Balkans, Central Europe Failing to Prevent MPs’ Corruption – GRECO

Serbia, Turkey and Slovakia did not fully implement any GRECO recommendations on preventing corruption among parliamentarians in 2019, the latest annual report of the Council of Europe's Strasbourg-based Group of States Against Corruption, published on Wednesday said.

The report, covering the so-called 4th Evaluation Round, looks at corruption prevention in three categories - members of parliament, judges and prosecutors.

According to GRECO's grading system, recommendations are implemented, partly implemented or not implemented.

According to the report, Serbia partly implemented 40 per cent of recommendations related to preventing corruption among MPs, 66.7 per cent of those related to judges and 66.7 per cent related to prosecutors.

Of 17 recommendations that it received in total, Serbia partly implemented 58.8 per cent and did not implement 41.2 per cent of them.

Turkey did not implement 70.3 per cent of 37 in total, partly implemented 18.9 per cent and fully implemented 10.8 per cent of recommendations. The country did not implement 73.4 per cent of recommendations concerning judges and prosecutors, or any recommendations related to MPs.

Of 16 recommendations Romania received in total, it implemented 37.5 per cent of them, partly implemented 25 per cent of them and did not implement 37.5 per cent of them. The situation was worst with MPs; Romania did not implement 55.6 per cent of recommendations related to them.

In Central European countries, Poland took least action. Of 22 recommendations in total, Poland implemented 36.4 per cent of them, partly implemented 22.7 per cent and did not implement 40.9 per cent of them.

It partly or totally implemented all five recommendations related to prosecutors, but has yet to...