Bonne gouvernance et corruption[en] 

Article 29 of the EU Treaty lists the prevention and combating of corruption as one objective enabling the creation of a European area of freedom, security and justice. It foresees closer judicial, police and customs cooperation, as well as approximation of criminal law in order to fight corruption.

The action plan against organised crime, adopted by the Council in 1997, advocates a comprehensive policy against corruption. Responding to this political guideline, the Commission presented a Communication in the same year suggesting a range of measures with a view to formulating an EU strategy on corruption. The proposed measures include: banning of tax deductibility of bribes, rules on public procurement procedures, int roduction of accounting and auditing standards, blacklisting of corrupt companies and measures in the Union’s external aid and assistance scheme.

The 1999 Tampere European Council identified corruption as one of the sectors of particular relevance where common definitions, incriminations and sanctions should be agreed upon. In line with the Tampere conclusions, the Millennium Strategy on the Prevention and Control of Organised Crime of March 2004 reiterated the need for instruments aimed at the approximation of national legislation and developing a more general EU policy towards corruption.

To date, the EU has adopted the following legal instruments and measures to combat corruption:

• Convention on the protection of the European Communities’ financial interests (entered into force on 17 October 2002);
• Convention on the fight against corruption involving officials of the European Communities or officials of the EU Member States (not yet ratified);
• European Anti-fraud Office (OLAF) was set up to address corruption within EU institutions.

In addition to that, the OECD Convention on combating bribery of foreign public officials in international business transactions and the Criminal Law Convention on Corruption of the Council of Europe are already in force, the latter still lacking ratification instruments of most EU Member States.

In 2000, the UN General Assembly decided to mandate an ad-hoc committee with the elaboration of an international legal instrument against corruption, the future UN Convention against corruption. If agreed, this will have far-reaching implications for the world-wide fight against corruption.

In its Communication on a comprehensive EU policy against corruption, released in May 2003, the European Commission states that the future EU policy on corruption should consist of the following core elements:

• A strong political commitment against all forms of corruption should come from the highest level of EU institutions.
• The implementation of existing anti-corruption instruments should be closely monitored and strengthened for the time being through the adhesion of the European Community to one or both Conventions on Corruption of the Council of Europe and the participation in its monitoring mechanism GRECO.
• EU Member States should develop and improve investigative tools and allocate more specialised staff to the fight against corruption.
• Member States and EU institutions and bodies should enhance efforts to combat corruption damaging the financial interests of the European Community.
• Common integrity standards in public administrations across the EU such as the Common Assessment Framework of EU Heads of Civil Service and Public Administration should be further developed at EU level.
• Member States and the Commission should support the private sector in its efforts to raise integrity and corporate responsibility.
• The fight against political corruption and illicit financing of social partner entities and other interest groups needs to be strengthened at EU and Member States level.
• In their permanent dialogue with acceding, candidate and other third countries, the Member States and the Commission should systematically include corruption-related issues and further assist these countries in their efforts to set-up and implement national anti-corruption policies.
• The EU should continue making the fight against corruption an integral part of its external and trade policy.

International anticorruption initiatives

In its resolution 55/61 of 4 December 2000, the United Nations G eneral Assembly recognised that an effective international legal instrument against corruption, independent of the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime was desirable. Consequently, the UN set up a Committee for the Negotiation of a Convention against Corruption in December 2001. The UN states that corruption causes reduced investment or even disinvestment, with many long-term effects, including social polarisation, lack of respect for human rights, undemocratic practices and diversion of funds intended for development and essential services. The diversion of scarce resources by corrupt parties affects a government's ability to provide basic services to its citizens and to encourage sustainable economic, social and political development. Moreover, it can jeopardize the health and safety of citizens through, for example, poorly designed infrastructure projects and scarce or outdated medical supplies.

The World Bank has identified corruption as "the single greatest obstacle to economic and social development". It undermines development by distorting the rule of law and weakening the institutional foundation on which economic growth depends. The harmful effects of corruption are especially severe on the poor, who are hardest hit by economic decline, are most reliant on the provision of public services, and are least capable of paying the extra costs associated with bribery, fraud, and the misappropriation of economic privileges. Since 1996, the World Bank has supported more than 600 anticorruption programs and governance initiatives developed by its member countries.  

Transparency International, an international anticorruption NGO, focused its Global Corruption Report 2003 on access to information and called for corporate governance reforms after the Enron scandal. The report underlines the media's role in the fight against corruption, calls for better access to government-held information and states that companies are somewhat less likely to bribe now than before. However, the the report warns: "Freedom of information is not enough. However professionally and accurately information is processed, corruption will continue to thrive without the vigilance of the media and civil society, and the bravery of investigative journalists and whistleblowers."

The Council of Europe Criminal Law Convention on Corruption entered into force on 1 July 2002. The Convention aims at developing common standards concerning certain corruption offences, though it does not provide a uniform definition of corruption. In addition, it deals with substantive and procedural law matters, which closely relate to these corruption offences and seeks to improve international co-operation.

The Group of States against Corruption – GRECO was set up by the Council of Europe on 1 May 1999. According to its Statute, the aim of the GRECO is to improve its members' capacity to fight corruption by monitoring the compliance of States with their undertakings in this field. In this way, it will contribute to identifying deficiencies and insufficiencies of national mechanisms against corruption, and to prompting the necessary legislative, institutional and practical reforms in order to better prevent and combat corruption.

The OECD Convention on Combating Bribery of Officials in International Business Transactions, adopted by 21 November 1997, deals with "active corruption" or "active bribery", meaning the offence committed by the person who promises or gives the bribe, as contrasted with "passive bribery", the offence committed by the official who receives the bribe.

European corruption cases

French politician Edith Cresson is the first former European Commissioner to be charged with corruption during her time in office. She was charged in March 2003 by a Belgian investigating magistrate with counterfeiting and personally benefiting from EU contracts. Ms Cresson, who was education commissioner from 1995-1999, stands accused for the hiring of her dentist Rene Berthelot, who was allegedly paid hundreds of thousands of francs in fictitious salaries as a scientific consultant. The Commission is also seeking explanations from Ms Cresson over fraud allegations, which led to the first ever mass resignation of the Commission in 1999.

In July 2003, the Commission again came under fire for a case of alleged fraud at its statistics office, the Eurostat. While the Commission's own Internal Audit Service is continuing its inquiry into the Eurostat case and the EU's independent anti-fraud office OLAF is expected to finalise its inquiry in October, the European Parliament will question the Commission President Romani Prodi over the affair. Mr Prodi is scheduled to appear in front of the Parliament's Conference of Presidents on 25 September 2003 to report on the results of the internal investigation by a special Commission Task Force into the Eurostat affair. The Commission took a number of precautionary measures in the Eurostat case in July when the affair first broke out. The director general of Eurostat was replaced and he is facing disciplinary action together with two of his deputies. Six other directors were moved temporarily from their duties.