Recommendations for the high level meeting on 7 June 2012:
- While national governments and European institutions discuss the fight against corruption in EaP region, there is a tendency to overlook the problem of political corruption, particularly the issue of financing of political parties, including public financing, financing election campaigns and bribery during elections.
We suggest that this issue has to be prioritised in anti-corruption reforms agendas in our region both by national governments and international organisations. Without cutting links between politicians and oligarchs (or, at least, weakening them), it is impossible to create a functional democratic political system. Fight against political corruption is a key direction in this regard.
- The problem of corruption in energy sector is another priority for anti-corruption policy on which work should focus. Corruption in this sector causes losses not only to public finance and public integrity, but also to the energy security of the countries of the region. There is a need to develop capacities of CSOs to monitor corruption in the energy sector as well as to pursue coherent policies for more transparent energy sector in the region. A stronger focus of international organisations on this issue is also needed.
- Cases, where EU funds may be misused and contribute to corruption in EaP region, should be closely monitored and prevented. In this regard the sub-group also wants to draw the attention of the EaP national governments and international institutions to the need for a sound monitoring system in order to prevent misuse of public funds during the preparation for events like UEFA EURO 2012. For example, all procurements for the preparation of the UEFA EURO 2012 in Ukraine were made disregarding the public procurement law.
- Anti-corruption institutions with controlling and monitoring functions should be more open to CSOs and parliamentary opposition participation. They should have secured sources of funding and representative membership. When discussing parliamentarian bodies and committees, they need to be chaired by representatives of opposition parties and ensure proportional representation.
- More specific measures and indicators in the “Eastern Partnership: A Roadmap to the autumn 2013 Summit” document are anticipated by the sub-group. At least in the sphere of fight against corruption.
The following topics have been identified as priorities for the work of the sub-group until the Stockholm Meeting of the EaP CSF:
- Open Government Initiative – Oleksiy Khmara briefed the group on the activities of TI-Ukraine on this topic. There is a chance that TI-Ukraine will have funds available to continue this initiative on a regional scale and all participants of the group are welcome to join its efforts. There is an anti-corruption component in the OGI commitments of the EaP governments.
Additionally, the Ukrainian Institute for Public Policy applied to the Czech MFA with the same topic – to start regional discussions on how our countries will implement the OGI commitments.
- Conflict of Interest policies – the concept note from the sub-group was preselected by the European Commission. Participants will work on the project proposal in the nearest future.
- Financing of political parties – participants showed interest in the topic. However, a committed person is needed in order to move this topic further to the state of a concept note or a project proposal.
- Other prospective topics include the fight against corruption in the energy sector, the development of sectoral reports on the fight against corruption with a regional matrix of recommendations, etc.
