OHRID_Conference_Opening_WR15102010
[Ministers,
Secretaries of State,
Ambassadors,
Ladies and Gentlemen,]
It is a great pleasure for me to be here in Ohrid on the occasion of this important event and to greet all of you on behalf of the Council of Europe.
I would like to thank the current Chairmanship of the Committee of Ministers of the
Council of Europe for having made this gathering possible.
11 years almost to the day have elapsed since 21 Council of Europe member States gathered in Strasbourg on the occasion of the first plenary meeting of the Group of
States against Corruption.
On the day of today GRECO comprises all 47 member States of the Council of
Europe, including Liechtenstein and San Marino which joined in January and August
2010 respectively. Moreover, the United States, which actively participated in the preparatory work, has been a member since 2002. This is strong evidence of the will to address corruption as a global concern.
I also trust that Belarus, which is not yet a member of the Council of Europe, will also join in due course.
The impressive expansion of the Group which has welcomed 27 new members since
1999, proves that States tend to take the fight against corruption seriously. Otherwise they would not submit themselves to a peer review process which exposes shortcomings and failures in anti-corruption endeavours and requires them to take remedial action.
Moreover, as the anti-corruption movement develops, its momentum grows and reaches – through a snowball or domino effect – across Europe and beyond to the other parts of the world Europe is engaged with.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The idea behind GRECO emerged in the mid 90s, during discussions at the 19 th and
21 st
Conferences of European Ministers of Justice. The idea was further refined during subsequent governmental expert consultations within the Multidisciplinary Group on
Corruption (GMC).
The ambitious proposal to rapidly establish an appropriate monitoring mechanism – endorsed by the Committee of Ministers in 1996 through the adoption of the
Programme of Action against Corruption - was sanctioned by the Heads of State and
Government of the member States of the Council of Europe at their 2 nd
Summit in
October 1997. GRECO was set up in 1999 and given the remit to monitor the

implementation of the standard-setting instruments adopted in pursuance of the
Committee of Ministers’ Programme of Action.
These instruments now number six. They include the Twenty Guiding Principles against Corruption of 1997, which spell out the Council of Europe’s basic approach and the 1999 Criminal Law Convention on Corruption, the first international treaty with so wide a scope. I should also like to highlight the 2003 Recommendation on
Common Rules against Corruption in the Funding of Political Parties and Electoral
Campaigns. It represents the first international legal instrument covering the critical issue of political financing.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
For the Council of Europe - and I assume the whole international anti-corruption movement - corruption remains a serious threat to the functioning of democratic institutions. It is also, ultimately, an affront to human rights which are at the very heart of the Council of Europe’s values.
For the Council of Europe, fighting corruption and safeguarding the fundamental civil and political rights enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights are two sides of the same coin. Both objectives revolve around guarding against abuses of power and position and ensuring impartiality, fairness and respect of established rules by those entrusted with a public function.
It is therefore a more than welcome development that society at large is becoming increasingly reluctant to accept graft or malpractice in public administration, or the abuse of position by elected representatives. There is also growing insistence on high standards of integrity and good governance, in both the public and the private sector. I strongly believe that GRECO has contributed and continues to contribute a great deal to this state of mind which is a conditio sine qua non of effective anti-corruption policies.
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The holding of this conference on this beautiful site is a most welcome initiative. I can only congratulate our hosts [and especially the Ministries of Justice and of Internal
Affairs] for having designed a conference programme which brings into focus three especially relevant areas of anti-corruption policy.
The identification, seizure and confiscation of corruption proceeds is one of the key issues dealt with by GRECO in the framework of its second evaluation round. It is now widely accepted that law enforcement agencies need to have adequate legal instruments so that they are able to seize proceeds from corruption as well as evidence thereof, and to recover stolen assets. It remains of crucial importance to demonstrate that crime does not pay. This is an indispensible component of a rational anticorruption policy. Despite universal recognition of this principle, demonstrated for example through the development of the United Nations Convention against
Corruption (UNCAC), GRECO’s evaluations have shown that there is no reason to be complacent: confiscation of a bribe, thus depriving the bribe-taker of the undue
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advantage received/solicited, often does not occur in practice – despite the possibilities offered by much legislation. This is frequently the result of a reluctance to carry out financial investigations and a focus on investigating the bribery offence as such without seriously attempting to make best use of the existing legal and procedural arsenal. This conference is an opportunity to take this matter further and to raise awareness of the issues at stake.
