Recent evidence shows that Germany is a laggard on anticorruption policies in Europe. This is acknowledged by OECD, as Germany’s implementation of the anti-bribery convention is no longer convincing, by the Council of Europe, whose GRECO body has labelled Germany’s compliance as unsatisfactory and by the German media and civil society. The new data on transparency and public accountability produced by our centre shows that GRECO is right, and Germany falls below the European average at most public accountability regulations. Moreover, while the EU asks accession countries to have a pro-active policy related to corruption scandals, Germany repeatedly failed to do so. The new government should propose a comprehensive anticorruption policy plan, implement GRECO recommendations on conflict of interest for politicians in full and revive the attempt to make businesses truly responsible for corruption. The new majority in the Bundestag should also move decisively to have anti-corruption institutions truly independent and acting far more decisively and prompt against a large set of practices amounting to systematic undue profit from political connections. The elections winners should propose a comprehensive anticorruption policy plan, implement GRECO recommendations on conflict of interest for politicians in full and revive the attempt to make businesses truly responsible for corruption. The new majority in the Bundestag should also move decisively to have anti-corruption institutions truly autonomous so that investigations are prompt and independent of political considerations. But as the Green Party proposed the only comprehensive plan against corruption this might not happen.
Publication Theme: EU Funds
Anti-corruption provisions in EU free tradeand investment agreements: Delivering on clean trade.
As the European Commission has noted, trade has already been advancing the cause of good governance. Can international trade do more and become an instrument of promoting anticorruption; and with what effects? This report will summarize the existing evidence and options for the EU by addressing these four questions:
- What is the connection between trade and corruption? What is the mechanism linking the two, according to empirical evidence?
- What is the most recent practice in regard to free trade agreements and anticorruption provisions that should be considered by the EU when designing its own strategy for the future?
- What is the evidence concerning the performance of pure anticorruption provisions, not directly related to trade, in the form of international conventions and treaties against corruption, seeing that their inclusion in trade agreements is increasingly recommended?
- What are the options for the EU, seeing that it is also the world’s largest development donor, giving aid to more than 110 of the countries it trades with?
The evidence for this brief report is on the one hand based on secondary sources, as organizations such as the OECD or the Bretton Woods institutions have been researching this subject for quite some time, while on the other hand it is based on original research funded by the EU’s own Seventh Framework project ANTICORRP (anticorrp.eu) which is dedicated to anticorruption.
The Anticorruption Report Vol. 4: Beyond the Panama Papers
The final title in the series The Anticorruption Report covers the most important findings of the five-year-long EU-sponsored ANTICORRP project on corruption and organized crime. How prone to corruption are EU funds? Who wins and who loses the anticorruption fight? And can we have better measurements than people’s perceptions to indicate if corruption changes? This issue introduces a new index of public integrity and a variety of other tools created in the project.
The Anticorruption Report Vol. 4: Beyond the Panama Papers looks at the performance of EU Good Governance Promotion in different countries in the European neighbourhood. Case studies focussing on Spain, Slovakia and Romania are considering the impact of EU structural funds and good governance promotion within the Union. Further chapters looking at Turkey, Egypt, Tunisia and Tanzania are analysing EU democracy and good governance support in third countries. The report, edited by Alina Mungiu-Pippidi and Jana Warkotsch offers a comprehensive and overarching look at the successes and pitfalls of the EU’s efforts to democracy promotion and introduces new ways to assess the state of good governance in different countries around the world.
Case study report on control of corruption and EU funds in Ukraine
This report analyses the European Union (EU) – Ukraine relationship by looking at the impact of EU conditionality regarding the anti-corruption framework on the use and distribution of EU funding between 2007 and 2014. It shows that, historically, the EU concern with good governance in Ukraine has been materialised in the form of numerous anti-corruption conditions attached to transnational aid flows. Despite important improvements at institutional levels – particularly the set-up of the National Anticorruption Bureau, the Ukrainian practices and everyday routines have not changed fundamentally. Assessing the impact of EU funding in such a context marked on the one hand by pervasive corruption and on the other hand by a profound desire for change, can be a challenging task, especially due to the fact that a large share of international aid received has been directed to budget support, thus making it impossible to asses if it has been affected by corruption. Using secondary data analysis and interviews with key stakeholders, the report shows that the efficiency of EU assistance could be improved by increasing the levels of control, enhancing transparency and establishing a closer relationship with international partners who are more experienced in tackling EU funding fraud and grand corruption.
