99% Of PL and PN Donors Are Unknown – A €29 million Blind Spot

• Malta’s two main political parties have received €29.7 million in donations since 2016. Only €256,942 (0.86%) came from publicly named donors.

• €13.2 million flowed through the €500–€7,000 bracket, where donor identities are recorded by the parties but never made public.

• The PL and PN raised similar totals (€14.9M and €14.8M) but through structurally different opacity patterns: 52% of PL income comes through the unnamed €500–€7,000 bracket, while 48% of PN income comes from anonymous sub-€50 fundraising events.

Since 2016, Malta’s two main political parties have together received €29.7 million in donations. The public can only discover the identity of donors behind less than 1% of it.

An analysis of donation reports submitted by the Labour Party (PL) and Nationalist Party (PN) to the Electoral Commission shows that, of the €29.7 million received since the Political Financing Act took effect, only €256,900 (0.86%) came from named donors.

The Political Financing Act requires parties to file annual donation reports broken into four brackets:

• Donations under €50 collected at fundraising events such as marathons. No donor identities are recorded.
• Individual donations under €500. No donor identities are recorded.
• Individual donations ranging from €500 to €7,000. Donor identities are recorded by the parties but not publicly disclosed.
• Donations over €7,000. Donors are named and publicly listed.

The two parties have raised similar totals. 

The PL has received €14.9 million (through to 2025) and the PN €14.8 million (through to 2024, as it is yet to submit its donation report for 2025). 

The €500- €7,000 bracket, in which donor identities are recorded by the party but not made public, is where most of the opacity lies. 

Together, the two parties have received €13.1 million through this bracket, more than 50 times what they have disclosed in named donations over the same period. More than half of the PL’s income, €7.7 million (52%), comes from the bracket, to the PN’s €5.3 million.

The PL also discloses roughly three times as much in named donations as the PN (€193,000 vs €63,942). The PN, by contrast, draws 48% of its income from sub-€50 “manifestation” donations made during fundraising events, in which no donor identity is collected.

In 2024, Follow the Money’s Transparency Gap project listed Malta as the fourth-least-transparent country in the EU for donation disclosure. France, Belgium and Spain, where disclosure of donors is not allowed, were the only countries that fared worse.

Both parties can also draw revenue from media companies and other business interests, but neither publishes regular audited accounts. Labour’s One and the Nationalist Party’s Media.link have not filed in over 15 years; a separate PL-owned company last published accounts in 1999.

Labour Party

Year	Total Donations	<€50	<€500	€500–€7,000	Total Unlisted	Over €7,000
2016	€630,590	€370,379	€21,784	€145,427	€537,590	€93,000
2017	€1,981,911	€335,685	€1,240,624	€380,602	€1,956,911	€25,000
2018	€1,367,195	€131,299	€649,681	€551,215	€1,332,195	€35,000
2019	€1,108,723	€111,172	€671,041	€326,510	€1,108,723	€0
2020	€1,352,813	€0	€569,349	€783,464	€1,352,813	€0
2021	€1,916,096	€0	€635,506	€1,270,590	€1,906,096	€10,000
2022	€1,927,671	€55,766	€502,531	€1,359,374	€1,917,671	€10,000
2023	€1,325,397	€0	€387,947	€937,450	€1,325,397	€0
2024	€1,445,000	€0	€614,732	€820,268	€1,435,000	€10,000
2025	€1,851,334	€0	€623,241	€1,218,093	€1,841,334	€10,000
Totals	€14,906,730	€1,004,301	€5,916,436	€7,792,993	€14,713,730	€193,000

Nationalist Party 

Year	Total Donations	<€50	<€500	€500–€7,000	Total Unlisted	Over €7,000
2016	€1,170,186	€921,486	€27,263	€202,888	€1,151,637	€18,549
2017	€3,363,859	€1,289,763	€763,260	€1,300,516	€3,353,539	€10,320
2018	€1,570,384	€755,224	€234,355	€570,705	€1,560,284	€10,100
2019	€1,597,220	€638,625	€183,297	€775,298	€1,597,220	€0
2020	€1,061,705	€566,997	€163,005	€316,730	€1,046,732	€14,973
2021	€1,366,289	€762,527	€211,812	€391,950	€1,366,289	€0
2022	€1,947,682	€686,245	€387,892	€863,545	€1,937,682	€10,000
2023	€1,116,362	€622,765	€129,444	€364,153	€1,116,362	€0
2024	€1,629,891	€827,198	€219,085	€583,608	€1,629,891	€0
Totals	€14,823,578	€7,070,830	€2,319,413	€5,369,393	€14,759,636	€63,942