Understanding corruption to fight it 4 December 2018 Vladislav GRIBINCEA, Executive Director, Legal Resources Centre from Moldova

GDP (USD) : Estonia and Moldova

Why corruption? For lead political parties it is easier to keep power Without corruption it is hard to do business in new democracies People generally prefer comfort to fairness

What to do? Give chance for parties to exist without corruption Make corruption less important for doing business c. Make people feel that corruption does not go unpunished

Small measures that can lead to … Make public servants value their position Sufficient sanctions to dissuade corruption Functional anticorruption institutions and independent judges Limited discretion of public servants More transparency Prove that merits matter

Conclusions The initiative to limit the foreign funding of NGOs exist only in 3 CoE member states and all the 3 systems were criticized by the EU and CoE, as contrary to democratic principles; More than 70 NGOs requested the MoJ not to promote the norms limiting the foreign funding of NGOs. Such limitations cannot be supported in any form (the initiative is conceptually wrong and cannot be improved). The exclusion the advocacy from concept of “political activity” does not solve the problem; The limitation on involvement of the NGOs in elections is already provided by the draft Law on non-commercial organizations (art. 6) and its language is in line with international standards; If the problem is the manner of funding of political parties, the limitations should be imposed on political parties and not on NGOs (the funding generally does come through the NGO sector). NGOs are requesting for a long time to improve the regulations on funding of political parties.