Transcript The Europeanization of Party Financing in Georgia

The Europeanization of
Party Financing in Georgia
Dr.Natalia Timuş
Maastricht University
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Outline
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Introduction
Why bother?
What?
How?
Empirical findings
Policy recommendations
Conclusion
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Money and Politics
Blessing
or
curse?
Example: Public funding
+ political pluralism
+ objective treatment
of political parties
- asymmetric
electoral competition
- political corruption
(public office abuse)
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Why bother?
- Illicit party financing – increased salience during
the integration of post-communist democracies
into the Council of Europe (CoE) and the EU
- No adequate mechanisms
of party financing =>
 ‘buying’ political influence
 democratic instability
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Why Bother?
- The degree of Europeanization of Georgian
legislation on party financing – ignored aspect
BUT
- important for assessing democratic and proEuropean reforms & fulfillment of international
commitments
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What?
Research Question:
What is the degree of compliance of
Georgian legislation on party financing
with the European standards set by CoE?
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How?
- Focus on Venice Commission of CoE
The European Commission for Democracy through Law
- Georgian legislative framework: laws on political
parties and electoral campaign financing
- Time-period: 1990s – 2010
- Qualitative Methodology:
• Process-tracing
• Content and discourse analysis
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Theoretical framework
Broader research project:
Europeanization of party legislation (since 2008)
• Bridging International Relations and Comparative
Politics
• Beyond the ‘EU-ization perspective’, ‘broader
Europeanization’ process
• Conditionality literature
– Clarity of requirements
– Size of rewards and sanctions
• Party politics literature:
– Party strategic behavior vs. principled oriented behavior
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Hypotheses
H1. Clarity matters:
The lower the degree of clarity of European
requirements on party financing, the higher the
degree of discretion of domestic political parties in
legislative compliance
H2. “Carrots and sticks” (Incentives and sanctions)
matter:
The lower the incentives and sanctions from the
side of the Venice Commission, the lower the
degree of legislative compliance
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European standards on party financing
Key VC documents:
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Guidelines and Report on the Financing of Political
Parties (2001)
Opinion on the Prohibition of Financial Contributions to
Political Parties from Foreign Sources (2006)
Critical assessment:
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Broad principles, ambiguity
lack of guidelines regarding their practical
implementation
Lack of incentives and sanctions – ‘soft laws’
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European standards on party financing
Public funding
Private financing
Electoral campaign
financing
For each parliamentary party interdiction of donations from fixed limit for party
* could extend to extraforeign states and companies
financing
parliamentary parties
* Foreign donations can be
accepted if they do not inhibit
the effective democratic
development
objective criteria for
distribution of funding
transparency
possibility of donations from the distribution formula
nationals residing abroad
(proportional to the number
of electoral votes)
transparency
transparency
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Transparency International principles on
effective enforcement of party financing
(2009)
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respect of the rule of law
clear, realistic and accessible rules (updated)
effective & independent internal auditing
regulating agencies must be independent and
have to be supervised, in their turn, by an
independent entity
• the regulating authority must have adequate
powers to monitor and supervise party financing,
but it also must be subjected to legal
responsibility.
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Public funding
Pre-revolutionary period
Post-revolutionary period
Georgian provisions
Georgian provisions
Latest VC recommendations
Art.30 of Organic Law (1997): Amendments 2006:
- stability of law
- parties and blocs >5% votes - parties and blocs with 4%
- avoid textual contradiction
* in 2000 – abandoned, subsidies(national) and 3% (local)
&synchronization of different
for individual candidates
2008:
laws/amendments
- increased subsidies for opposition - clarification of the legal statute of FDR,
parties
financing mechanisms, relations with other
- fixed regressive distribution
institutions, etc.
- Foundation for Development and Reform - greater transparency
(FDR)
Private funding Art.25-28 of Organic Law
Amendments 2006, 2007:
- stability of law
(1997):
- register all the donations
- greater transparency
- max. quota private donations - identification of donors
- no max. quota for membership - bank transfer
fee
- limit on individual donations
- prohibition of foreign
- interdiction of anonymous
donations
donations
- no interdiction of anonymous
donations
Campaign
Election Code of Georgia
Amendments 2007:
- stability of law
funding
(2001)
- monitoring group of electoral
- no abuse of public office for
- interdiction of foreign
finances
campaigning
donations
- no monitoring mechanisms
- disclosure of campaign funds before,
- sanctions in case of violations - no clarity on responsibilities &
during, and after elections
- private audit company for
obligations of monitoring group
- concern with disproportionate and
electoral funds
2008 & 2009:
potentially troublesome sanctions
- special clause on prohibiting
- a clear definition of responsibilities and
‘buying votes’
obligations of the monitoring group13
The evaluation of the implementation of
VC requirements
- Overall - considerable progress in complying with
the European standards on the financing of
political parties
- More reforms in post-revolutionary period
- party financing: one of the few cases of
constructive dialogue & agreement between
opposition and governing parties (2006, 2008)
- the majority of reforms: since 2006 (EU-Georgia
AP) => the merit of EU leverage on compliance to
European standards
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Policy recommendations
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Clarity of requirements on party financing:
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avoiding abuse of public office
detailed clarification of sanctioning procedures
limits for financial contributions from parties to their own
electoral fund and for membership fees
Effective enforcement & efficient monitoring process (TI)
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Foundation for Development and Reform
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institution with the authority of financial regulation (e.g.
CEC)
Guaranteeing transparency and public accountability:
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Ad-hoc group on financial monitoring of campaign
regular procedure of disclosure and reporting of income
sources of electoral contestants
public access to party financial declarations
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Conclusion
• Clarity, incentives and sanctions matter:
– VC has high potential for triggering legislative compliance,
but its mechanisms are of permissive nature, lacking
some feasible sanctions & rewards
– EU’s leverage indirectly increases the legislative
compliance to VC standards
• Georgian case – confirms the need to examine the
‘broader Europeanization’ process and move outside the
usual suspects
• More research on the following questions:
– cooperation of European institutions and their common
democratic leverage
– domestic political and context specific factors determining
the legislative compliance to European standards
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Thank you!
Questions