The joint European Union/Council of Europe Action against Economic Crime in Albania (AEC-AL) organised a training seminar for the Central Election Commission staff, financial experts and auditors, representatives of the Institute of Authorised Chartered Experts, on European good practices for auditing election campaign finance reports, financial expert monitoring reports and political party annual reports.

The purpose of the training was to draw on the auditors and Central Election Commission’s experience as regards political finance monitoring and oversight in order to discuss the challenges that have been encountered during the 2017 election campaign and to identify potential future challenges and issues.

Council of Europe experts presented audit report templates for election campaign finance reports, financial expert monitoring reports and political party annual reports. They provided guidelines and tools for auditing the different types of reports and discussed with the participants case studies tailored made for this exercise.

The three templates will help the auditors and financial experts to carry out their tasks in a consistent, comprehensive and systematic manner. Those reports will also assist political parties and candidates to comply with the requirements according to the legislation in force by reporting accurately their financial transactions to the Central Election Commission.

In the words of the Central Election Commission Chair “…the presentation of standardised audit template and the exchange of ideas and best practices on financial oversight will increase the knowledge on the legal requirements and produce effective enforcement, leading to an increased transparency on political party finance”.

Following this activity and taking into account the discussions and findings from the case studies, the Council of Europe expert will improve the templates and provide recommendations for consideration in the framework of the electoral reform process.