On 2 June 2014, Group for Legal and Political Studies and Forum 2015 held a Press Conference and released Policy Report 10/2014 entitled ‘Standards on Party Financing – Coping with the shadow financing of political parties in Kosovo’.

This report is part of the GLPS involvement in the electoral process that aims to improve good governance and in particular enhance the transparency of political party financing. The report first explains that the main challenge to the funding of political parties rests upon improper implementation of regulations as well as the lack of functioning monitoring and regulatory bodies. In general, the report argues that the financing of political parties lacks proper control mechanisms which would enhance transparency and reduce political party malpractices in Kosovo. Special attention in the report is given to irregularities and violations relating to political party financing as well as challenges vis-à-vis the application of the law on the financing of political parties. In addition, the report underlines the importance of internal party control, the external oversight institutional stakeholders and independent monitoring, and among others, enforcement mechanisms which would enhance transparency and accountability regarding party funding.  More precisely, Section II of this report briefly presents the importance of standards on political party financing and their contribution to transparency and accountability. In addition, Section III analyses a number of standards, their position in the current legislation as well as their relationship with international standards. This section also illuminates links between the political parties and corruption and provides insights regarding the legislative loopholes, shortcomings and practical problems. Section IV further explains in details the annual financial reports of the largest political parties and their sources of income for the period 2009-2012. In addition, this section pinpoints the central violations conducted by Kosovo’s political parties during the same period.  Lastly, the final section delivers a set of recommendations that would enhance the monitoring of political party financing system and increase transparency as well as accountability of political parties. The report may be downloaded by clicking here.

Panelists:

Fisnik Korenica, Group for Legal and Political Studies,

Iliriana Kacaniku, Kosovo Foundation for Civil Society.

Venue:

European Informative and Cultural Center (EUICC),

Str. ‘Mother Tereza’ Square, Prishtina, Kosovo.