Nicolas Soto Troncoso and Sofia Angeli
In January 2026, the 11th Conference of the States Parties (CoSP) to the UN Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC) adopted resolution 11/7 on preventing and combating corruption by enhancing transparency in the funding of political parties, electoral candidatures, and campaigns. The resolution, the first of its kind dedicated to Article 7(3) of the Convention, places a clear emphasis on oversight and enforcement. States must establish independent, well-resourced oversight bodies, implement standardized bookkeeping and public online reporting of party and candidate finances, and impose adequate legal and administrative sanctions for non‑compliance.
In Europe, despite the extensive body of common principles and standards regulating political finance, and the monitoring role of bodies such as the Group of States Against Corruption (GRECO), the enforcement and oversight of transparency in political funding remains a significant challenge. Common obstacles to enforcing transparency rules include weak monitoring capacity and insufficient institutional independence of oversight bodies. Cases of countries such as Germany, Moldova, Georgia help illustrate how these gaps in capacity and autonomy can create uneven compliance across countries.
Germany’s case is notable: its constitutional and legal framework for political parties, a regional pioneer, served as a model for party-law reforms across many Eastern European countries during their democratic transitions. Nevertheless, according to data collected under the BridgeGap project, the country currently scores below the regional average on de facto financial transparency. At present, the Bundestagspräsident, through a parliamentary administrative unit, is tasked with receiving, supervising, and publishing party financial accounts — a design that GRECO has strongly criticized for failing to ensure an adequate degree of independence and sufficient means to monitor the funding of political parties and candidates. Germany’s response to GRECO’s Evaluation Report on this point was to increase the administrative staff responsible for monitoring political funding “from eight to ten by 2012,” with further internal discussions scheduled to address GRECO’s recommendations. By the end of the Third-Round compliance procedure in 2019, however, GRECO recorded no tangible progress on this and related matters, noting a “clear lack of political will to enhance the system ever since the adoption of the Evaluation Report more than nine years ago.” Consequently, the report concludes, Germany’s political funding oversight currently falls short of European standards.
A contrasting case is Moldova, where deficiencies in enforcement stem not from a lack of political will but from limited monitoring capacity. Shortly after receiving EU candidate status in 2022, the country reformed its Electoral Code and Political Parties Law, adding measures to tighten campaign finance rules and improve oversight. As underscored by the OSCE, while the reformed legal framework generally provides a sufficient basis for financial transparency, shortcomings in financial controls during campaigns and the absence of a financial audit methodology weaken the robustness of the campaign finance framework. According to the European Platform for Democratic Elections (EPDE), during Moldova’s 2024 presidential election year, 95% of registered political parties submitted annual financial reports (compared with 75% in 2023), yet many declared zero income and expenditures. Since then, the Moldovan Central Electoral Commission (CEC) has addressed deficiencies in its monitoring procedures and proposed improvements, for instance a complete reformulation of its Financial Control ISS module, the main tool used by the electoral authority in political party financing reporting.
Finally, in the case of Georgia, while GRECO previously praised the country’s progress in establishing an independent oversight mechanism, recent institutional changes have drawn criticism from both national and international actors. In September 2023, oversight of political finance, previously carried out by the State Audit Office, was transferred to the Anti-Corruption Bureau, whose chair is appointed by the Prime Minister. In 2024 Transparency International Georgia warned of a noticeable decline in responsiveness to requests for information on oversight activities and raised concerns about a potential threat to the neutrality of enforcement of political funding rules. Other organizations have also called attention to the Anti‑Corruption Bureau’s actions, including decisions to investigate and restrict civil-society organizations’ activities following the 2024 enactment of the Law on Transparency of Foreign Influence. Against this backdrop, in November 2025 the Georgian Parliament announced the disbandment of the Anti‑Corruption Bureau and the transfer of its functions — including monitoring the funding of political parties and candidates — to the State Audit Office.
Developments in Germany, Moldova and Georgia point to different factors underpinning deficiencies on the implementation and enforcement of political finance transparency policies. Our data show that these countries are among those exhibiting the largest gap between the strength of their legal framework and its implementation in practice (Figure 1).
Political Finance Transparency De Jure v. De Facto (%)
But other issues also influence countries’ performance. Countries that have not created the institutional and administrative conditions needed to standardize and routinize disclosure are among the worst performers in implementing political finance transparency. Paradigmatic cases are Cyprus and Belgium, where the lack of a centralized digital platform for publishing political parties’ and candidates’ accounts represents a significant obstacle to effective scrutiny by citizens and civil‑society organizations. To a lesser degree, this also affects Slovakia: two different bodies — the Ministry of Interior and the Ministry of Finance — each manage a portal where financial reports are published (with some information also published directly by political parties). In Slovenia, where GRECO has reported significant improvements in political finance transparency since 2014, limitations arise from the search features of the APJES platform. Finally, in the case of Greece, GRECO has criticized the country’s approach, noting that multiple, often divergent legal changes in short periods create an unpredictable framework that may result in ineffective implementation and a substantial lack of transparency.
The reporting and disclosure of financial information can place a significant burden on political parties, candidates and overseeing bodies. It often requires substantial administrative and financial resources to collect, process, and report financial data. Countries seeking to enforce transparency in political funding must ensure adequate monitoring and disclosure frameworks that combine sufficient resources and technical capacity with institutional designs that prevent oversight from being subject to undue political influence.