Revisión de Experiencias Educativas Internacionales de Modelos

In Georgia, the parliament passed amendments to the 2011 law on financing political parties in 2013. Parties with 4% of votes in parliamentary polls or 3% in local polls will obtain state financing. Companies gained permission to grant political parties a maximum of 120,000 GEL (about €40,000). Individuals may donate no more than 60,000 GEL (about €15,000) to parties.

In Moldova, a new law on party and campaign funding was adopted in 2015 in order to address some previous recommendations by international organisations.1 _{All political}

parties that participated in the last parliamentary and local elections are eligible for public subsidies, allocated according to votes received in elections. Contrary to international recommendations, the parliament has increased the caps on private donations several times.2 _{The 2017 amendments to the Electoral Code}3 _{reduced these}

amounts to some extent and only for election campaigns,4 _{while the}

excessive donations ceiling for political parties remains. The ban for donations from out-of-country sources of income (e.g. the Moldova diaspora) also remains in place.5 _{The vague and permissive}

regulation and disproportionately low fines for any violations encourage parties to obscure their sources of funding. A thorough revision of the legislation on party and campaign funding is still required.

1_{https://rm.coe.int/16806c9a94.}

2 _{The initially proposed caps for private donations (20 average monthly wages} for individuals and 40 average monthly wages for legal entities) have been increased tenfold and currently amount to about €50,000 for individuals and about €100,000 for legal entities per year.

3 _{Law no. 154 as of 20.07.2017, (http://lex.justice.md/index.php?}

action=view&view=doc&lang=1&id=370943).

4 _{The caps for private donations were reduced to 50 average monthly wages for} individuals (more than €13,000) and 100-monthly average wages for legal entities (more than €26,000) per election campaign.

5 _{See the Constitutional Court decision of 6 September 2016 and the analysis of} political party financing in the Republic of Moldova in 2016, issued by Promo- Lex (https://promolex.md/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/raport_ EN_web.pdf).

In Ukraine, the law on political parties limits contributions by individual citizens to not more than 400 times the minimum wage (€41,290). Legal entities cannot make contributions exceeding 800 times the minimum wage (€82,580). In October 2015, a law was passed to determine state funding for political parties that won not less than 2% of the popular vote in the last general election. These measures are broadly in line with Council of Europe standards. But Ukrainian politics has hardly become more open and accountable. The NACP has so far failed to use its powers to hold party leaders and accountants liable for violating legislative requirements.6 _About

a quarter out of 352 political parties registered in Ukraine fail to submit mandatory reports to the NACP,7 _{while the NACP does not}

have sufficient resources to verify the submitted reports properly.8

In 2017, the NACP levied UAH 338,000 ($13,000) of fines and confiscated UAH 1.3 million ($51,000) of illegal contributions.

Media-ownership transparency

In Georgia, there are plans to present legislation to assure transparency of media ownership to parliament in 2017. This issue attracted a lot of attention in 2016-17, notably in the case of the largest private TV station, Rustavi 2, which was critical of government policies. The government tried to use a legal dispute between its former and current owners to change ownership in order to obtain a more government-loyal editorial policy. While the Georgian court ruled in favour of the government-backed owners, the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg took an unprecedented decision to suspend the enforcement of the Georgian court decision, until there is a decision at the Council of Europe level.

6 _{Monitoring Report by the Center of Policy and Legal Reform, December 2016} (http://pravo.org.ua/img/zstored/files/FD(2).pdf). 7 _{See https://nazk.gov.ua/news/nazk-rezultaty-analizu-zvitiv-politychnyh-} partiy-pro-mayno-dohody-vytraty-i-zobovyazannya . 8 _{See http://pravo.org.ua/ua/news/20872827-nazk-ne-mogee-pereviriti-} faktichni-vitrati-politichnih-partiy-rezultati-zvitu-pro-diyalnist-agentstva-za- 2-roki

In Moldova, a detailed 2012 study9 _{argued that a lack of}

transparency in media ownership leads to concentration in the hands of interest groups, jeopardising media pluralism. In 2015, the parliament passed the amendment to the Broadcasting Code, introducing transparency on media ownership,10 _{but failed to}

prohibit the registration of media ownership in offshore companies.11 _{Private radio and TV broadcasters were obliged to}

disclose the identity of their beneficial owners and their shares in the company. This information was made public in November 201512 _{and confirmed that the media market is facing a media}

ownership concentration,13 _{with over 80% of TV stations owned by}

politicians or people close to political parties.14 _{These generated a}

highly politicised and polarised media sector, where owners often interfere in editorial policy. The sanctions for breaching the provision on transparency of media ownership were introduced only in March 2017.15 _{However, the existing regulation on media}

transparency ownership remains inadequate as it allows the

9 _{Transparency of Media Ownership in the Republic of Moldova} (http://www.ijc.md/Publicatii/studii_mlu/transparenta%20media%20eng/s tudiu-transparenta-eng.pdf).

10 _{Law no. 28 as of 05.03.15 introduced the provision on transparency of media} ownership (art. 66, pct. 6).

11 _{“The Law on Media ownership transparency voted in Parliament without the} amendment on offshore zones” (http://media-azi.md/en/stiri/law-media- ownership-transparency-voted-parliament-without-amendment-offshore- zones).

12 _{Mold-street.com, “TV owners in Moldova: American billionaires, local} businessmen, Russian banks and millionaires from Tiraspol” (https://www.mold-street.com/?go=news&n=4266).

13 _{Until May 2017, 5 out of 5 TV stations with a nationwide coverage were} owned by a single person- the leader of the ruling Democratic Party.

14 _{Nations in Transit 2017, Moldova (https://freedomhouse.org/}

report/nations-transit/2017/moldova).

15 _{A gradual sanction was introduced, starting with a fine of about €750 up to} license withdrawal (Law no. 50 as of 30.03.2017).

circumvention of legislation by using intermediate entities,16 _or

offshore companies.

Ukraine adopted a law to ensure the transparency of ownership of broadcasting companies in September 2015.17 _{As a}

result, all national TV radio broadcasters are now obliged to disclose information about their final beneficiaries and their political affiliations, including the commercial and political ties of their families. Around 75% of the audience in TV and radio broadcasting is between the hands of four owners: Kolomoisky, Pinchuk, Firtash and Akhmetov, which indicates relatively high media ownership concentration. Another positive development in the media sector is new legislation that resulted in the establishment of the first public broadcasting company in January 2017.

Corporate governance, beneficial ownership of companies.