37AM (#17272729)
I'm not Belgian and don't know the intricacies of their political system, but they have no shortage of political parties. At the 2014 elections, 13 different parties won seats in the Chamber of Representatives.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chamber_of_Representatives_(Be...

Re:First complaints under the GDPR lodged within hours by kazen44 on Saturday June 09, 2018 @08:25AM (#17272681)
in the netherlands, new parties are mainly formed from A) politicans from older parties who want to bring it to a new direction. or B) people who are already active in the political world, like journalists or social activists.