The Netherlands’ main political parties boosted their assets considerably last year and now have a combined €24.2bn in their party coffers to spend, according to research by the Financieele Dagblad.

The paper bases its claims on an analysis of the parties’ annual reports. Geert Wilders’ PVV did not comply with a request for information.
Nearly every party made a loss in 2010 due to the provincial and national elections and last year’s recovery is largely due to the absence of an election campaign, the paper says.
The most important source of income is member contributions, which totalled €18m last year. Subsidies generated a further €14.8m – government subsidies depend on the number of members and parliamentarians.
Donations
Donations account for a minor part of party funding. For example, the Labour party earned €487,000 from 50 private donations last year.
All things considered, the Socialist Party is the richest party in the country, the FD says. This is partly due to the fact all elected officials must pay a proportion of their salary into the party coffers.
At the end of last year, the SP had €7m in its accounts, while the VVD and CDA both have around €5m. The Labour party had around €2m to spend.