ANTI-CORRUPTION AND EUROPEAN COMMISSION RECOMMENDATIONS TO MEMBER STATES

1. Austria

• Ensure the necessary resources to specialised prosecutors for processing corruption cases.
• Make access to bank account information easier, in cases of suspicion of corruption, would also make the prosecution of bribery more effective.
• Introduce a monitoring mechanism for checking declarations of assets for elected and appointed senior officials.

2. Belgium

• Implement ethical rules for all appointed and elected officials at federal, regional and local levels.
• Increase the capacity of the justice system and law enforcement to make sure that corruption cases are prosecuted before their time limits run out.
• Extend anticorruption legislation on party funding to parties that do not receive federal subsidies.

3. Bulgaria

• Shield anti-corruption institutions from political influence and appoint their management in a transparent, merit-based procedure.
• Random assignment of cases in courts should be ensured by an effective nationwide system.
• Adopt a code of ethics for members of the National Assembly
• Enforcement of dissuasive sanctions for corruption in public procurement at national and local level.

4. Cyprus

• Streamline procedures to ensure effective investigations of corruption within the police.
• Introduce Codes of conduct for elected and appointed officials in order to declare assets periodically.
• Restrain the possibility of state-owned companies to sponsor political events
• Regulates donations to election candidates
• Oblige parties to publish financial information online.

5. Croatia

• Develop codes of conduct for elected officials at central and local levels with adequate accountability tools,
• Carry out substantial checks of asset declarations and conflicts of interests of public officials
• Establish an effective mechanism for prevention of corruption in state-owned and state-controlled companies.
• Implement a strategy for preventing corruption in public procurement, including with regard to the healthcare sector
• Ensure protection mechanisms for whistleblowers who report corruption.

6. Czech Republic

• Put in place legislation covering conflicts of interest in the civil service be, also covering merit-based recruitment and guarantees against arbitrary dismissal.
• Make public in annual financial reports electoral campaign expenditures and donations
• Strengthen the ability of prosecutors to handle corruption cases in an independent manner.

7. Denmark

• Further improve the transparency and supervisory mechanisms of the financing of political parties and individual candidates.
• Undertake further efforts fight foreign bribery, by, for example, raising the level of fines for corporations.

8. Estonia

• Improve transparency and oversight of the financing of political parties, as well as of public procurement.
• Adopt a code of conduct for Members of Parliament, accompanied by an efficient mechanism of supervision and sanctions.

9. Finland

• Oblige municipalities and regions to secure transparency in public contracts with private entrepreneurs.
• The Anti-corruption Unit of the National Bureau of Investigations should effectively support investigations of corruption-related crimes, and coordinate anti-corruption procedures between government agencies.

10. France

• Conduct a comprehensive assessment to identify risks at local level
• Set priorities for anti-corruption measures related to public procurement
• Improve the legislation on foreign bribery
• Address the recommendations on party funding that have been raised by the Council of Europe
• Make efforts to increase the operational independence of prosecutors.

11. Germany

• Introduce of strict penalties for corruption of elected officials
• Develop a policy to deal with the 'revolving door' phenomenon, where officials leave office to work for companies they may have recently helped
• Increase awareness of the risks of foreign bribery amongst small and medium sized enterprises
• Address concerns over the way election campaigns are financed.

12. Greece

• Greater oversight in public procurement
• Carry out the sector-specific plans
• Strengthen the work of the anti-corruption coordinator
• Increase supervision of party funding
• Increased supervision of declarations of interests by politicians
• Revisit the issue of immunity

13. Hungary

• Financing of political parties
• Control mechanisms surrounding public procurement procedures
• Conflicts of interest among public officials
• Strengthen accountability standards for elected and appointed officials
• Deal with risks concerning favouritism in public administration
• Progressively eliminate the practice of gratitude payments in the healthcare sector.

14. Ireland

• Improve the capacity to prosecute and punish corruption cases in a timely manner
• Address the few remaining concerns around the funding of political parties, election and referendum campaigns and corruption risks related to conflicts of interest at local level, as well as in the area of urban planning.

15. Italy

• Strengthen the integrity regime for elected officials through ethical codes, including accountability tools
• Reinforce the legal and institutional framework on party funding.
• Address the deficiencies of the statute of limitation regime without delay
• Reinforce the powers and capacity of the National Anti-Corruption Agency to perform a strong coordination role, enhances transparency around public procurement and takes further steps to address shortcomings regarding corruption in the private sector.
• More efforts required with regard to conflicts of interest and asset disclosure of public officials, as well as control mechanisms around local and regional public spending.

