Far-right party Forum voor Democratie received €20,000 from Geert Wilders’s PVV in its previous guise as a non-profit foundation in 2016, financial records show.

The accounts for 2015 and the first half of 2016 show no direct evidence of financing from other countries, such as Russia, but also show most of Forum’s income came from crowdfunding and donations of less than €1,000.

The money from the PVV was spent on research during Forum’s early days as a think tank set up to oppose Ukraine’s accession treaty with the European Union. It managed to trigger an advisory referendum on the treaty in 2016 which resulted in a 61% “no” vote.

The vote was non-binding, but after months of negotiations prime minister Mark Rutte succeeded in adding an annexe clarifying that Ukraine had no automatic right to join the EU.

FVD’s finances have become the focus of intense speculation since Czech authorities shut down Voice of Europe, a pro-Russian broadcaster that was founded in the Netherlands in 2017.

Leader Thierry Baudet was reprimanded in parliament last week for making verbal threats to Jesse Klaver, of the GroenLinks-PvdA alliance, in response to persistent questions about FVD’s financial backers.

Baudet has refused to publish the party’s annual accounts or documents from its earlier incarnation as Stichting Forum voor Democratie, which was founded in 2015.

Court records

Weekly magazine De Groene Amsterdammer and investigative journalism website Investico obtained the accounts from court records, after Stichting FVD went to court to challenge the government’s response to the referendum.

The accounts, which cover the period to the end of June 2016, show FVD received €20,000 from the PVV for “research”.

It received a total of €62,903 in donations, almost two-thirds of which were less than €1,000. Altogether 1,055 donations were received, at an average contribution of €59.

Forum also received €79,861 from crowdfunding, including €69,275 to cover its legal costs. Its legal expenses for the same period amounted to €53,659.

The organisation’s office expenses of €38,717 were 10 times higher than for the whole of the previous year, while it also spent €19,642 on an evening referendum conference in Amsterdam, €16,130 on a two-day radio advertising campaign and €16,182 on “contributions and donations”.