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Slovenia		 EU accession: the Copenhagen political criteria in ten Central and East European countries
 
Corruption
 
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Corruption
by country
Bulgaria
Czech Republic
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Hungary
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Lithuania
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Slovenia
Goal of the project
The project aims to produce a report on corruption in each of the ten countries. The country reports will give a thorough and in-depth picture of the state of corruption in each country. Reports will cover a series of corruption indicators in detail. This involves investigating a selected number of areas of practice within significant national institutions. Broadly these are:


Corruption Indicators:
 
Institutes:
  • Supreme Audit Institutions 
  • Legislature 
  • Executive 
  • Judiciary
  • Civil Service
  • Investigative/watchdog agencies
  • Ombudsman
  • Public Sector records
  • Public procurement
  • Police and Prosecutors

    • Media
 Areas of practice:
  • Procedures governing appointments, conflicts of interest, dismissals, composition of national bodies.
  • Existence and transparency of public accounts control committees.
  • Budget monitoring and approval.
  • Independence and accountability of national bodies.
  • Public register of gifts and hospitality received by officials.
  • Publication and transparency of audits, administrative decisions, investigative reports, complaints.
  • Procedures governing licensing, procurement, privatisation.
  • Public service conditions: salaries, benefits, compensation, training, codes of conduct.

Legal Framework
1) International instruments: 2) Domestic laws in each country to provide appropriate standards for competitive bidding, conflict of interest, public disclosure, whistle-blowing, etc.

3) Other relevant international conventions and agreements include:

Other UN materials:
Institutes: Organisations combating corruption
  • Transparency International (TI) is a Berlin-based "non-governmental organisation dedicated to increasing government accountability and curbing both international and national corruption". As their mission statement declares, they aim to fight corruption and bribery in international business transactions through international and national coalitions encouraging governments to establish and implement effective laws, policies and anti-corruption programs. TI has more than seventy national chapters combating corruption at the national level, and the organisation co-operates with international organizations, including the OECD, in actions against bribery and corruption. Among their key initiatives have been the Corruption  Perceptions Index, a comparative scale of perceived corruption world-wide, and the development of "national integrity systems". TI are also monitoring the implementation of the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention.

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    OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development). The OECD initiated a major international offensive against corruption with their Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions. The Convention went into effect on February 15, 1999, and makes it a crime to offer, promise or give a bribe to a foreign public official in order to obtain or retain international business deals. A related text effectively puts an end to the practice according tax deductibility for bribe payments made to foreign officials. More information is available at their Anti-Corruption Unit website. The OECD have also established an Anti-Corruption Ring, intended as a knowledge base. Together with USAID the OECD founded the Anti-Corruption Network for Transition Economies (see below), and their SIGMA good governance initiative, in collaboration with the EU and Transparency International, also has an anti-corruption element.
     

  • The World Bank: Corruption is addressed by the World Bank as an economic and development concern. The Bank has two main units in the areas of combating corruption, Anti-Corruption Knowledge Centre and the Governance and Anti-Corruption Resource Centre. The former deals with preventing fraud and corruption within bank-financed projects, helping countries in their efforts to reduce corruption by advising on economic policy reform and strengthening institutional capability, and supporting international efforts to reduce corruption. The latter centre produces working papers, data, methodologies and guidelines in measuring and fighting corruption. A selection of relevant papers is listed below.

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  • The UN Centre for International Crime Prevention (CICP), the Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention (ODCCP), Vienna, jointly with the United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute (UNICRI), Rome, have elaborated a Global Programme against Corruption.

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  • European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). EBRD anti-corruption activities focus on the promotion of integrity of the investment environment in the Bank’s countries of operations. The Bank has issued corporate governance guidelines to set standards and to promote collective action among domestic and foreign investors and developed a programme to work with governments of the region to assist in the development of laws and institutions which enhance transparency and accountability with particular emphasis on bankruptcy, concessions, corporate governance and regulation of capital markets, secured transactions and regulatory reform.

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  • COLPI  The Constitutional and Legal Policy Institute (COLPI), based in Budapest and affiliated with the Open Society Institute, aims to "contribute to the development of open societies in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and Mongolia through legal reform and support of basic rights and modern democratic institutions". COLPI has launched a number of anti-corruption initiatives. 
Practice
Working Papers and Reports

Transparency International working papers:

World Bank working papers: 

[NB: The World Bank features a dataset of cross-country governance measures as part of the 'Governance Matters' project.]


