On 15 March 2017, the Council of Europe in cooperation with the Parliament of Ukraine, the National Agency on Corruption Prevention organised an international conference "Political parties financing in Ukraine: current legislation, recent developments and perspectives". More than 100 participants took part in the discussions, among them representatives of the Parliament, the Central Election Commission, the Accounting Chamber, representatives of the judiciary and governmental institutions, international and national experts in political parties financing, NGOs and media community.
Marten Ehnberg, Head of the Council of Europe Office in Ukraine stated that: "Corruption endangers the stability of democratic institutions and undermines the moral foundations of any society. Political parties are a fundamental element of the democratic systems of states. Political parties and electoral campaigns funding in all states should be subject to standards in order to prevent and fight against the phenomenon of corruption".
Mr. Iegor Soboliev, Member of the Parliament of Ukraine, Chair of the Parliamentary Committee on prevention and fighting corruption, noted that "Current legislation on political parties financing contributed a lot to emergence of real political parties in Ukraine with different ideology, with different people but without catastrophic dependence on oligarchs which is the problem for the vast majority of Ukrainian political forces. And now it is important that each and every rule in this new legislation is fully implemented, so this Law ceases to be just on paper and becomes part of people’s minds".
The recommendations issued at the end of the conference will form the basis for future Council of Europe assistance in the field of ensuring transparency of political parties and pre-election campaign financing in Ukraine.
The conference was organized with the support of the Council of Europe projects “Assistance to the Ukrainian authorities in reforming electoral legislation and in conducting constitutional reform”, “Reform of the Electoral Practice in Ukraine”, and the Council of Europe and the European Union Programmatic Cooperation Framework for Eastern Partnership countries project “Fight Against Corruption in Ukraine”.
