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Reply to Recommendation | Doc. 13390 | 21 January 2014
Corruption as a threat to the rule of law
1. The Committee of Ministers has attentively
examined Parliamentary Assembly Recommendation 2019 (2013) on “Corruption
as a threat to the rule of law”, which it has transmitted to the
Group of States against Corruption (GRECO) for information and possible
comments.
2. The Committee of Ministers has previously underlined the threat
corruption poses to the rule of law, which is a sine qua non for
a healthy, pluralistic democracy. 
It
welcomes the Parliamentary Assembly’s determination to fight corruption
in all its forms. The Committee of Ministers notes that this is
also a priority of the Secretary General. It concurs with the Assembly
on the relevance of the principles referred to in Assembly Resolution
1943 (2013) concerning corruption as a threat to the rule of law,
in particular the need to provide for appropriate incriminations
of corruption offences, to guarantee the independence of the judiciary
and to ensure a high level of transparency in political, administrative
and economic life. It notes that these matters figure prominently
on GRECO’s monitoring agenda.
It
welcomes the Parliamentary Assembly’s determination to fight corruption
in all its forms. The Committee of Ministers notes that this is
also a priority of the Secretary General. It concurs with the Assembly
on the relevance of the principles referred to in Assembly Resolution
1943 (2013) concerning corruption as a threat to the rule of law,
in particular the need to provide for appropriate incriminations
of corruption offences, to guarantee the independence of the judiciary
and to ensure a high level of transparency in political, administrative
and economic life. It notes that these matters figure prominently
on GRECO’s monitoring agenda.3. While underlining the leading role of GRECO in this field,
the Committee of Ministers considers that there is also room for
activities on corruption at the intergovernmental level as well
as for assistance and training activities. It notes the Assembly’s
request for a stocktaking of current achievements and pitfalls and
for the mainstreaming of anti-corruption in various Council of Europe
activities and programmes. The Committee of Ministers will consider
engaging in a reflection process in order to identify emerging issues
that merit more attention in connection with the Organisation’s
current array of anti-corruption activities and initiatives. GRECO’s
monitoring results, the achievements made in the context of technical
assistance projects as well as evolving practice in fighting corruption
and promoting integrity could be drawn on for this purpose. The Parliamentary
Assembly will be kept informed of the steps that may be taken to
this end.
4. The Committee of Ministers is aware that designing new programmes
or mainstreaming anti‑corruption components in an ever increasing
range of activity areas will not suffice. More needs to be done,
at both international and domestic levels, to generate the requisite
political will to prevent and fight corruption and to close the
gap between law and regulations and their effective implementation.
In this connection, the Assembly is playing a valuable role, not
least by drawing attention in its work to GRECO’s evaluation reports,
the resulting country-specific recommendations and its compliance
reports. The Committee of Ministers recalls that the report on “Corruption
as a threat to the rule of law”, prepared under the auspices of
the Assembly’s Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights (Doc.
13228), stresses the need for domestic parliaments to actively contribute,
in their respective national contexts, to the implementation of
recommendations issued by GRECO and other monitoring bodies.
5. The Committee of Ministers shares the Assembly views on the
need for reinforced co-operation with the European Union in the
field of corruption. It considers that full European Union participation
in GRECO would send a strong political signal, would foster synergies
and would strengthen the impact of the respective anti‑corruption
endeavours at all levels. The risk of generating conflicting standards
and performance benchmarks would furthermore be significantly reduced.
The Committee of Ministers hopes that the impact assessment launched
by the European Commission in close co-operation with other European
Union institutions to analyse the feasibility and modalities of
accession to GRECO and of evaluation by GRECO will be completed
soon and that sufficient institutional and political backing for
full membership in GRECO will be secured. If this were to be the
case, concrete talks between the relevant bodies of the European
Union and the Council of Europe could start.
6. Finally, on the issue of a soft law regulatory framework on
lobbying, the Committee of Ministers informs the Assembly that terms
of reference have recently been given to the European Committee
on Legal Co-operation (CDCJ) within the framework of the 2041-2015
Programme of Activities and Budget to prepare, subject to a preliminary
feasibility study, a legal instrument on the regulation of lobbying
activities. The Committee of Ministers will inform the Parliamentary
Assembly about the outcome of this activity in due course.