Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/283655
News maltatoday, WEDNESDAY, 26 MARCH 2014 Republic Street, Valletta next to the Courts 'No tangible progress' in party financing – Council of Europe JURGEN BALZAN THE Council of Europe's Group of States against Corruption (GRECO) has concluded that Malta is some way off from implementing recommendations over political party funding, with all six recom- mendations remaining "partly im- plemented". Describing the situation as "glo- bally unsatisfactory," the coun- cil said Malta "has not made any tangible progress" in introducing party financing legislation. Last month, government launched a white paper to regulate the financing of political parties and candidates 165 years after the first general election was held in Malta. Malta is the only country in Eu- rope, alongside Albania, not to have a law regulating party financ- ing. While noting that Malta had made progress in introducing amendments to the Criminal Code over corruption, GRECO said that it is "deeply concerned that four years since the adoption of the Evaluation Report, a comprehen- sive legal framework for regulating political financing continues to be missing in Malta". In its latest report on Malta is- sued yesterday, GRECO welcomed and "fully supports" the white pa- per government published on par- ty financing. It also said, however, that authorities should be "encour- aged to pursue their efforts vigor- ously and to better align their draft legislation" to the previous recom- mendations. The report concluded that the draft legislation could be improved by substantially reducing the threshold for disclosing donations provided to political parties and introducing a ban on anonymous donations. GRECO also underlined the need to develop additional rules on the presentation of annual statements of accounts to the Electoral Com- mission as well as their subsequent disclosure to the public. Moreover, the council called on government to refine further the supervisory mandate of the Elec- toral Commission and consider the need to achieve further balance be- tween criminal and administrative penalties provided for violation of the political funding rules. In view of Malta's failure to im- plement its previous recommenda- tions, GRECO has formally asked Malta's head of the delegation to provide a report on the progress made in implementing recommen- dations, "as soon as possible" be- fore 30 June. Stressing that none of the six rec- ommendations have been imple- mented satisfactorily or dealt with in a satisfactory manner, GRECO called on government to "author- ise, as soon as possible, the pub- lication of the report, to translate the report into the national lan- guage and to make this translation public". Under the proposed law, political parties will for the first time ever be obliged to declare and register donations above €10,000, while any donations above €50,000 ema- nating from the same source will be prohibited. In recent weeks, Parliamentary Secretary for Justice Owen Bonnici did not rule out reducing the maxi- mum amount that can be donated to political parties set out in the white paper launched in February. For the time being, state aid is be- ing excluded but the draft law en- visages the introduction of thresh- olds to private donations. The White Paper is also propos- ing that the paltry amounts can- didates are currently allowed to spend in an electoral campaign be revised upwards. The ceiling for general elections is set to increase from €1,400 to €25,000. The proposed ceiling for Europe- an elections is €50,000 while that for local elections is €5,000. The law is expected to be intro- duced before parliament's summer recess, following a consultation pe- riod that will include the submis- sion of proposals by all stakehold- ers and the public by March and a number of meetings with Alternat- tiva Demokratika, Labour, PN and the electoral commission. Malta's progress over party financing is "globally unsatisfactory", Council of Europe's Group of States against Corruption says