Studie der Nichtregierungsorganisation Transparency International zu Korruption in der EU, 24.4.2014 (engl. Originalfassung)
Can we be sure that the EU institutions are free of the corruption risks present at the national level? Public trust in the EU institutions is low, and recent scandals have called into question EU integrity. The Transparency International EU Office presents the first ever comprehensive review of corruption and integrity risks in the EU institutions - the EU Integrity System report – to separate myth from reality and put forward recommendations for reform.
Corruption is a constant threat to the integrity of public decision-making throughout the EU. That was made clear by a recent report published by the European Commission, which details the extent of corruption in all 28 EU member states and points to high-risk areas such as political party financing, the allocation of government contracts, and parliamentarians’ conflicts of interest. The report echoed the findings of a series of national studies carried out by Transparency International, which also identified corruption risks in the close links between politics and business, poor protection for whistle-blowers, and barriers to accessing information on public bodies.
The Commission’s report was missing a 29th chapter however – one on the EU institutions themselves. In showing that no-one’s house is completely in order, the report begged an obvious question: if these risks exist at the national level, how certain can we be that the institutions and structures of the European Union are corruption-free?
European citizens are not so sure: a 2014 Eurobarometer survey revealed that 70% of the EU public think that corruption is present within the EU institutions. This is a majority view in all but six member states, with the figures as high as 84% in Sweden, and 82% in Germany. Moreover, 52% of Europeans don't think that the institutions help in reducing corruption in Europe.
Recent high-profile scandals – such as the 2011 'cash for amendments' case involving the lobbying of members of the European Parliament, and allegations of bribery involving a European Commissioner in 2012 – have only served to feed this negative perception of the institutions.
With an annual EU budget of approximately 140 billion EUR, and a large volume of legislation passing through ‘Brussels’ every year, including far-reaching bank reforms, the stakes of ignoring weaknesses in anti-corruption safeguards are high.
Consequently, myth and perception need to be separated from reality. With public confidence in the institutions at historically low levels, what is needed is an objective, independent assessment of whether EU decision-making and finances are effectively protected from corruption. This report aims to provide such an assessment.
The EU Integrity System (EUIS) report is the first, comprehensive analysis of how EU institutions promote integrity, how they deal with the risk of corruption and how their policies help the fight against corruption in Europe. It looks at both the rules in place and the practice in ten EU institutions and bodies. It is the first study of its kind, and the result of research conducted by the Transparency International EU Office over a nine month period in 2013 and 2014.
The report finds that there is a good foundation in the EU system to support integrity and ethics; a foundation provided by the general policies and rules adopted to prevent fraud and corruption. There are a wide range of provisions already in place to protect EU institutions and those working for them from undue influence; to give the public a right of access to EU information; and to enable suspected maladministration, fraud and corruption to be investigated. Citizens and businesses also have the opportunity to submit complaints or request judicial review of EU decisions affecting them. All these channels are being actively used in practice and have proven to function well on the whole, albeit with some variation between institutions.
However this foundation is often undermined by poor practice, lack of political leadership, failure to allocate sufficient staff and funding, and unclarity about to whom the rules apply. The result is that despite improvements to the overall framework, corruption risks persist at the EU level. The most urgent of these include opacity in EU law-making and in EU lobbying, poorly managed conflicts of interest, weak protection for EU whistle-blowers, and weak sanctions for corrupt companies.
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