No indications that FvD foundation received money from Russia in 2016: report

There are no indications that the Forum voor Democratie foundation received donations from Russia or other foreign countries around the Ukraine referendum, De Groene Amsterdammer and Investico reported. Investigative journalists from the two media tracked down the 2016 figures for the foundation that started Thierry Baudet’s far-right political party in a lawsuit from 2017.

The financial statements of the FvD and the foundation behind it have been a hot topic of discussion in recent weeks. Two weeks ago, parliamentarians of GroenLinks-PvdA and D66 repeatedly asked Baudet to publish the annual figures during a parliamentary debate. The issue became so heated that, after the debate, Baudet threatened to punch GroenLinks-PvdA parliamentarian Jesse Klaver.

Shortly after, the Czech authorities reported that they dismantled a Russian “disinformation network” that paid Western politicians to take pro-Russian positions. Czech media reported that Dutch politicians were involved. Baudet and his FvD quickly came up in the resulting speculation, given the party’s pro-Russia stances and reluctance to publish its financials. The government has refused to say whether the Czech authorities provided any names to the AIVD.

Baudet later acknowledged that he should not have threatened Klaver but still did not publish the figures. The Chamber of Commerce also did not have them. But De Groene Amsterdammer and Investico managed to find them in the file of a 2017 lawsuit.

In that year, the FvD sued the Dutch State for its handling of the Ukraine referendum. The referendum had a very low turnout, but the majority of those who cast a vote voted against an association agreement between Ukraine and the EU. The Netherlands still ratified the agreement after some compromise.

For the lawsuit, the FvD foundation had to demonstrate that it was an “interested party” in the matter, so it submitted the annual figures of its donors. The figures show that the foundation received around 200,000 euros that year, mainly small donations of less than 1,000 euros, according to the De Groene Amsterdammer and Investico.

None of the amounts explicitly came from Russia or another country. De Groene Amsterdam added that “it would be extremely remarkable if an organization or political party were to explicitly mention any donations from Russia in the annual report.” Geert Wilders’ PVV donated 20,000 euros to the FvD foundation that year to make “research” possible.