10th Anniversary of GRECO - Opening Session

Check against delivery

Speech by Aleš ZALAR, Minister of Justice of Slovenia

Strasbourg, 5 October 2009

Dear Secretary General of the Council of Europe, President of Greco, Ministers, Secretaries of State, State Secretaries, Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is a special privilege and honour to address you on this solemn occasion on behalf of the Republic of Slovenia, the present chair of the Committee of Ministers, and one of the seventeen founding members of the Group of States against Corruption (GRECO) and to express our warm welcome to all participants.

Please allow me to use this opportunity to convey my congratulations to Mr Thorbjørn Jagland on his recent election as the new Secretary General of the Council of Europe and to wish him best of luck and every success in undertaking this important and challenging post.

I am pleased that this gathering gives us the opportunity to highlight the three fields where Greco, the Council of Europe anti-corruption watchdog, as we like to call it, has achieved considerable progress: prevention of corruption in public administration, adoption of anti-corruption legislation, and encouraging more transparency of political financing. I am glad that there will also be two round-table discussions where we will address certain important issues, such as the question of co-operation of international stakeholders in the fight against corruption, and discuss future challenges and emerging subject areas.

Ten years ago, in October, the first plenary meeting of the 21 states of the Council of Europe gathered in the Group of States against Corruption was held. I wish to begin by looking back ten years and more, when the idea of setting up such a group was slowly ripening. Awareness among Council of Europe member states that corruption is a serious threat to the principles of rule of law, democracy and human rights, social peace and confidence of people in state institutions, has resulted in the agreement that an effective fight against corruption requires not only legal instruments, but also appropriate follow-up mechanisms.

Convinced that a broad approach is needed for an effective fight against corruption, the Council of Europe followed the recommendations of the Conference of Ministers of Justice in Valletta and in 1994 set up a Multidisciplinary Group on Corruption. The Group immediately began working and two years later presented the Committee of Ministers with a Programme of Action against Corruption, which envisaged the development of one or more international conventions to combat corruption and the setting up of a mechanism to follow up their implementation. In 1997 at their 21st Conference in Prague the Ministers of Justice of the Council of Europe member states called for faster implementation of the programme and the provision of an effective follow-up mechanism, open to both member and non-member states on an equal footing.

The idea of the establishment of GRECO, an international anti-corruption body within the Council of Europe, was finally realised on 1 May 1999, when seventeen member states of the Council of Europe came together.

In Resolution (99)5, establishing GRECO, we decided to introduce the provision that member States and non-member States of the Council of Europe could participate on an equal footing. Today, we are proud to announce that the Group has 46 members. We would like to see this number grow, as the more we are, the stronger we become in the fight against corruption.

In 1999, we drafted the Statute of the Group where we defined its aim – to improve the capacity of members to fight corruption by following up, through a dynamic process of mutual evaluation and peer pressure, compliance with the anti-corruption measures of the Council of Europe. States that have joined GRECO have thus agreed to participate in mutual evaluation, that is to evaluate and to be evaluated.

This mechanism of evaluation reporting and following-up of the implementation of recommendations, is without doubt the basic task of GRECO; therefore allow me to discuss briefly the three evaluation rounds carried out by GRECO (although the last has not yet been concluded).

In the first evaluation round conducted from early 2000 to the end of 2002 the group evaluated 3 of the 20 guiding principles for the fight against corruption provided for in Resolution (97)24, adopted by the Committee of Ministers in November 1997. These were: independence and autonomy, specialisation of persons or bodies in charge of fighting corruption, and limitation of immunity from investigation. The first evaluation round showed a need for member states to make improvements in their substantial law and in the implementation of adopted legislation.

The second evaluation round was conducted from January 2003 to December 2006. The fields that were evaluated were proceeds of corruption, public administration and corruption, and legal persons and corruption, as provided for by the Resolution on the 20 guiding principles and the Criminal Law Convention on Corruption. This evaluation highlighted a number of fields where improvements were necessary: effectiveness of money laundering mechanisms, determination in fighting revolving doors and pantouflage♠, whistleblower’s ² protection, and responsibility of legal persons.

The third evaluation round, which started in January 2007 and will be terminated by the end of this year, will provide an insight into how states carry out incriminations in corruption (provided for in the criminal law convention and its protocol) along with the degree of transparency of party funding provided for in the relevant recommendation of 2003. These findings will be most interesting, as the GRECO evaluation is the first mechanism looking into funding of political parties and electoral campaigns in member states.

Much work has already been accomplished. Reports by anti-corruption experts GRECO recommendations and the follow–up of recommendations have already yielded important results. In some member states constitutions have been amended while in others a significant number of laws have either been adopted or amended and specialised anti-corruption institutions established. It is not presumptuous to say that GRECO with its well-established follow-up mechanism and independent treatment of its members on an equal footing has become one of the most successful working bodies of the Council of Europe. 230 anti-corruption experts participating in the work of the group presents an impressive number.

GRECO’s policy has always been openness. Over the last ten years it has established good relations with other international organisations engaged in the fight against corruption. These include the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime where GRECO is contributing to ongoing reflection on the review of the implementation of the United Nations Convention against Corruption, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Transparency International and the European Union, where GRECO plays an important role in the enlargement process and where the European Commission often refers to GRECO’s findings on anti-corruption matters.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I have spoken about GRECO’s historical background and milestones. Permit me now to look forward and discuss some of the challenges in our fight against corruption for the future. It is imperative that the Council of Europe as the guardian of human rights, democracy and the rule of law in Europe continues to be successful in its activities to combat corruption and never stops regarding this fight as a priority. We must be aware of the fact that corruption knows no state borders, is often closely connected with organised crime and is thus an international problem that requires addressing through effective international co-operation. Countries must therefore closely co-operate in their fight against corruption and also share experience and knowledge. GRECO is certainly an appropriate platform for such exchange. Equally important is co-operation and mutual assistance between international institutions engaged in the fight against corruption, as this helps prevent unnecessary duplication of effort and resources. Important objectives have already been achieved, but close co-operation will be even more important in the future, as in the uncertain global economic situation and with a general rise of crime we may expect an extension of corruption and organised crime.

Let me conclude by wishing you a successful conference. The issues that you will address are of the utmost importance, and I hope that your discussions will be fruitful and the conclusions far-reaching.

Thank you for your attention.
♠ A practice where a person changes positions between the private and the public sphere and takes advantage of the position he/she held in public service to gain profit in his or her present position.
² A whistleblower is an employee or a third person who exposes illegal or negligent acts in an organisation, a government body or a company, when such acts are to the detriment of public interest or integrity.