One of the 20 parties taking part in the June 6 European parliamentary elections in the Netherlands has ties to the Chinese Communist party, according to research by RTL and investigative website Follow The Money.

RTL and FTM says NL met een Plan receives “considerable” financial support from organisations that support Beijing’s political agenda. They base their claim on documents from the Chinese language media.

In total, the party has received €42,000 in donations, of which part comes from the United Front network, an international network operated by the CCP. Other donations were made by the national federation of Chinese organisations in the Netherlands (LFCON), the Dutch Chinese chamber of commerce and Chinese media in the Netherlands.

On the Dutch website, which includes an English-language summary, founder Kok Kuen Chan Chan writes about supporting the Dutch Chinese community and highlights his role as founder of foundation which aims to stimulate trade with China.

In Chinese language media the tone is different, the news websites say. In an article in United Times, a Chinese language publication in the Netherlands, for example, the party states its aim is to “resist” the “suppression of China by the EU/US and western countries”.

“The Dutch political party NL Plan is the only political party which ‘speaks out fairly’ for China,” the publication states.

The party’s chances of winning one of the 31 Dutch seats in the European parliament are extremely low and it does not feature in any opinion polls.

Constitutional law professor Wim Voermans told RTL there are no rules about political donations for new parties. “It is one of the vulnerabilities of the system,” he said. “We’ve got a large rule-free zone which allows new parties to be influenced in all sorts of ways without being visible.”