PASOS - Policy Association for an Open Society Legislation and Czech control mechanisms of Republic Poland political parties' Romania funding Ukraine Michel Perottino Marek Chmaj Marcin Walecki Jaroslaw Zbieranek Adrian Moraru Elena Iorga Ihor Shevliakov Legislation and control mechanisms of political parties’ funding Czech Republic Poland Romania Ukraine October 2005 Czech Republic, Poland, Romania, Ukraine Auhors Adrian Moraru (Report Coordinator) Elena Iorga Institute for Public Policies (IPP) Bucharest 3 Hristo Botev Blvd., 2nd floor, suite no. 3 Phone/fax no: + 4 021 314 1542 E-mail: [email protected] Web: www.ipp.ro Copyright © IPP, 2005 All rights are reserved to the Institute for Publlic Policy (IPP). Publication or fragments cannot be copied without IPP’s permission. Opinions expressed in this study belong to the authors and do not necessarily reflect Open Society Institute, Budapest (OSI), Open Society Foundation, Bucharest (OSF) or Institute for Publlic Policy (IPP) views. Bucharest, October 2005 2 ● Legislation and control mechanisms of political parties’s funding Note The report Legislation and control mechanisms of political parties’ funding. The Czech Republic, Poland, Romania, Ukraine, is part of the project Strenghtening of democracy in South-East Europe through responsible control of political parties funding and is made by the Institute for Public Policies (IPP) in Bucharest with the financial support of Open Society Institute (OSI), through the assistance program for institutes and associations of public policies members of the Policy Association for an Open Society network (PASOS) and of Open Society Foundation (OSF), through the East- East Partnership Beyond Borders Program. The achievement of the report would not have been possible without the contribution of IPP’s foreign partners whom we thank hereby: Mr. Michel Perrotino, PhD., expert on behalf of the Institute for European Policies (EUROPEUM) in the Czech Republic, Mr. Marek Chmaj, Mr. Marcin Walecki and Mr. Jaroslaw Zbieranek, experts on behalf of the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) in Poland and Mr. Ihor Shevliakov, expert on behalf of the International Centre for Policy Studies (ICPS) from Ukraine. National reports were made with the purpose of highlighting the similarities and also the differences in the legislation and practices in the field of political parties’ funding, respectively in the control of these funds. Results aim at supporting national and international debates at experts’ level and at the same time at offering political leaders solid arguments to adopt decisions on this topic. The section in the report dedicated to the particularities of legislation and control mechanisms of parties’ funding in Romania benefited from the contribution of specialists in the field, to whom IPP wishes to thank: Prof. Dan Drosu Şaguna, PhD., President of Romania’s Court of Accounts, Mr. Paul Miercan, Conselor of Accounts and Mr. Iulian Dumitrescu, Director, Division VI, Subsequent Financial Control Section. We also would like to thank Conf. Univ. Corneliu Liviu Popescu, PhD., for the valuable suggestions offered throughout the implementation of the project. ● 3 Czech Republic, Poland, Romania, Ukraine At the same time, IPP wishes to thank all participants in the seminar: Institutions and control mechanisms of political parties’ funding in Europe, organized in Sinaia in June, this year and especially to Mr. Ovidiu Voicu from the Open Society Foundation (OSF) in Bucharest for the financial support in organizing the event. Special thanks for the contributions to the debates are owed to Ms. Barta K. Margit, Economic Director UDMR, Mr. Jeff Lovitt, Executive Director PASOS, Mr. Ionel Pârjoloiu, Chief Accountant PSD, Mr. Jozef Ploskonka, Counselor of the President, Supreme Chamber of Control in Poland, Mr. Dobromir Popov, Senior Auditor, National Audit Bureau in Bulgaria, Mr. Gheorghe Rădulescu, specialist in parties’ funding, Director of the Central Electoral Department of PNL, Ms. Mioara Urs, Chief Accountant PD and Ms. Zuzana Wienk, Director, Fair - Play Alliance, Slovakia. We thank the directors of the Chambers of Accounts with whom IPP cooperated for the duration of the project, as well as to the journalists who provided us in time important information to achieve this report. Finaly we would like to thank Mrs. Mihaela Paraschivescu for facilitating the translations of the texts and to Mrs. Luci del Aguila for reviewing of the final version of this report. 