EU governance promotion in Tunisia: Lessons from the Arab Spring
This report explores the intersection between European Union assistance to Tunisia and the development of that country’s good governance and anti-corruption framework, both during times of stability under the authoritarian rule of former President Ben Ali and during the turbulent transition period that ensued after the Arab Spring. The report furthermore analyses the changes in funding priorities during the period 2007–2013, as well as the concomitant development and application of the EU’s conditionality framework. It argues that the EU’s use of the instruments at its disposal, as well as the incentives that were on offer, were not always helpful in pushing forward good governance and anti-corruption reforms, and indeed may even at times have been harmful to them.
Case study on EU aid and anti‐corruption and governance in Tanzania
Tanzania boasts one of the highest rates of economic growth in Sub-Saharan Africa. In the last decades it also established one of the most harmonised donors frameworks. However, the relationship between Tanzania and its donors has deteriorated significantly in recent years following several high-level corruption cases and slow progress on more complex governance reform. In response, the EU has reformed the composition of its development assistance modalities, which predominantly entailed a reduction in Budget Support, and has stopped committing further aid to Tanzania for the time being. These events indicate considerable limitations to the effectiveness of the EUs (and other donors’) measures to induce good governance through existing modi of development cooperation.
Improving governance in Kosovo: Evaluating the Impact of EU Conditionality through Policy and Financial Assistance
This paper seeks to evaluate the impact of EU policy and funds aimed at improving governance and controlling corruption in Kosovo. It examines the interrelation between EU conditionality as expressed in different policy documents and the financial assistance provided by the EU to Kosovo in the area of rule of law. The focus is on the period since 2007, although the paper begins with a brief overview of the conflict in Kosovo and its aftermath. The paper then tracks how the anti-corruption discourse features in policy documents and funding priorities, highlighting the EU conditionality mechanisms applied and the development assistance provided. It evaluates conditionality in the light of Kosovo’s anti-corruption performance during this period. The paper draws conclusions as to the effectiveness of EU policy and financial assistance in the area of anti-corruption, with a view to informing the ongoing policy debate on how to strengthen EU leverage in improving anti-corruption efforts in aspiring member-states, particularly in a post-conflict context.
The EU Good Governance Approach in Ghana: the growing focus on anti‐corruption measures
Ghana is a strategic country for the European Union’s promotion of peace and good governance in West Africa. However, recent economic challenges have exposed public finance management deficiencies and a crisis of confidence in the ability of the government to deal with increasing deficits; unemployment; and a dramatic energy crisis. Corruption practices are seen as a key factor impeding on the development of the country with recent scandals exposed in the media raising the awareness of the public. With the support of international partners, the government launched its own anti-corruption framework in July 2014, the National Anti-Corruption Action Plan (NACAP), while the EU in Ghana started the Ghana Anti-Corruption, Rule of Law and Accountability (Ghana-ARAP) Programme in January 2016. This report examines how the Ghana-EU Partnership is structured, the state of governance in Ghana, and how the EU has or has not been inducing change in governance practices to fight corruption. The study includes a review of the different aid modalities and recommendations for positive change in Ghana, in terms of both development assistance and anti-corruption strategies.
Case study report on control of corruption and EU funds in Egypt
The European Neighbourhood Policy has without a doubt emphasized the importance of good governance, which became a priority objective in the 2007-2013 EU-Egypt country strategy paper. Within this framework, the EU has conditioned its aid on Egypt’s commitment to reforms. However, in practice, the “softly softly” approach that has seen the EU be too flexible on tying its aid to reforms in the face of the Egyptian resistance to conditionality, has proven to be an extremely opaque and ineffective process. While corruption has been a major governance challenge for Egypt, the EU – only directly addressing the issue in a small-scale decentralized project – did not implement any specific anti-corruption mechanism for oversight or monitoring despite having over 60 per cent of its funds channelled to Egypt’s national treasury through sector budget support. The 2011 Egyptian revolution incontestably led the EU to reflect upon its policies and to pledge stronger commitment to the promotion of good governance and the fight against corruption. But in the highly volatile political environment that followed, the EU’s focus on refining its policy instruments has prevented it from acting in a timely fashion and, once again, the implementation of reforms has lagged far behind Brussels’ outstanding declarations. As the present paper suggests, the EU’s approach has been, in essence, heavily bureaucratic and far less strategic. One fair assumption regarding the EU’s lack of enthusiasm in genuinely addressing corruption – and good governance – would be that the issue has never truly impacted on the core of EU–Egypt relations, which have remained grounded on economic, stability and security concerns.
