Parties’ contracts with the media in 2026 (TTPA monitoring). Three firms receive 80% of the money

Expert Forum continues their series of analyses regarding the spending of subsidy finances by monitoring the mandatory transparency notices, in accordance with EU Regulation 2024/900 regarding political advertising (TTPA). Although European law promises to barring clarity regarding party spending on media and propaganda, the conclusion is that a portion of these expenditures remains impossible to track publicly. 

Spending on media and propaganda

• In 2026, eight political parties have a budget of 209 million lei from subsidies. These funds are added to parties’ own income. During the first seven months of 2026, they declared spending adding up to 26.4 million lei for media and propaganda, out of a total of almost 100 million lei (some expenditures can come from previously signed contracts). Although this is a percentage decrease from previous years, when parties spent about half of their expenditures on this category, the sum remains large. The majority of expenditures stem from the Social Democratic Party (PSD) – 13.1 million lei, the Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR) – 4.6 million, and the National Liberal Party (PNL) – 5.8 million lei. The Save Romania Union (USR) and the Party of Young People (POT) each spent 1.4 million lei, while SOS Romania spent 205 thousand lei.
• The law does not stipulate any obligation for parties to report publicly and in detail the means by which public money is spent. Annually, parties report income and spending, but these reports do not reveal much about these funds’ beneficiaries. In practice, we are informed monthly on how subsidies are spent by category from the summary reports published on the Permanent Electoral Authority’s (PEA) web page, finantarepartide.ro. However, beneficiaries are not included, and contracts only reach the PEA. Therefore, according to these reporting mechanisms, we do not find out where spending on “media and propaganda” actually ends up. 
• An alternative that may help the public understand how money is spent is EU Regulation 2024/900 regarding transparency and aiming at a target audience in political advertising (TTPA). This requires advertising publishers to include a transparency notice that reflects the contract values, financing sources, and campaign goals. The regulation entered into force completely on the 10th of October 2025. This requires, through article 12, that every political advertising material – online or offline – be accompanied, alongside the label stipulated in article 11, by a transparency notice. This obligation primarily falls upon the political advertising publisher (for instance, the website publishing the information), which is in contractual relations with the sponsor and the service provider (articles 9-10).

Media and propaganda expenditures, total, 2026

* The sums declared to the AEP by PNL are debt payments for previously concluded contracts

The database of transparency notices identified in 2026

• Expert Forum began the process of monitoring and collecting declared notices, beginning on the 1st of January 2026. Being a largely manual process, it is possible that the data does not reflect the real value of political advertising expenditures in their entirety. Even though some advertising publishers publish transparency notices on their websites, these are difficult to find, especially since, at this moment, there is no platform that centralizes this information. As of the 31st of August, the database put together by EFOR contains 52 individual entries, adding up to just over 15 million lei – less than the 26.4 million lei that parties officially declared they spent from subsidies only on media and propaganda, just in the past seven months.

As of the 31st of August, the database contains 52 individual entries, each corresponding to a published transparency notice. In some cases, there are multiple notifications on the same page, which were taken into consideration separately. The covered period is, for the most part, from January until August 2026, with some contracts having terms extending until 2028 or even 2033. 

Who is spending and how much

• Out of the 522 notices, almost all are connected to just two parties. PSD (including the county organizations Ialomita and Prahova) appears 40 times, with an estimated cumulative value of nearly 10 million lei including tax (approximately 64%). AUR (including the Bacau organization) appears 11 times, adding up to approximately 5.4 million lei, meaning nearly 36%. USR only appears once, through a local organization (USR Arges, in a 29,040 lei contract with Pitesti24.ro), less than 0.2% of the total. The sum of all contracts in the database file is 15 million lei.
• No contracts notified by PNL, USR (with one exception), POT or SOS Romania were identified – which does not necessarily mean they were not published, just that they were not found by searching according to the criteria mentioned above. Notably, in the case of USR, spendings of subsidies from the General Secretariat (not all national expenditures) can be followed on the portal https://transparentasg.usr.ro. UPDATE 1.09: PNL leadership has communicated to EFOR that the party has not signed any new contracts in 2026, and the finances declared to the PEA are forbearances from previously concluded contracts. 

