Only moderate progress has been achieved by Malta on recommendations made by the Council of Europe’s Group of States against Corruption (Greco) in relation to party funding.

In its third evaluation report on the matter, which follows an interim situation report published on June 30 last year, Greco concluded that out of seven recommendations pending, only one had been implemented satisfactorily. The rest remained partly implemented.

Greco said that the ratification by Malta of the additional protocol to the Criminal Law Convention on Corruption, which criminalised bribery of domestic and foreign jurors and arbitrators, was a commendable achievement and solidified further the national legal framework, which was already subject to important reforms in 2012.

It also said that the adoption of the Financing of the Political Parties Act would represent a decisive step in the setting up – for the first time in Malta – of a national legal framework regulating political financing.

The new legislation, when adopted, would introduce a requirement for political parties to keep proper books and accounts, including in connection with election campaigns, to have such accounts audited and monitored – at regular intervals – by the Electoral Commission, and would subject political parties to a range of administrative, as well as criminal, sanctions in cases of non-compliance.

It would also further increase the expenditure limits in respect of election candidates.

The legislation, however, remained to be aligned with in a number of critical areas, namely by providing for the registration of all donations received, prohibiting anonymous donations, substantially reducing the threshold for donations’ disclosure, developing rules on the presentation and publication of annual statements of accounts and of information on elections-related income and expenditure, and introducing more consistent and clear rules on the financing of, reporting by and control over income and expenditure of independent election candidates.

Greco said moderate progress was achieved by Malta in respect of transparency of party funding. It noted that the 2013 bill, a private initiative of several MPs, was replaced by the new 2014 bill developed and fully supported by the Justice Ministry and made subject to broad public debate.

Nonetheless, since the Act was still not enacted, none of the six recommendations made earlier had been implemented or dealt with in a satisfactory manner, it said.

Greco concluded that the current level of compliance with the recommendations remained “globally unsatisfactory” and decided to reapply the rule concerning members found not to be in compliance with the recommendations contained in the mutual evaluation report.