Transparency and integrity of public administration has been the central component of
GRECO’s second evaluation round. The challenges involved are clearly spelled out in
Resolution (97) 20 of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe laying down the Twenty Guiding Principles against Corruption, which serve as the Council of Europe’s – and GRECO’s – ground rules in the fight against corruption.
They underline that the organisation, functioning and decision-making processes of public administrations must take into account the need to combat corruption, in particular by ensuring as much transparency as is consistent with the need to achieve effectiveness. GRECO’s plea, expressed in a great number of evaluation reports, to facilitate and even actively promote citizens’ access to information held by public authorities, is one example of how such transparency can be achieved.
The Twenty Guiding Principles as well as GRECO’s work also highlight the need to ensure that the rules relating to the rights and duties of public officials take into account the requirements of the fight against corruption and provide for appropriate and effective disciplinary measures. They also commit governments to promoting further specification of the behaviour expected from public officials, for example in codes of conduct. In this connection GRECO has issued a rich selection of recommendations in individual country evaluations for enhancing the objectiveness and impartiality of the selection and promotion procedures in respect of public officials and for improving existing systems for preventing, detecting and managing conflicts of interest. The overarching objective must be to secure the highest standards of integrity in public administration and to fight impunity where it occurs.
The third item on the Conference agenda, the financing of political parties, is no doubt one of the most contentious issues GRECO has ever dealt with. Ms ZYPRIES, the then German Minister of Justice, who chaired one of the sessions of GRECO’s 10th
Anniversary Conference on 5 October last year expressly welcomed the fact that
GRECO had taken – and I quote – “the courageous decision to devote part of its 3rd
Evaluation Round to this important issue which – in a number of countries – is perceived as a hot potato.” She went on to stress that GRECO’s work would certainly help its member states to draw lessons for their fight against corruption in this critical area and provide concrete guidance for their reform endeavours. In light of GRECO’s findings, such endeavours are certainly needed – in particular in three key-areas, namely the transparency of the books and accounts of political parties and candidates, the monitoring of party and campaing funding, and the enforcement of the relevant funding rules. Again this Conference is an excellent opportunity to further explore some of these issues.
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Ladies and Gentlemen,
Despite many successes in the fight against corruption, it must never be forgotten that both in political life and in the economic sphere there are powerful factors prompting and encouraging corrupt practices. They include exposure to tough competition and the holding of positions which involve the exercise of considerable power – sometimes compounded by a culture of silence and favouritism.
What is more, the lingering economic and financial crisis with its negative impact on prosperity and employment, is also bound to make the life of all those who wish to play by the rules more difficult.
It remains therefore essential for States to agree – and continue to agree – to submit themselves to international scrutiny of their efforts to fight corruption.
An important policy objective of the Council of Europe and other organisations involved in the fight against corruption is to make sure that international anticorruption standards on the one hand and recommendations emanating from monitoring activities on the other are properly implemented at domestic level. In other words, implementation support, including through targeted technical assistance must be available and developed as necessary. This is one of the top-priorities of the
Council of Europe.
Taking the results of monitoring into account when designing such assistance is also of particular relevance both for an optimal use of resources and effective capacitybuilding.
As corruption increasingly goes global, international networking is more and more important. Sustained efforts must be made to further develop cooperation among international stakeholders who all share the belief that the need to combat corruption is as pressing as ever. This Conference is a good framework for such networking.
Let me conclude by affirming the Council of Europe’s strong commitment to fighting corruption in close co-operation with our domestic and international partners.
I wish this conference every success.
Thank you for your attention.
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