Balkans, Central Europe Failing to Prevent MPs’ Corruption – GRECO
Thousands of people take part in a protest rally named ‘For decent Slovakia’ on the second anniversary of the murder of Slovak journalist Jan Kuciak, in Bratislava, Slovakia, 21 February 2020. The banner reads: ‘Enough with corruption’. Photo: EPA-EFE/MARTIN DIVISEK
Serbia, Turkey and Slovakia did not fully implement any GRECO recommendations on preventing corruption among parliamentarians in 2019, the latest annual report of the Council of Europe’s Strasbourg-based Group of States Against Corruption, published on Wednesday said.
The report, covering the so-called 4th Evaluation Round, looks at corruption prevention in three categories – members of parliament, judges and prosecutors.
According to GRECO’s grading system, recommendations are implemented, partly implemented or not implemented.
According to the report, Serbia partly implemented 40 per cent of recommendations related to preventing corruption among MPs, 66.7 per cent of those related to judges and 66.7 per cent related to prosecutors.
Of 17 recommendations that it received in total, Serbia partly implemented 58.8 per cent and did not implement 41.2 per cent of them.
Turkey did not implement 70.3 per cent of 37 in total, partly implemented 18.9 per cent and fully implemented 10.8 per cent of recommendations. The country did not implement 73.4 per cent of recommendations concerning judges and prosecutors, or any recommendations related to MPs.
Of 16 recommendations Romania received in total, it implemented 37.5 per cent of them, partly implemented 25 per cent of them and did not implement 37.5 per cent of them. The situation was worst with MPs; Romania did not implement 55.6 per cent of recommendations related to them.
In Central European countries, Poland took least action. Of 22 recommendations in total, Poland implemented 36.4 per cent of them, partly implemented 22.7 per cent and did not implement 40.9 per cent of them.
It partly or totally implemented all five recommendations related to prosecutors, but has yet to implement 83.3 per cent recommendations about MPs.
Slovakia had 16 recommendations in total, of which it implemented 43.8 per cent of them totally and 37.5 per cent partly. As in Poland, the recommendations related to MPs were implemented least.
Norway scored best in terms of acting on GRECO’s recommendations.
In a press release, GRECO said that in 2019 compliance with its recommendations under the 4th evaluation round had “slightly increased, and about 36 per cent of recommendations had been fully implemented by the end of year.
The recommendations with the lowest level of compliance continued to be those in respect of MPs – 27 per cent – while it was higher in respect of judges (37 per cent) and prosecutors (46 per cent).
“This explains to a large extent why people’s trust in politics is very low and will be even lower if politicians don’t step up their compliance with integrity standards,” GRECO’s President said in press release.