Improving governance in Bulgaria: Evaluating the Impact of EU Conditionality through Policy and Financial Assistance
The paper examines the impact on Bulgaria’s anti-corruption performance of the interrelation between EU policy conditionality and EU financial assistance, with a focus on post-accession developments. Although the EU never formally linked EU assistance to progress on anti-corruption, the disbursement of funds has tended to peak around critical deadlines for accession progress, e.g. the signing of the accession treaty in 2005, and the expiration of the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism’s (CVM) safeguard clauses in 2010. Both years also marked the lowest levels of corruption experienced by Bulgaria’s citizens. This suggests that the combined effect of EU anti- corruption conditionality and development assistance on governance in Bulgaria was positive – but temporary.
Moreover, the 2015 CVM monitoring report suggests that, eight years after EU accession, Bulgaria still faces three key governance challenges – combatting high-level corruption, building an institutional approach to anti-corruption, and judicial independence. In 2014, public experience of corruption reached its highest level since the first comparable research in 1998. The lack of anti-corruption conditionality or credible enforcement mechanisms since 2010 has seen Bulgaria backslide in the fight against corruption. The current EU approach and development assistance for anti- corruption reforms have been insufficient to put Bulgaria on a virtuous circle path to open access order (or a good governance model), and has not been able to compensate for the lack of domestic political commitment to anticorruption reform. The paper’s findings suggest that the EU and Bulgarian anti-corruption stakeholders need to find new strategies for bringing about lasting governance change.
The Impact of EU Conditionality on Corruption Control and Governance in Bosnia and Herzegovina
This paper seeks to evaluate the impact of EU policy and funds aimed at improving governance and controlling corruption in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It examines the interrelation between EU conditionality as expressed in different policy documents and the financial assistance provided by the EU. The focus is on the period 2007-13. It tracks the way in which the EU pursues democratic conditionality in BiH, and examines cases that are deemed successes as well as those deemed failures. It also considers how conditionality relating to the provision of EU funds is affected. It evaluates conditionality in the light of BiH’s anti-corruption performance during this period. The paper draws conclusions as to the effectiveness of EU policy and financial assistance in the area of anti-corruption, with a view to informing the ongoing policy debate on how to strengthen EU leverage in improving anti-corruption efforts in aspiring member-states, particularly in a post-conflict context.
EU Aid and the Quality of Governance
Using a panel dataset on 103 developing countries, this paper empirically analyzes the impact of the European aid flows on quality of governance in aid recipient countries. The analysis employs aggregated Official Development Data as well as disaggregated project level data. The results show that while bilateral aid from the largest European donors does not show any impact, multilateral financial assistance from the EU Institutions leads to an improvement in governance indicators. These findings thus suggest that European development assistance can help to promote good governance if aid is allocated at the EU supranational level rather than at the national level of the member states.
Report on Turkey on institutions in public procurement for the infrastructure sector
The report employs national data to analyse recent developments in the construction sector. However, the contract-level procurement data have not been compiled as requests for the data were unanswered by the Turkish Public Procurement Agency. Therefore, aggregate data on public procurement have been used to trace developments in law and implementation. The post-2002 incumbent AKP government has to a large extent considered construction investments as an engine of economic growth which resulted in a substantial expansion of this sector. The Turkish Public Procurement Law (PPL) came into force in 2003 to bring Turkey into compliance with EU procurement standards. Although certain improvements have been achieved, frequently introduced exemptions distorted the rules and procedures for transparency, competition and non-discrimination. A considerable number of amendments have aimed at removing major public contracts from the scope of PPL. Recently, Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) have been used principally to build up large-scale infrastructure projects. Due to the large capital requirements and the fact that the legal structure of PPPs is largely incompatible with the PPL and the EU regulations, only a smaller group of companies which have allegedly close connections with top level politicians win PPP projects worth billions of Euros. Thus, under the current framework, PPPs in the Turkish construction sector are significantly prone to corruption risks.
