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GRECO's 9th General Activity Report, 2008

On 26 March 2009, the Council of Europe’s Group of States against Corruption (GRECO), comprising 46 Member States, published its Ninth General Activity Report (2008).  It had prior been presented to the Committee of Ministers by the President of GRECO, Drago Kos.

GRECO’s concept is based on reciprocal observation, evaluation and peer pressure by experts (principle of peer review). In 2008 alone, GRECO carried out twelve on-site evaluation visits, adopted twelve evaluation reports and some 20 compliance reports. The evaluation reports contain a wealth of factual information on the situation in the member states concerned, an expert appraisal of shortcomings and tailor made recommendations for improvements. Compliance reports provide a detailed assessment of measures taken to implement recommendations and, in a number of cases, describe examples of good practices in the fight against corruption.

In addition to a detailed account of co-operation with other key players in the international fight against corruption, the report for 2008 also contains a feature article on the independent monitoring of political financing. The report states that, while effective monitoring bodies share common elements, there is no ideal political finance regime that can be transposed from country to country. In order to succeed in fighting corruption in political financing, regulations and organisational structures need to build upon a country's specific constitutional, legal and democratic traditions and to ensure, above all, an appropriate level of transparency.

The first official exchange of views between GRECO and EPAC held in 2008 (during GRECO’s 37^th Plenary Meeting) was with Martin Kreutner, Chair of the European Partners against Corruption (EPAC). According to the report, the activities of EPAC, which gathered representatives from European Union national Police Oversight Bodies and Anti-Corruption Agencies, focused on the sharing of experience at operational (as opposed to political) level and can be considered as being complementary to the work of GRECO. The GRECO report also points out that the establishment of a catalogue of practitioners who could act as contact partners has facilitated, among other things, the identification of common standards and best practices, the implementation of international standards, and exchanges of experience on prevention and education.

 GRECOs 9th General Activity Report, 2008