Following the recently approved Decisions and Instruction by the Central Election Commission (CEC) regulating the procedure for audit and verification of political party and election campaign expenses, the audit templates of funds received and spent by political parties and candidates and on the use of propaganda materials and places for display during the election campaign, a training for the CEC staff, financial experts and auditors, and representatives of the Institute of Authorised Chartered Experts took place in Vlora on 2 and 3 May 2019.

Participants had the opportunity to learn about the application of the template reports for auditing election campaign finance reports, financial expert monitoring reports and political party annual reports. In addition, the Council of Europe expert provided guidelines and tools for auditing the different types of reports and presented several case studies which are discussed in working groups.

The three templates will help the auditors and financial experts carry out their tasks in a consistent, comprehensive and systematic manner and will also assist political parties and candidates to comply with the requirements according to the legislation in force by reporting accurately their financial transactions to the Central Election Commission.

The workshop was organised within the Action against Economic Crime in Albania, a part of the Horizontal Facility programme, co-financed by the European Union and the Council of Europe and implemented by the Council of Europe.