Report on Romania on institutions in public procurement for the infrastructure sector
Improving infrastructure in Romania has been a significant project in the past 25 years. Unfortunately, although large amounts of public funds were spent in the construction sector from 2007 to 2013 (an average of 6.6% of GDP), the physical results in terms of project quality and completion do not match this investment. One of the explanations for this is that public contracts were awarded to companies based on corrupted practices or political connections, the focus being on redistributing public money and not achieving high quality construction works.The present research points to the fact that statistical data analysis can be used in detecting corruption. The practice of single bidding and the tendency to establish political connections exist in the entire public procurement market. Nonetheless, non-EU funded contracts present a higher corruption risk. Only 1 out of 7 contracts receiving European funding were awarded to a single bidder, as opposed to 1 out of 4 contracts financed by the state budget. Still, 1 out of every 3 contracts won by a politically connected firm involved European funding. Data analysis also concluded that the number of contracts awarded per company can be explained by single bidding and the existence of a political connection in 44% of the cases. The agency-capture analysis revealed that favouritism in public procurement occurs especially at the local level and in state-owned companies. Most of the companies that “captured” contracting authorities are politically connected firms.At the same time, the case studies give an account of how firms’ owners go to great lengths to consolidate a network of relationships with high ranking officials so as to keep their doors open and contact political elites, but also various state institutions whose activity can favour or disrupt their companies’ economic well-being.
Report on Hungary on institutions in public procurement for the infrastructure sector
This report aims to document and to investigate the extent and the determinants of government favouritism in EU funded infrastructure development. It uses a variety of qualitative and quantitative research methods. While predominantly relying on the analysis of contract-level quantitative data on Hungarian public procurement, it also provides a discussion of the institutional framework and particular cases based on document analysis and interviews.It finds that public procurement of infrastructure from national or EU Funds is a hotspot for corruption in Hungary just like in the other countries investigated by ANTICORRP Work Package 8. However, corruption is not pervasive everywhere and even high-level political influence has it limits. While the economic environment has varied greatly, public procurement spending on infrastructure followed a political logic with elections, EU funding cycles, and political power games playing a crucial role. It has proven to be one key public resource up for grabs for corrupt elites. Controls of corruption in public procurement in general are weak: not only is effective transparency very limited and declining rapidly since 2010, but also institutional remedies are likely to be controlled by the current governing party.As a result of extensive public resources available, weak controls, and a complex regulatory environment facilitating close cooperation between bidders and public bodies, corruption is widespread in infrastructure provision. Political connections, far from having a uniform impact, are effective in facilitating rent extraction only when organisational integrity is weak and both the bidders and contracting entities are politically controlled. In micro-cosmoses of high integrity, political connections are ineffective at best, but may even handicap companies.
Report on Germany on institutions in public procurement for the infrastructure sector
Germany has the highest public procurement expenditure in the EU, with an average of 370 billion euros a year between 2009 and 2013. The main objective of this report is to shed some light on the inner workings of the German public procurement system by providing a general overview of its historical development, the current trends in procurement spending and assessing potential risks for corruption. Given that Germany has two parallel procurement systems active at the time, one for contracts above the EU thresholds and one for the contracts underneath these limits, each one of them is evaluated separately. The lack of high quality tender-level data for the case of Germany made it impossible to base the risk assessment on objective indicators. Therefore, this report relies on different sources of data to determine the size of the procurement spending in the country, the manner in which it is allocated and the potential risks of corruption. The study concludes that the public procurement system in Germany – especially the one in place for contracts underneath EU thresholds – is vulnerable to corruption given its complex legislation that damages nation-wide competition, the lack of transparency in the awarding process, a clear or unified national legislation and the low utilization of e-procurement platforms.
Report on Croatia on institutions in public procurement for the infrastructure sector
This report seeks to assess the extent of favouritism – i.e., preferential treatment for some bidders over others – in the allocation of public procurement contracts in the construction sector in Croatia. The methodology is based on identifying opportunities for favouritism and evaluating the effectiveness of constraints. The research finds that Croatia’s public procurement law sets a high standard and there are numerous transparency and control mechanisms in place. Nevertheless, the integrity of procurement is undermined because a large share of it is contracted by entities which are owned by government units and thus subject to political influence and constrained by a much weaker control framework. Data on the procurement of high-value construction works is analysed for indicators of favouritism in the process or outcomes. Whilst there is only limited use of restrictive procedures, competition for public contracts is surprisingly weak in a sector under considerable economic pressure. Moreover, around one-half of the total contract value is won by tenderers which are not private companies but rather entities that are partially or fully owned by the state. This raises further questions about the potential for political leaders to influence the process in order to achieve favouritism in the allocation of public contracts, to benefit themselves or third parties. Evidence from the verdict of a trial involving high-ranking politicians suggests further that such favouritism may be widespread.
