With a new action plan, Brussels wants to fight corruption – both inside and outside the European borders. On Wednesday, European Commissioner Vera Jourová (Values and Transparency) presented a series of proposals that should harmonize and strengthen the European approach to corruption in all 27 EU countries simultaneously. In addition, the European Commission also wants to draw up a new sanctions regime that is specifically aimed at punishing perpetrators of corruption in third countries.
During the press presentation, Jourová compared corruption to cancer, in which the approach should focus on prevention, “but if that fails also on appropriate treatment”. The importance of this, she says, is strongly felt by the European public: in a recent EU poll, 68 percent of respondents thought that corruption is widespread in their country and only 31 percent believed that it is effectively tackled by the government.
That is why we now have an action plan, which mainly focuses on harmonizing the definitions and punishments of various forms of corruption. Such EU coordination is now only available for bribery, and not for embezzlement, nepotism or abuse of power, for example. The fact that the definitions differ within Europe alone complicates a coordinated, cross-border approach. And partly due to different definitions of what constitutes a crime, the maximum sentences that apply also vary considerably: for ’embezzlement’, for example, from three months in prison in Spain to fifteen years in Greece.
Harmonize
Brussels wants to harmonize this with a new directive. For example, it defines ‘misappropriation’ as ‘the perpetration, disbursement, appropriation or use by a government official of property the management of which has been directly or indirectly entrusted to him contrary to the purpose for which it was intended’. The maximum penalty should be at least five years in prison.
Brussels also wants to set up a new EU network against corruption, in which Member States, the Commission, the judiciary and NGOs work together
Brussels also wants to set up a new EU network against corruption, in which Member States, the Commission, the judiciary and NGOs work together to better monitor the problem. To prevent and detect corruption, Member States are obliged to invest in awareness campaigns and improve access to government information for journalists, among others.
On Wednesday, the Commission also presented a proposal to expand the European sanctions regime, so that corruption outside the EU borders can also be tackled. That approach is somewhat similar to that in the so-called ‘Magnitsky law’, named after the Russian who died under suspicious circumstances in a Russian cell in 2009 after revealing a major tax fraud case. The law allows sanctions to be imposed on individuals involved in human rights violations. Corruption should also be able to lead to sanctions in the future, such as freezing a bank account and refusing entry to the EU.
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The crackdown on corruption comes at an uncomfortable time for Brussels, less than six months after the revelation of a major corruption scandal in the European Parliament. “I am convinced that was an individual matter,” Jourová said on Wednesday, asked how credible the EU still is in presenting these plans. Nevertheless, she stressed that strengthening the prosecution of corruption could also apply to individuals in the EU institutions. In addition, Jourová wants to introduce a long-awaited new ‘ethics body’ later this month that will clarify and tighten the existing rules for individuals in the EU institutions.