Where the money goes

• The 52 notices are split between 19 websites.
• The notices posted on Realitatea.net accumulate 7.9 million lei, so over half of the entire value. Realitatea has provided services for PSD (a 50,000 euro/month contract, paid from February until December 2026) and AUR (60,000 euro/month, from January until December 2026). In practice, the two parties have bought themselves a year-long advertising subscription, for identical monthly sums, which suggests a framework agreement, not a tactical campaign.
• After Realitatea.net, Antena3.ro is the second channel in terms of value, with six consecutive monthly contracts with PSD of the same sum (90,750 euro/month including tax); this is effectively an automatically renewed monthly subscription, from March until August 2026. This type of contract is likely to be extended over the following months as well.
• The webpage evz.ro has published the most individual contracts with PSD (seven, one each month, each valued at 25,000 euro excluding tax).
• On the Stiripesurse webpage, six monthly contracts of 15,000 euro excluding tax were identified.

Service providers

• Three companies cash in a cumulative 80% of the total value (11 of 15 million lei), through just 13 contracts.
  • DBV Media House (SRL): notices from realitatea.net (PSD and AUR), nearly 8 million lei in total. The company is owned by PHG Media Invest SRL, which owns the license for Realitatea Plus and which was recently taken over by the US-established company PHF Invest Media LLC. PHG Media Invest SRL received fines adding up to 700,000 lei from the National Audiovisual Council (CNA), for infringements of audiovisual legislation. The company is managed by Daniela Madi Pacuraru, the wife of Maricel Pacuraru.
  • Concept Media Management / Antena 3 SRL: all six monthly contracts with PSD, from antena3.ro, 2.7 million lei. 95% of Concept Media Management is owned by Andreea Vlanga, and 5% by Scrieciu Gabriel. Andreea Vlanga has lent 400,000 lei to Pro Romania in 2020, as has Gabriel Scrieciu in 2019. PSD has worked with this company during multiple elections to buy television advertising.
  • HOG PUB GROUP SRL: five contracts, with notices posted on Gandul and Mediafax, valued at approximately 1.2 million. The company, established in 2020, began to make profits in 2024, soaring to a turnover of 13 million lei in 2025. Owned by UNDERSHAW INVESTMENT LTD, registered in Seychelles and managed by Radulescu Roxana Valentina.
• The remaining providers split approximately 3.2 million lei, the majority through one-off contracts or way less valuable monthly renewable contracts, through local media or niche websites (Gazeta de Mures, Banat TV, Pitesti24.ro, infoialomita.ro, r3media.ro, etc.).

Identified notices, by website / advertising source

Notice source	Estimate in Lei, including tax	No. of notices
Realitatea.net	7.986.000	2
Antena3.ro	2.722.500	6
evz.ro	1.058.750	7
Gandul	665.500	3
Mediafax	665.500	3
Stiripesurse	544.500	6
notificari.partidulaur.ro	363.744	3
DC NEWS	363.000	4
Gazeta de Maramureș	261.360	1
Banat TV	180.000	1
https://brandawareness.ro/	158.552	1
www.activenews.ro	145.200	1
Pitesti24.ro	29.040	1
https://notificare-transparenta.ro/mai-2026/	21.175	4
infoialomita.ro	19.995	5
https://r3media.ro/	13.100	1
RomaniaTV.net	12.100	1
QWER.ro / InfoIalomița	3.702	1
Privesc EU	3.699	1
Total	15.217.417	52

 

Amounts by party and service provider

Party / provider	Estimate in Lei, including tax
PSD	9.744.274
DBV MEDIA HOUSE SRL	3.630.000
Concept media Management / Antena 3 SRL	2.722.500
HOG PUB GROUP SRL	1.210.000
S.C. Editura Evenimentul și Capital srl	1.058.750
S.C. European Business Environment S.R.L.	544.500
PRESS MEDIA ELECTRONIC SRL	363.000
BRAND AWARENESS SRL	158.552
MOTION MARK SRL	21.175
MEDIA WEB PUBLICITATE	19.995
GROWMEDIA S.R.L	12.100
MEDIA WEB PUBLICITATE SRL	3.702
AUR	5.444.103
DBV MEDIA HOUSE	4.356.000
SC NEW MEDIA	261.360
ATHOS TIPOGRAFIA SRL	217.800
SC BANAT MEDIA SRL	180.000
SmartMedia SRL	145.200
SC 1 PRINT OPUS 1 SRL	130.438
ADV WEB TV S.R.L	60.500
HOG PUB GROUP SRL	60.500
M Serv Solutions SRL CUI RO 21059760	15.506
MT Continut MEDIA	13.100
Privesc.Eu WEB S.R.L.	3.699
USR Arges	29.040
Codunas Paul Mihai (persoana fizica)	29.040
Total	15.217.417

