GRECO (Group of States against Corruption). Third Evaluation Round. Evaluation Report on Italy, “Transparency of Party Funding” (Theme II), adopted by GRECO at its 54th Plenary Meeting (Strasbourg, 20-23 March 2012) (GRECO Eval III (2011) 7E, Theme II)

After its visit to Italy in 2011, the GRECO noted that, following notorious scandals concerning the illegal financing of political parties in the 1990s, the Italian system was significantly upgraded to enhance the transparency. However, a number of important deficiencies remained. The GRECO recommended Italy, inter alia, to initiate a legislative reform process that provides for rules on the legal status of political parties; to introduce a general ban on donations from donors whose identity is not known and lower the current threshold of donations above which the identity of the donor is to be disclosed (namely, 20,000 EUR for donations made to individual candidates, and 50,000 EUR for donations made to political parties); to take measures to increase the transparency of income and expenditure of entities, related directly or indirectly, to political parties and of parliamentary groups; to review the existing administrative and criminal sanctions relating to infringements of political financing rules in order to ensure that they are effective, proportionate and dissuasive.