When the Nationalist Party challenged the Labour Party to reveal whether any Labour party or candidate donor had met with the party over its new proposal for a public-private energy generation partnership, it touched upon something of a sore point for both parties – the country’s complete lack of party and electoral campaign financing laws.

This week the country entered into a somewhat protracted two-month election campaign that will cost both the PN and PL coffers dearly, but it is just about anybody’s guess just how much the lengthy campaign will cost and how large the parties’ war chests are.

The Council of Europe’s Group of States against Corruption (GRECO) recently called on its member countries to establish transparent systems for party and election campaign financing, an area where, as matters currently stand, Malta is among the worst offenders in that it lacks practically any such transparency.

Malta is, in fact, one of three “rare” Council of Europe member states – the others being Andorra and Denmark – out of a total of 46 members, that allow anonymous party and campaign financing. Greece allows such anonymity for donations not exceeding €600, while Romania also does for donations that do not exceed 0.06% of state funding.

Moreover, Malta does not require political parties or organisations affiliated to political parties to keep proper books and accounts, to specify all donations received in these accounts, or to make the accounts public – matters that are deemed essential by GRECO for ensuring the transparency of party and election campaign financing. Malta does, however, provide that returns submitted by election candidates can be made public upon request.

A recent survey by Eurobarometer, the EU’s statistical arm, found that half of Maltese respondents felt that links between business and politicians were too close, while 66% of Maltese felt that transparency was lacking when it came to party financing.

In its recent annual report, GRECO called on its members states to ensure that structures were in place to guarantee transparency in political party and election financing by stamping out anonymous donations; introducing, through legislation, transparency when it came to the sources of party funding such as donations in kind, party membership fees and loans or sponsorships; publishing related financial information in an easily accessible and timely way; creating truly independent supervisory bodies to oversee such financing; and developing sanctions against corrupt practices that are effective, proportionate and dissuasive.

Malta does not meet any of these recommendations, and while both parties have pledged to forge ahead with the appropriate laws, work in the area has been very slow in getting off the ground although the reform had been promised by government by the next election.