16. Latvia

• Build on the achievements of the Bureau for combating and preventing corruption (KNAB) by strengthening its independence and protecting it from potential political interference.
• Promote e-procurement techniques and greater competition for public contracts
• Improve transparency of state-owned companies
• Apply Parliament's Code of Ethics more rigorously.

17. Lithuania

• Prioritise the prosecution of larger cases
• Develop prevention tools to detect corruption in procurement, focusing on the local level and the healthcare sector.
• Develop a strategy against informal payments in healthcare
• Improve the control of declarations of conflicts of interest made by elected and appointed officials.
• Improve the transparency of political party financing

18. Luxembourg

• Clarify accounting obligations and political parties’ accounting duties
• Introduce a supervisory mechanism for political campaign accounts
• Improve the rules on conflicts of interests
• Adopt legislation on access to public information
• Increase resources used to combat financial and economic crime

19. Malta

• Review the financing of political parties, which remains largely unregulated
• Improve coordination among the institutions investigating corruption to ensure the effective collection of evidence
• Improve the transparency of judicial appointments, and of decision-making in environmental planning.

20. The Netherlands

• Extend the categories of assets of elected officials that must be declared
• Concentrate on prosecuting cases of corruption in international business transactions, by increasing the capacity to proactively investigate foreign bribery.

21. Poland

• Implement a long-term strategy against corruption, listing specific actions, the timeframe and resources for their implementation, and those responsible
• Reforms are needed to safeguard the transparency of public procurement and healthcare
• Strengthen safeguards against potential politicisation of the Central Anti-Corruption Bureau (CBA)
• Strengthen Anti-corruption measures around the supervision of state-owned companies.

22. Portugal

• Ensure that law enforcement, prosecution and judiciary are well equipped to effectively deal with complex corruption cases, and establishes a convincing track record of corruption cases. Undertake further preventive action against corrupt practices in party funding
• Develop codes of conduct for elected officials
• Further efforts needed to adequately address conflicts of interests and asset disclosure of officials at local levels.
• Strengthen transparency and control mechanisms around public procurement procedures
• Identify risk factors for corruption in local urban planning decisions.

23. Romania

• Ensure that all necessary guarantees remain in place to safeguard the independence and continuation of non-partisan investigations into high-level corruption cases, including with regard to elected and appointed officials
• Develop comprehensive codes of conduct for elected officials and that dissuasive sanctions for corrupt practices are ensured
• Strengthen prevention and control mechanisms with regard to public procurement and public contracts including in state-owned and state-controlled companies
• Increase the efficiency of prevention and detection of conflicts of interest among public officials
• Strengthen safeguards when it comes to allocation of public funding
• Carry out strategies to reduce corruption in healthcare

24. Slovakia

• Strengthen the independence of the judiciary, in particular by specifying criteria for when presidents and vice-presidents of courts can be removed from office
• Increase transparency of party funding at local and regional levels
• Strengthen control mechanisms to prevent conflicts of interest

25. Slovenia

• Apply dissuasive penalties to elected and appointed officials for when requirements to disclose assets and conflicts of interests are breached and take further steps to strengthen accountability standards for elected officials
• Safeguard the operational independence and resources of anti-corruption bodies and prosecution services specialized in combating financial crime
• Strengthen anti-corruption mechanisms concerning state-owned and state–controlled companies, as well as around public procurement and privatisation procedures
• Ensure effective supervision of party funding.

26. Spain

• Develop tailor-made anti-corruption strategies for regional and local levels administrations Pursue on-going reforms and implementation of the new rules on party funding
• Develop comprehensive codes of conduct for elected officials with adequate accountability tools are developed
• Address further irregularities in public procurement procedures at regional and local levels

27. Sweden

• Municipalities and county councils should be obliged to secure transparency in public contracts with private entrepreneurs
• The level of fines for corporations committing foreign bribery should be raised, and that liability should be triggered even if the crime has been committed by intermediaries or third-party agents
• Consider reviewing the provision of dual criminality, whereby an offence has to be a crime under the law of the country in which it has allegedly been committed
• Improve the transparency of financing of political parties further, by considering a general ban on donations from donors whose identity is not known.

28. United Kingdom

• Ensure transparency in out-of-court settlements in corruption cases
• Further strengthen the accountability in the governance of banks can also be further strengthened
• Cap donations to political parties
• Impose limits on electoral campaign spending
• Ensure proactive monitoring and prosecution of potential violations.