EU Criteria in the domain of the Rule of Law and the Fight against Corruption

Ladies and gentlemen,

It is an honour and a pleasure to address your assembly today.

I am particularly pleased to present the EU criteria covering rule of law and the fight against corruption. The topic is at the very heart of the EU integration process.

Last week Transparency International published the 2014 Corruption Perceptions Index in which BiH was ranked 80th of 174 countries, together with El Salvador, Mongolia, Morocco and Benin. Comparing to 2013, BiH was downgraded by eight positions, and it is among worse-ranked countries of the region. It is important to note the Corruption Perception Index draws on surveys and assessments from six  institutions: Bertelsmann Foundation, World Bank, World Justice Project, Economist Intelligence  Unit, Global Insight and Freedom House.

The reference to the rule of law and the fight against corruption is repeated times and time again, sometimes like a mantra.

I will try to demonstrate that these are concrete, tangible and deliverable issues. I will mainly focus on the fight against corruption, as it is the main reason for our gathering here today.

The legislation governing corruption applicable in the EU (commonly referred to as the EU acquis) is predominantly based on the compliance of the EU Member States with international obligations. In this respect, a series of Conventions (mostly in the framework of the UN and the Council of Europe) are binding to all signatories and form an integral part of the acquis.

Such requirements are often referred to as part of the “soft” acquis.

From a strict EU perspective, the Commission Decision of 6 June 2011, establishing an EU Anti-corruption reporting mechanism for periodic assessment is a good indicator of the fact that corruption has become and will continue to be a top priority in the EU.

In addition, a series of Council Decisions and Directives touch upon the fight against corruption in a variety of fields. This is notably the case in the area of public procurement, the private sector and public service contracts.

This is what we call the “hard” acquis.

Let’s now turn to Bosnia and Herzegovina specifically. I would first emphasise the long lasting commitment of the European Union to provide all the necessary support to the BiH authorities in helping the country to move  on the EU integration path. This has in part been emphasised by my colleague Melvin Asin in his opening remarks this morning.

We welcome the focus put by political parties in BiH on EU issues during the current process of formation of governments. We know that the overwhelming majority of citizens in BiH support the country joining the EU, and it is right that the political system reflects voters’ priorities.

It is however crucial that this verbal commitment turns into concrete actions in the months and years ahead.   

In every country the EU always works with the institutions of the country and the duly elected officials, the stakeholders – especially civil society – and of course we reach out to the citizens as well.

We will continue to do so because EU integration is a matter for the whole of society.

The fundamental policy of the EU towards BiH remains unchanged because it is the same for all Enlargement Countries – we want the country to join when it is ready and has met the necessary criteria.

The stability of institutions, guaranteeing democracy, the rule of law, respect for human rights and a well-functioning market economy are amongst the so called Copenhagen Criteria for accession that were also promoted as core values in the founding Treaties of the EU and are essential to its functioning.

Fighting Corruption in potential candidate and candidate countries has, as part of rule of law efforts, become a top priority for the EU and represents a very important aspect of the accession process (Chapter 23).

This is evidenced by the massive financial and technical support that the EU is providing to Bosnia and Herzegovina in the fight against corruption, again as mentioned earlier by  my colleague in his presentation.

Indeed, without an effective fight against corruption as part of the broader concept of rule of law the conditions for EU accession cannot be successfully met.

This is the lesson learned from the last two rounds of EU enlargement, and it has been regularly mentioned by the yearly progress reports that the solid track record of investigation, prosecution and adjudication of corruption cases is the baseline for measuring the success.
In addition, the fight against corruption was made one of the top priorities in the framework of the visa liberalization roadmap.

In the larger context of pre-accession, a new approach has been developed by the European Commission as of 2011.

Allow me at this point of this presentation to expand a bit more on that aspect.

The new approach is based on lessons learned during the negotiations with Croatia and on the specific characteristics of Chapter 23 (Judiciary and fundamental rights) and Chapter 24 (Justice, freedom, security), where the above-mentioned  track-record is considered essential for closing the negotiations.  

The new approach consists of the following elements:
 
– First, the purpose of the new approach is to give the candidate countries maximum time to produce a solid track record. In practice, chapters 23 and 24 will be among the first to be opened and the last to be closed.

– Second, there will be a reinforced negotiating scheme.
 
Following the presentation of the screening report, candidate countries will submit detailed action plans. These will represent the opening benchmark necessary for an opening EU negotiating position to be agreed. The opening negotiating position will set interim benchmarks which will be closely linked to actions and milestones in the action plans.

– The actions plans will represent the “roadmap” of the negotiations. The Commission will submit to Member States monitoring tables twice a year to update the Council on the advancement of negotiations on Chapters 23 and 24. In case of problems in the course of the negotiations, the Commission will propose to the Council corrective measures. These may include amendments and/or additions to the action plans.
In case of delays in the implementation of the action plans, in order to ensure the overall balance of the negotiations, the Commission can also decide to stop technical work on negotiations on other chapters. In that case, the Commission will swiftly inform the Council.

– Finally, the Commission will use the meetings of the Stabilisation and Association bodies to set up specific follow on measures.
 
They will take the form of specific information sessions on the state of advancement of negotiations on Chapters 23 and 24.

In addition, specific incentives and support measures will be identified in order to help candidate countries to fulfil their commitments taken in the Action Plans.

Let me now stress the complementarity between the prevention and the repression aspects of the fight against corruption.

Indeed, the prevention aspect is sometimes underestimated. Appropriate legislation providing incentive to report corruption, and to increase the costs of corrupt behaviours and make the latter ones harder to materialise is indeed equally important as strong penal sanctions.

In this context, I need to emphasis the crucial role to be played by the anti-corruption agency and the preventions bodies at Entity, Brcko District and cantonal level.

To sum up, in very concrete terms, key indicators for progress are already and will continue to be closely monitored. We are talking about:

• The establishment and functioning of an efficient and effective anti-corruption agency and anti corruption prevention bodies at all level ;

• The specialisation of prosecution, Law enforcement Agencies and courts in anti-corruption matters, and sufficient exchange of information;

• An increase in the number of detected and resolved conflict of interest cases; a pro-active use of asset declarations to detect cases of inexplicable wealth, including within the judicial structures;

• An increase in the number of successful investigations, prosecutions, and final court verdicts in cases of serious and high level corruption;

• Systematic launching of financial investigations in parallel to criminal investigations on corruption and other  related crimes;

• And finally, an increased trend of criminal assets being confiscated, including in cases of corruption.

As a conclusion,

A legal and institutional framework to fight corruption may look perfect on paper. However, this requires a clear political will to effectively implement such framework. If there is no political will there will be no tangible results.

The new approach in relation to Chapters 23 and 24 is precisely established to move away from a ‘box ticking’ approach towards an approach which requires effective and lasting results.

A classical criminal law approach in the fight against crime and corruption has to be complemented with a more innovative and effective approach focussing on financial investigations, aiming at discovering and confiscating the money flows behind the crimes.

I thank you for your attention and hope that the EU accession process, like in most other candidate and potential candidate countries will serve as an impetus for radical changes.