1. CONTEMPORARY NORMATIVE AND PRACTICAL PROBLEMS OF THE REGULATION OF POLITICAL FINANCE REGIONAL CONFERENCE MONEY IN POLITICS FEBRUARY, 2016, TBILISI ASSOC. PROFESSOR DANIEL SMILOV UNIVERSITY OF SOFIA CENTRE FOR LIBERAL STRATEGIES, SOFIA SECRETARY OF THE PANEL OF EXPERTS ON POLITICAL PARTIES OF OSCE/ODIHR

3. Definition of “Political Party” For the purposes of these Guidelines, a political party is “a free association of persons, one of the aims of which is to participate in the management of public affairs, including through the presentation of candidates to free and democratic elections”.

4. THE NORMATIVE GOALS OF POLITICAL FINANCE REGULATION To secure the smooth and efficient functioning of representative democracy. Parties and elections are its most important institutions; To generate trust in the basic institutions of democracy; To help the fight against corruption and to ensure the transparent operation of the political regime.

5. Cтрана TrustDistrustDo not know partiesparliamentpartiesparliamentpartiesparliament EU 20111427816657 20151631786267 BG 201114257666109 20151214807888 EE 20112040755753 2015153370511516 RO 201189868368 20151318847735 PO 20111825786867 20151317797489 CZ 2011911888732 20151013868344 SLO 20111625817134 20151328806577 HU 20111528806656 20151931776544 EL 2011512948612 2015925907352 AU 20113046644767 20152644674977 DE 20111542785177 201526536439108 UK 20111124867036 20151938765656

6. DO PARTIES HAVE SUFFICIENT RESOURCES? In the Weimar Constitution parties were not mentioned and they were generally left on their own devices; Before the end of the 1980s in France parties did not receive a state subsidy and there were prohibitions of private donations; Bulgaria in the 1990s – no state help, but no enforcement of regulation either; German parties (despite very generous subsidies) constantly required more along with tax deductible corporate donations – “Cartel Party” (Mair&Katz, 1995); Today: most of the countries seems to have solved this problem – there are rules, state subsidies, legal opportunities for private funding

7. IS THERE SUFFICIENT COMPETITION AND PLURALISM? Party regulation selectively enforced against the opposition; Starving the opposition of funding; Abuse by the government of administrative resources; Harassment of the opposition by tax authorities, regulators Republican Party v. Russia, Namat Aliev v. Azerbaijan; Unequal access to public electronic media; Virtual pro-governmental monopolies of private media. Far-reaching prohibitions of foreign support for NGOs and the ban of “foreign agents” to be involved in “political” activities; The region is divided: Central Europe v. post-soviet countries although there are exceptions in both directions.

8. CORRUPTION AND APPEARANCE OF CORRUPTION Buckley v Valeo (1976); Elrod v. Burns (1976) – Watergate scandal and political patronage; Germany in the 1980s after the Flick scandal; Eastern Europe towards the end of the 1990s, especially in the context of the pre-accession process; What is corruption, however? Quid pro quo and structural corruption: Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce

9. CORRUPTION, POPULISM AND THE LEVEL PLAYING FIELD Citizens United v. FEC (2010) and the triumph of the “libertarian” model of political finance in the US; Egalitarianism under stress from various developments: populism and globalisation. British ban of payed ads on the public electronic media. Pressure to eliminate or reduce public funding in many places – by populist leaders. From Bepe Grillo to Eastern Europe. The “Trump”and “Bloomberg” phenomena. Corruption in the Aristotelian sense: country ruled not in the interest of all.

10. State is governed in the interest of all? Fully or as a whole agree Fully or as a whole disagree Do not know BG16832 PO40454 CZ70282 SLO33634 DE41582 UK52453

11. MEDIATISATION AND SOCIAL NETWORKS Are parties different from the media? Are they necessary in an age of social networks? What are political parties paying for and do they have their own expertise? Novel ways of funding through small donations by a large number of donors: the Obama phenomenon; Voting with Dollars? Isn’t it time to think of radically novel ways of the financing of politics?

12. TrustDistrustDo not know GovernmentTVGovernemntTVGovernmentTV EU 2011 2453704265 2015 31 63 6 BG 2011 3873532493 2015 23 67 10 EE 2011 4972482632 2015 38 49 13 RO 2011 1061843663 2015 27 69 4 PO 2011 2857653776 2015 20 71 9 CZ 2011 1571832722 2015 28 66 6 SLO 2011 2169762932 2015 29 65 6 HU 2011 2652684563 2015 34 62 4 EL 2011 822907721 2015 37 59 4 AU 2011 4672472672 2015 42 52 6 DE 2011 3259623566 2015 50 43 7 UK 2011 2153744354 2015 37 58 5