Still, ANO’s projected spend will be way below the legal ceiling on campaign expenditure which is set at 50 million CZK. For example, the Civic Democrats plan to spend around 10 million CZK and other Parliamentary parties even less.
The Civic Democrats hope it will be enough to secure 5 MEP seats out of 21 dedicated for the Czech Republic. The Social Democrats plan to invest 8.1 million CZK, significantly less than in 2014 when their European campaign cost 25 million.
The Pirate Party will spend 6 million, the Communists 6.5 million, which will be mainly used for promotional materials. The Christian Democrats will spend 5.5 million as they did during the last elections five years ago. Also, they will use additional funds from sponsors and candidates.
An election coalition between TOP 09 and the Mayors is still being discussed. Thus, their spending has not yet been set. The far-right SPD party refused to comment on its planned campaign budget.
The EP campaign is expected to start in the coming weeks. According to political marketing expert Karel Komínek, domestic issues will most likely dominate the campaign, only topics such as migration and Brexit (or Czexit) may be used by some parties. Voters are not usually interested in the European issues, and it’s too complicated to communicate them, he added.
The European elections are second-tier elections with an extremely low turnout; voters are more willing to get experimental with their votes, said Komínek. He thinks that parties with a strong voters’ base can succeed – Civic Democrats, Christian Democrats, and Communists.
