The accession of new countries to the European Union brings with it many challenges. Among them, for example, the issue of transparency in the disbursement of funds intended to support their path of adjustment to EU standards. This was also discussed at a meeting with the Moldovan coalition of public procurement monitors on 13 December.

Our Moldovan partners are working under the leadership of the Institute for Development and Social Initiatives (IDIS) "Viitorul" in cooperation with the Partnership for Transparency Fund, who were also the organisers of the event. The coalition was established in June 2023 and its mission is to strengthen and coordinate the efforts of CSOs that monitor public procurement in the process of participating in dialogue with public authorities. The Coalition aims to ensure the synergy of the efforts of civil society monitoring public procurement in identifying problems and proposing solutions to the relevant public authorities.

Moldovan activists are looking, among other things, at public procurement in the area of health care, but were also very interested in cooperating in monitoring the transparency of EU spending. As a reminder, Moldova has recently been formally invited to the accession process and we can expect an increase of funds allocated to the country from the EU budget.

Krzysztof Izdebski, Co-Lead of Open Spending EU Coalition was asked to introduce the network and talk about inspiring examples of monitoring of public spending. In addition to examples of RFF spending transparency monitoring, he also presented the activities of OSEUC members Monithon, Transparency International, and K-Monitor.

We will return to further discussions in January, but if you have ideas on how best to ensure the transparency of accession spending and what should be systemically improved, we encourage you to contact us now.