 

Amounts by website / source and service provider

Notice source / provider	Estimate in Lei, including tax
Realitatea.net	7.986.000
DBV MEDIA HOUSE SRL	7.986.000
Antena3.ro	2.722.500
Concept media Management / Antena 3 SRL	2.722.500
evz.ro	1.058.750
S.C. Editura Evenimentul și Capital srl	1.058.750
Gandul	665.500
HOG PUB GROUP SRL	665.500
Mediafax	665.500
HOG PUB GROUP SRL	605.000
ADV WEB TV S.R.L	60.500
Stiripesurse	544.500
S.C. European Business Environment S.R.L.	544.500
notificari.partidulaur.ro	363.744
ATHOS TIPOGRAFIA SRL	217.800
SC 1 PRINT OPUS 1 SRL	130.438
M Serv Solutions SRL	15.506
DC NEWS	363.000
PRESS MEDIA ELECTRONIC SRL	363.000
Gazeta de Maramureș	261.360
SC NEW MEDIA	261.360
Banat TV	180.000
SC BANAT MEDIA SRL	180.000
https://brandawareness.ro/	158.552
BRAND AWARENESS SRL	158.552
www.activenews.ro	145.200
SmartMedia SRL	145.200
Pitesti24.ro	29.040
Codunas Paul Mihai (persoana fizica)	29.040
https://notificare-transparenta.ro/mai-2026/	21.175
MOTION MARK SRL	21.175
infoialomita.ro	19.995
MEDIA WEB PUBLICITATE	19.995
https://r3media.ro/	13.100
MT Continut MEDIA	13.100
RomaniaTV.net	12.100
GROWMEDIA S.R.L	12.100
QWER.ro / InfoIalomița	3.702
MEDIA WEB PUBLICITATE	3.702
Privesc EU	3.699
Privesc.Eu WEB S.R.L.	3.699
Total	15.217.417

 

Financing sources

• The financing source is inconsistently filled out in notices, and in some cases it is missing completely – for instance, notices published by Mediafax do not specify if the money is public or private. Where parties specified the source, they most frequently paid for advertising from state subsidies: 19 contracts, 11 million lei, almost 75% of the total registered value. Another 17 contracts (1.9 million lei) are generically described as “own funds of the political formation (state subsidies and/or levies/contributions)” – phrasing which probably also refers to subsidies.
• The general conclusion is that political advertising is financed from public money, not parties’ private funds.

Targeted advertising

• In 43 of 52 cases, the usage of targeting tactics/personal data processing was not declared, and in eight cases nothing is mentioned in the notice regarding this aspect.

Party transparency 

• AUR is the only party for which we identified a section of their website dedicated to these notices, which also reflects expenditures from 2026.
• In the case of PNL and POT, notices can be identified from 2025, related to partial elections.
• In the case of USR, contracts for expenditures from subsidies can be consulted through the portal https://transparentasg.usr.ro/. For the first 7 months, we identified in the USR database contracts (only for the General Secretariat) valued at 664 thousand lei, including with METAVERS DIGITAL S.R.L. (189 thousand lei) and N.RO AGENTIA DE STIRI SRL (News.ro – 50 thousand lei).

Campaign objectives

• Most campaigns are for online promotion.
• AUR is the only party that we can consider to have contracts with the printed media as well, not just online. Although the campaign’s destination is not mentioned, AUR has published on their website notices for two contracts with printing houses (Athos Tipografia SRL, 217,800 lei; SC 1 Print Opus 1 SRL, 130,438 lei).

