The Council of Europe anti-corruption body (GRECO) is organising a High Level conference in Strasbourg on 20 March to discuss the prevention of corruption in top governmental functions and law enforcement agencies.
Speakers include Deputy Secretary General Gabriella Battaini-Dragoni, Attorney General of Cyprus Costas Clerides, Parliamentary Assembly rapporteur on corruption Michele Nicoletti, European Commission Anti-Fraud Office Director General Giovanni Kessler, Chief Anti-corruption prosecutor of Romania Laura Codruța Kövesi and Transparency International’s Chair José Ugaz.
The event will mark the launch of GRECO´s 5th Evaluation Round, after having monitored the prevention of corruption in respect of parliamentarians, judges and prosecutors in a previous round.
United Kingdom and Slovenia will be the first states to be evaluated in GRECO´s 5th round. A GRECO delegation will visit these two countries next June to meet with the relevant authorities and stakeholders as part of the work to prepare the evaluation reports. After the summer, GRECO will visit Finland, Iceland and Luxembourg in order to prepare reports on these countries.
In the new evaluation round, GRECO will monitor the measures that states have in place to prevent and combat corruption in functions such as those of heads of State, heads of central government, members of central government (e.g. ministers), as well as other political appointees who exercise top executive functions such as deputy ministers, State Secretaries, heads and members of a minister’s private office and senior political officials.
With regard to these functions, GRECO will look into issues such as conflicts of interest, revolving doors, declaration of assets and accountability mechanisms.
GRECO´s evaluation of law enforcement agencies will focus on bodies such as national police services, including agencies responsible for border control. With regard to these agencies, GRECO will pay special attention to the identification of risk prone services and risk-prone situations, recruitment of staff, supervision and disciplinary proceedings.