4 ● Legislation and control mechanisms of political parties’s funding Table of contents Methodology 7 Introduction 11 Legislation and control mechanisms of political parties’ funding in: Michel Perottino, PhD. The Czech Republic 13 Marek Chmaj, Marcin Walecki, Jaroslaw Zbieranek Poland 51 Adrian Moraru, Elena Iorga Romania 113 Ihor Shevliakov Ukraine 205 Conclusions 241 ● 5 Czech Republic, Poland, Romania, Ukraine 6 ● Legislation and control mechanisms of political parties’s funding Methodology The idea of this project was generated within the network of public policies centers - PASOS, that tried through this initiative to put together their own expertise in order to achieve a transnational research, offering a series of alternative models of organizing the financial life of political parties, useful for each of the countries involved in this study. The research provided equally an opportunity to consolidate cooperation relations between the member- organizations of the network, this way opening the road to new joint initiatives. The present report was conceived as a comparative study made in cooperation with experts from 3 countries (the Czech Republic, Poland and Ukraine), that should offer the interested readers the possibility to analyze in parallel the evolution of the most important aspects related to the issue of political parties’ funding in the Central and South-Eastern European space. The stress was laid on a few major coordinates, established by the Institute for Public Policy (IPP)’s team from Bucharest that coordinated the project for the whole duration of the implementation, between February and October 2005. Thus, for the coherence of the data collected, respectively in order to be able to provide comparison between states, the information has been presented in conformity with a previously established structures aimed at: • A comparative analysis of legislation in the field of the funding of political parties in each of the four countries studied in the project; • A comparative study of the mechanisms and practices existing in each country, respectively; • The institutional analysis of bodies in charge with the control of parties’ funding and the particularities of their operation in each of the studied countries. ● 7 Czech Republic, Poland, Romania, Ukraine The research methodology and the proposed structure for the report have been agreed by the partners in the project, the IPP study coordinator having made a documentation visit on issues of methodological nature. Also, there have been consultations in Romania with specialists in the field, representatives of the Court of Accounts, of NGOS interested in monitoring the funding of political parties and journalists concerned with a transparent financial life of political parties. These consultations have had a double role: on the one hand, they were used to extract those dimensions in the research that present the highest degree of interest to specialists and to the media, respectively, and on the other hand, in order to define in clear terms the methodological principles at the base of the monitoring of parties’ funding with a view to obtain objective and verifiable results. Thus, the main methods used by IPP, that has consolidated in time its expertise in the field, which are recommended to all institutions/persons in the country and abroad that are interested in monitoring the funding of political parties are: • Monitoring the political publicity in printed press and audio- visual press (radio and TV), based on data provided by a specialized company in the field; • Compiling and administering a searchable database of the sums spent by parties on electoral and non-electoral publicity, according to the algorithm for the calculation of these sums1; • Checking parties’ financial reports; • Notifying the court of cases of violations of the legal provisions that regulate parties’ funding. Participants’ observations - experts and representatives of control institutions in the countries that are part of the study - in the debate 1 The monitored sums represent gross investments. The calculation of gross investments in publicity is done according to the list of fees (rate- card) that do not include potential discounts, barters, etc. that may make the difference between the sums calculated and the ones effectively invested. 8 ● Legislation and control mechanisms of political parties’s funding Institutions and control mechanisms of political parties’ funding in Europe organized by the Institute for Public Policies (IPP) in Sinaia in June 2005, with financial support from Open Society Foundation (OSF) in Bucharest, through the East-East Partnership Beyond Borders Program and from the Open society Institute (OSI) in Budapest, constituted also a source of documentation in the preparation of the report. The articles prepared by the foreign experts are based on their own sources of documentation, specialized papers in the field, reports and studies previously prepared on this topic. Some methodology has been used by all experts, at national levels.