Regulación al servicio de los reguladoresla ley de financiación de los partidos políticos de 2007

Abstract

This paper is a public choice analysis of the new Act on party funding passed by the Spanish Parliament in 2007. It reviews the changes introduced in the public grants to pay for the routine expenses of parties, the regulation of private financing and the external control of party accounts. The main thesis of the paper is that the shortcomings and loopholes of the party funding reform should not be attributed to the incompetence of legislators. On the contrary they seem to have been tailored by the parties in order to preserve the techniques they use to monetize their political power