Report on Bulgaria on institutions in public procurement for the infrastructure sector
The Bulgarian public procurement market constituted 9% of national GDP on average from 2009 – 2013, which is lower than the EU average. Public procurement has been particularly important for the construction sector in the country, with approximately a third of total sector turnover deriving from public procurement in 2013. Since the onset of the economic crisis in 2008 the survival of the construction sector in Bulgaria has essentially hinged on public procurement, coming mostly from EU funds. This concentration of market power in the hands of the public administration, coupled with a history of lack of effectiveness, integrity and control, and persistent structural governance deficiencies imply significant corruption risks. Although the legal framework has continuously improved, it is subject to too frequent changes to ensure proper implementation.The firm-level analysis of the public procurement contracts awarded to the top 40 construction companies included in the paper, confirms the trend of concentration of the construction sector. The data does not confidently detect a specific type of favouritism but corruption risks are detected in specific cases, especially involving large-scale construction projects in the infrastructure and energy sectors. Anecdotal evidence abounds that powerful private operators exert pressure on the public administration to channel public procurement to major companies, linked either legally and/or through circles of influence to them.
The Anticorruption Report. Volume 2: The Anticorruption Frontline
From Turkey to Egypt, Bulgaria to Ukraine, and Brazil to India, we witness the rise of an angry urban middle class protesting against what they see as fundamental corruption of their politicalregimes, perceived as predatory and inefficient. Corruption is near the top of all global protesters’ list of grievances – from the Occupy movement to the Arab Spring. There is increasing demand for good governance resulting in quality education and health systems, and denunciation of sheer bread and circus populism. Volume 2 of the ANTICORRP Anticorruption Report tackles these issues across key cases and developments.
Print and e-book version of the report can be purchased here.
The Legacies of 1989: The Transformative Power of Europe Revisited
Why has the EU succeeded in promoting democracy in the new member states but failed in promoting good governance? This essay seeks to answer this question first by distinguishing governance from political regimes, and second by exploring to what extent national governance—which is defined as the set of formal and informal institutions that determine who gets what in a given country—is susceptible to being improved by external pressure or intervention. It concludes that improving governance remains a challenge even for the democratic character of the European project.
Are EU funds a corruption risk? The impact of EU funds on grand corruption in Central and Eastern Europe
Fazekas et al explore the impact of EU structural funds on institutionalised grand corruption in three countries where corruption is systemic – Czech Republic, Hungary, and Slovakia – between 2009-2012. They examine whether EU funds have contributed to weakening institutional quality in terms of wasteful public spending and increased ‘legal’ corruption conducted through public procurement. By exploiting a unique pooled database containing contract-level public procurement information for all three countries they are able to systematically examine corruption risks associated with EU funding at the micro-level. The authors also develop a composite corruption risks indicator based on the incidence and logical structure of ‘irregularities’ in individual public procurement transactions.
Fazekas et al. ultimately claim that EU funding impacts institutionalised grand corruption in CEE in two ways: first, by providing additional public resources available for corrupt rent extraction; second, by increasing the controls of corruption for the additionally allocated funding. Their preliminary calculations indicate that the first effect increases the value of particularistic resource allocation in the three countries up to 1.21% of their GDPs, while the second effect decreases the value of particularistic resource allocation by up to 0.03% of GDP. However, the latter beneficial effect is entirely driven by Slovakia, which has a high national corruption risk level; while in Czech Republic and Hungary this impact is even negative. The authors conclude with several policy recommendations calling for a radical improvement of the monitoring and controlling framework.
Hidden Depths. The Case of Hungary
This report investigates corruption risk of EU funds spending in Hungary within the framework of the Public Procurement Law. Its finding is that in spite of what is a tight regulatory framework EU funds are likely to fuel the abuse of public spending. Even though public procurement using EU funds faces considerably more stringent regulation, their use poses much greater corruption risks when compared with funds procured domestically and corruption risks are particularly pronounced for large projects. The report also argues that large-scale institutionalized corruption in Hungary may be widespread and driven primarily by political cycles. Such corruption, often labeled “legal corruption”, typically involves neither bribery nor collusion between lower level bureaucrats and private individuals; rather, it operates through contractual relationships which benefit the highest echelons of the political and business elite. There are a small number of new anti-corruption initiatives of the new government which entered office in 2010, but while they might indicate a positive step towards higher public sector integrity, their results are yet to be seen.