Other observations 

• Although the majority of contracts are monthly or annual (but with monthly notices), there are also exceptions. For AUR, there are two contracts of a rather unusual duration: one with M Serv Solutions SRL (the organization from Bacau) is scheduled to unfold over seven years, from February 2026 until February 2033, while the contract with Gazeta de Maramures began in July 2025 and is scheduled to last until July 2028. The amounts are relatively low.
• Data reliability problems were also identified, affecting the transparency of the process. Notices from gandul.ro seem to be overwriting the same link each time a new contract appears, making it so that versions from January-February are no longer available today and could not be consulted either – even though the Regulation requires that each notice remains individually accessible for seven years, making the replacement of information a direct infringement. On the 19th of August, the sdtv.ro website published a notice for a campaign valuing 85,000 euro excluding tax, paid by PSD, publicly reported by deputy Bogdan Ivan, linking towards https://sdtv.ro/august.php; subsequently, the post was edited to delete the link, and the text disappeared from the website – the only notice still found there related to December 2025 elections.
• Links to notices are not always visible. In some cases, publishers’ websites only have a dedicated section where notifications are posted, but it is difficult for a user to make a connection to posts that are paid through those contracts. In other cases, a link is posted at the end of the article towards a rather well-hidden page, which makes the search more difficult. In any case, for the most part this information is not available in the simplest way.
• With regard to the methods of calculating values, some notices do not include relevant information and are based on flawed interpretations of the law. For instance, in the case of a Mediafax notice, it is mentioned that “Sums […] do not reflect the maximum limit for spendings on this category of material, as stipulated in art. 28 para. 12 clause n) of Law no. 334/2006 regarding financing of political parties’ activities and of electoral campaigns and Decisions no. 30/2025 of the Permanent Electoral Authority”. These regulations regard the electoral campaign period and do not apply to campaigns taking place outside it.
• Likewise, material from Realitatea.net does not contain mandatory information such as the complaint mechanism in case of discrepancies, or whether target campaigns took place.

Limitations

• The EFOR database is a manual compilation, not an export from an official register, which means it is probably not complete. The amounts of notices are introduced inconsistently – some including tax, some excluding it; some in euro, others in lei; some as a monthly value, others as the total contract value – and values were estimated (tax calculated where it was missing, 1 euro equated to 5 lei). The purpose of the analysis is not absolute precision, but the identification of primary expenditures and of the way the Regulation is implemented. 

Next steps

Although the Regulation’s implementation is deficient, especially outside of the electoral campaign period, it certainly represents an improvement over previous circumstances. Regardless, the quality of notices must be improved and standardized. It is unclear why notices for some parties cannot be identified, even though they spent money. And it would certainly help if a platform were made available for publishers to report these links, so that monitoring does not have to be manual.

The PEA initiated a legislative proposal regarding the implementation of EU Regulation 2024/900 (TTPA) in Romania. EFOR sent multiple comments, which we partially reiterate below:

• Although the Permanent Electoral Authority (PEA) receives the broadest jurisdiction, including managing the register of legal representatives and the information system stipulated in art. 21, the personnel is set to be provided only through internal redistribution, without clear supplementary resources. EFOR draws attention to the fact that the PEA should be able to exercise proactive, not just reactive, monitoring tasks. Splitting jurisdiction between the PEA and CNA (static vs dynamic material) according to content type can generate confusion for the public. In general, control tasks should be more clearly defined, including what pertains to inspections by competent institutions. 
• The transparency portal regarding political advertising proposed by the PEA (which supports the activity of advertising publishers) must become mandatory, not remain optional; the data about transparency notices is at present dispersed and difficult to verify.
• EFOR recommends correlating TTPA obligations with reports regarding expenditures from subsidies (Law 334/2006). The project regulates the transparency of political advertising material, which, in the Romanian case, is paid predominantly from the subsidies of political parties. To address the lack of transparency in the expenditure of subsidies, at the same time, a correlation can be made with mandatory reports from parties. This way, parties paying for political advertising services could be required to report on signed contracts monthly or quarterly. 
• EFOR underlines the role of civil society in monitoring the implementation of law, and proposes that the PEA publishes a consolidated annual report with open data. We also propose the assembly of an advisory group made up of civic organizations, following the example of some DSA implementation practices in other European states, which supports the Committee’s and other responsible institutions’ coordination activities.

 

Identified notices

 

Notificări identificate