Council of Europe

• Council of Europe
• Human Rights and Rule of Law
• Group of States against corruption (GRECO)

News Flash - 22 August 2006

GRECO concludes non-compliance procedure against Georgia

The Council of Europe’s anti-corruption monitoring mechanism, the Group of States against Corruption (GRECO) has published today its Final Overall Assessment Report on Georgia’s compliance with the recommendations addressed to the country in June 2001 in the framework of GRECO’s First Evaluation Round. This report concludes the non-compliance procedure in respect of Georgia. It has been made public with the agreement of the Georgian authorities.

Up until now Georgia is the only member of GRECO in respect of which a non-compliance procedure has been initiated. This procedure required Georgia to provide GRECO as from April 2004 with regular reports on the progress made in implementing the recommendations of the First Evaluation Round. The Final Overall Assessment now concludes that - despite the disappointingly slow pace of implementation of the recommendations in the first years after the adoption of the initial evaluation report - sufficient progress appears to have been made to allow GRECO to formally terminate the non-compliance procedure. GRECO nevertheless urges the Georgian authorities to pursue their anti-corruption efforts in a vigorous manner and, above all, to implement their Anti-Corruption Strategy and related Action Plan. GRECO also stresses the need for the active involvement of civil society in this process.

The initial evaluation report of June 2001 and the subsequent compliance report of December 2003 are available at GRECO’s homepage (www.greco.coe.int).