GRECO also calls for legislative reforms to close loopholes in the transparency of political funding by setting up stronger enforcement mechanisms and adopting deterrent sanctions for violations of political financing rules. The report notes that developments in recent years have shown the need to improve mechanisms to ensure the transparency of political financing and to update existing anti-corruption standards on party and electoral campaign financing. The annual report was published together with a report providing a comprehensive analysis of progress made and shortcomings identified so far in GRECO’s 5th evaluation round, which focuses on promoting integrity and preventing corruption within top executive functions of central governments and law enforcement agencies. Generally, the area where the most progress has been achieved so far is access to information and transparency. Progress has been particularly slow regarding top executive functions in areas such as integrity checks, post-employment restrictions, declaration review mechanisms, and contacts with lobbyists and third parties. The report underscores the need for clearer rules on perceived, potential and real conflicts of interests, asset declarations and lobbying, as well as more effective implementation of integrity frameworks and stronger oversight.

The most challenging areas in law enforcement agencies include declarations of assets, income, liabilities and interests, rotation and mobility policy, recruitment requirements and appointment procedures, as well as integrity checks.

In its annual report, GRECO found that the general level of compliance with its 5th evaluation round recommendations continued to be insufficient. By the end of 2024, it had published reports on 26 states evaluating compliance with these recommendations. According to the follow-up reports published as of 31 December 2024, states had fully or partly implemented 63% of GRECO’s recommendations concerning top executive functions of central governments (compared to 58% at the end of 2023). As regards law enforcement agencies, the proportion of fully or partly implemented recommendations grew from 67% to 71% between 2023 and 2024.

Regarding the 4th evaluation round on preventing corruption concerning MPs, judges and prosecutors, as of 31 December 2024, GRECO members states had fully implemented 59% of the recommendations and had partly implemented 29%. 12% of GRECO recommendations remained non-implemented. The highest proportion of non-implemented recommendations concerned MPs (16.6%) compared to judges (10.9%) and prosecutors (8.4%).

GRECO 24th General Activity Report (2024) - Anti-corruption trends, challenges and good practices in Europe & the United States of America

Bron: www.coe.int