Conference papers

Papers from the CEU - Princeton University Joint Conference on Corruption (Budapest, Oct 29 - Nov 6, 1999)


Papers from the 9th International Anti-Corruption Conference (Durban, 10-15 October, 1999)
 

Papers from the First Global Forum on Fighting Corruption, Washiongton DC, February 24-26, 1999

Other resources sites:

  • SIGMA - Support for Improvement in Governance and Management in Central and Eastern European Countries. The initiative supports public administration reform efforts in thirteen countries in transition, and is principally financed by the EU Phare Programme. SIGMA offers beneficiary countries access to a network of experienced public administrators, comparative information, and technical knowledge connected with the Public Management Service.
  • Respondanet - A USAID funded initiative aimed at providing resources to NGOs fighting corruption. It has a useful news finder.
  • Strategic Road - a sprawling bilingual site with plenty of useful links and information.
  • The Anti-Corruption Network for Transition Economies. A joint OECD-USAID initiative, this site is especially good in its country focus on Central and Eastern Europe. It provides some legal background for a number of countries and a directory of regional contact points. 
EU policy on corruption
In May 1997, the European Commission adopted a Communication to the Council and the European Parliament on a Union Policy Against Corruption. This communication sets out the EC’s policy on corruption inside the European Union as well as in its relations with non-member countries. The communication deals with a number of actions, including the ratification of conventions criminalising the active and passive corruption of EC officials and officials of member countries, eliminating the tax deductibility of bribes, reforming public procurement and auditing systems. For non member countries, the European Union’s policy aims at establishing anti-corruption programs with countries that have concluded co-operation or assistance agreements with the EC. 

The following extract is taken from a document submitted to the First Global Forum on Fighting Corruption, February 1999:
 

Union Policy Against Corruption

Within the Union there is a recognition that to fight corruption effectively a criminal law response is valuable but not sufficient. An integrated anti-corruption policy is required. This was recognised by the European Parliament in its resolution of 15 December 1995 which
stressed the threat posed by corruption and its links with organised crime, and called for a Union policy against corruption. The Action Plan against Organised Crime endorsed by the European Council in June 1997 also called for a comprehensive policy against corruption. At the same time, work on strategies against corruption were under discussion at G7, OECD, Council of Europe, United Nations and the WTO.

In response to, and in anticipation of those developments, in May 1997 the European Commission issued a communication to the Council and the European Parliament on a Union Policy against Corruption. That communication recognised that Union interests are affected by corruption because it:

  • undermines sound decision making
  • distorts competition and challenges principles of open and free markets, in particular the proper functioning of the internal market
  • damages the financial interests of the European Community
  • adversely affects external policies in respect of a number of states receiving assistance 
  • is at variance with the transparent and open conduct of international trade.
The Union therefore has an interest in a coherent strategy on corruption both within and outside its borders, which should encompass international trade and competition, development cooperation policies and the pre-accession strategy to prepare new Member States for EU membership. The communication endorses the criminal law response to corruption taken within the Union as well as work in progress in other international fora such as OECD and Council of Europe. It also proposes a comprehensive strategy involving preventive measures across a range of community activities. These include measures related to taxation policy and the question of the abolition of tax deductibility for bribes within the Member States. In relation to the Single Market and other internal policies, measure!: include examination of how the application of public procurement provisions can be improved to fight corruption, how accounting and auditing directives can be made more effective in the fight against corruption, and how persons or entities who have engaged in corruption can be excluded from benefiting from Community funds.

In relation to external aid and assistance, the communication argues for the establishment of a coherent anti-corruption policy in the area of cooperation with third countries benefiting from EC assistance and who have concluded cooperation or assistance agreement with the EC. The strategy includes promotion of transparency, good governance, an independent judiciary and provides technical assistance for establishing appropriate legislation, efficient procurement and control mechanisms.

Of particular importance is the anti-corruption programme for applicant countries of Central and Eastern Europe. In the framework of Europe Agreements and the Accession Partnership, initiatives are under way under the PHARE programme to improve the fight against organised crime in the applicant countries. These include programmes which have a specific anti-corruption focus such as the Catch-up Facility for the countries of Bulgaria, Rumania, Lithuania, Latvia, Slovakia, and the OCTOPUS II programme jointly financed with the Council of Europe. This programme is intended as an important element in contributing to the setting up of a legal and institutional framework for enabling the countries of Central and Eastern Europe to combat corruption.

In response to the call in the Action Plan on combating organised crime for a comprehensive EU policy against corruption, a report on the implementation of the Commission’s communication on Corruption was submitted to the European Council in Cardiff in 1998 together with a report on the criminal law response. The European Parliament in a resolution of 6 October 1998 also supported the Commission’s communication on a Union Policy against Corruption and asked the Commission to submit to it before the end of 1999 a timetable for its implementation.
 

The Council of Europe

The Council of Europe's Criminal Convention on Corruption was opened to signature on January 27 1999. The Convention adopts a very broad concept of corruption, to include trafficking in influence, as well as, all passive and active forms of domestic and foreign bribery in both the public and private sector. The Criminal Law Convention also provides for a follow-up monitoring mechanism, the Group of States Against Corruption (GRECO) outlined in the GRECO Agreement, which entered into force on May 1, 1999. The Council of Europe's Multidisciplinary Group on Corruption has completed work on a Civil Convention on Corruption. 

Corruption and Enlargement:

In its 1997 Opinions on the ten accession countries and in subsequent regular reports the European Commission has appealed to most countries to persist in the fight against corruption. A search for anti-corruption programmes on the Phare Programme Search Utility yields a total of 18 programmes with an anti-corruption component. An overview of each of these programmes is given in the country pages as well as the relevant extracts from the Opinions and Regular Reports. We also link to relevant organisations in each country, documentation (although it is sparse), and where possible legislation. 
 
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