In a new report which evaluates the effectiveness of Monaco’s framework for preventing corruption among persons with top executive functions and members of law enforcement agencies, the Council of Europe’s Group of States against Corruption (GRECO) calls on Monaco to take resolute steps to supplement and extend the recent legislation applicable to members of the government in order to make the anticorruption system more consistent and provide all the requisite guarantees of integrity.
GRECO recommends that the rules of ethics and the obligation to declare interests and assets be made applicable to the persons who work most closely with ministers, to the Secretary of State for Justice and to the Prince’s advisers. For all of the most senior posts in the executive, these rules need to be supplemented with better assessment of the integrity of appointees, greater transparency of their activity and more monitoring of compliance with the rules, as well as a system of penalties. The rules on outside activities and jobs taken after leaving office also need to be made clearer.
Given that the Sovereign Prince actually performs key executive functions, GRECO also recommends that some of these transparency and integrity measures be made applicable to the Head of State, in particular those relating to contact between him and third parties and gifts received in the course of his executive functions, prevention of conflicts of interest and the use of public funds allocated to the running of the Sovereign household.
