The EU Anti-Corruption Report: A Reflexive Governance Approach

Description

This book analyses the development of anti-corruption as a policy field in the European Union with a particular focus on the EU Anti-Corruption Report. It reconstructs the origins of anti-corruption policy in the 1990s when the EU started to recognise corruption as a serious crime with a cross-border dimension. It also analyses the processes surrounding the downfall of the Santer Commission on charges of corruption in 1999 and the enlargement of the EU. This incorporation of transitional new Member States was accompanied by a number of specific measures, instruments and monitoring mechanisms to combat corruption at the supranational level, finally leading to the introduction of the EU-wide Anti-Corruption Report in 2014. The book presents an in-depth analysis of its implementation, abandonment and the way forward under the European Semester as the new instrument for achieving EU anti-corruption reforms. It offers a new interpretation of the Report as a form of reflexive governance that operates at multiple levels and involves not only the European institutions and national governments, but also the role of civil society actors in the process of developing anti-corruption policy. It applies the theory of reflexive governance in analysing the impact of the Report in the UK, Romania and Albania, including the involvement of non-state actors in anti-corruption policy making in these countries. The book concludes with a discussion on how future EU Anti-Corruption policy can make use of reflexive governance and offers recommendations to enhance anti-corruption policies of the EU, the Member States and Candidate States. Cover Half Title Series Page Title Page Copyright Page Table of Contents Acknowledgements List of abbreviations Introduction SECTION 1 1. An introduction: A short history of anti-corruption policy in the EU 1.1 The first phase 1.2 The second phase 1.3 The third phase 1.4 The fourth phase 1.5 Conclusion 2. The EU anti-corruption report 2.1 Overview of general objectives and findings of the EU anti-corruption report 2.2 Perceptions of corruption and experience of corruption in the EU 2.2.1 Private citizen responses 2.2.2 Commercial responses 2.3 Public procurement 2.4 The EU anti-corruption report recommendations for each of the member states 2.4.1 Austria 2.4.2 Belgium 2.4.3 Bulgaria 2.4.4 Croatia 2.4.5 Cyprus 2.4.6 Czech Republic 2.4.7 Denmark 2.4.8 Estonia 2.4.9 Finland 2.4.10 France 2.4.11 Germany 2.4.12 Greece 2.4.13 Hungary 2.4.14 Ireland 2.4.15 Italy 2.4.16 Latvia 2.4.17 Lithuania 2.4.18 Luxembourg 2.4.19 Malta 2.4.20 The Netherlands 2.4.21 Poland 2.4.22 Portugal 2.4.23 Romania 2.4.24 Slovakia 2.4.25 Slovenia 2.4.26 Spain 2.4.27 Sweden 2.4.28 United Kingdom 2.5 General limitations of the EU anti-corruption report 2.6 Conclusion 3. The EU anti-corruption report and reflexive governance 3.1 Introduction 3.2 New governance in the European Union 3.3 The open method of coordination 3.4 Reflexive governance 3.5 Reflexive law 3.6 An analysis of the EU anti-corruption report as reflexive governance 3.7 Conclusion SECTION 2 Country Case Studies 4. The United Kingdom 4.1 The EU anti-corruption report for the UK 4.1.1 The UK attitude to ethics 4.2 Foreign bribery in the UK 4.2.1 Risk-based principles for preventing bribery 4.2.2 Bribery of foreign public officials 4.2.3 Improving the accountability in the governance of banks 4.2.4 A review of the failures of the financial system 4.3 Political corruption in the UK 4.3.1 Implementing a donation cap in the UK 4.3.2 Integrity in elected officials 4.3.3 Corruption concerns in the defence sector 4.4 UK responses to the EU anti-corruption report 4.5 Post-Brexit: the UK anti-corruption initiatives 5. Romania 5.1 The EU anti-corruption report for Romania 5.1.1 The judicial system 5.1.2 The political system 5.1.3 Healthcare 5.1.4 Public procurement 5.2 The EU anti-corruption strategy towards Romania—the CVM 5.2.1 The Cooperation and Verification Mechanism for Romania 5.2.2 Recommendations for Romania’s judicial system 5.2.3 Recommendations for the political system 5.2.4 Recommendations for public procurement 5.2.5 The threat of corruption in healthcare 5.3 Post-EU anti-corruption report 6. Albania 6.1 The EU anti-corruption report for Albania 6.2 Post-communist Albania and anti-corruption 6.2.1 1990–1997: corruption as a new political chess game 6.2.2 The collapse of the pyramid schemes and the international support to corruption in Albania, 1997–2009 6.2.3 The EU conditionality and Albania’s obstacles in developing an anti-corruption policy 6.3 Albanian relations with the European Union 6.3.1 The chronological path to accession 6.3.2 Candidate status delay—corruption and organised crime factors 6.4 Reforming the public administration 6.5 Reforming the judiciary 6.6 The future for Albania and the anti-corruption policy 6.6.1 Concluding remarks on the country studies SECTION 3 7. The future of EU anti-corruption policy 7.1 Introduction 7.2 The impact of the EU anti-corruption report 7.3 The EU anti-corruption policy—the end of the report in 2017 7.4 The European semester process 7.4.1 European Semester 2018 anti-corruption recommendations 7.4.2 Country-specific recommendation summary 7.5 EU anti-corruption policy under the European semester process 7.5.1 European semester process: narrow scope and opaque reasoning 7.5.2 Failures to promote good governance and the rule of law 7.5.3 No room for a broader dialogue: civil society exclusion 7.6 Improving the European semester process in analysing corruption 7.6.1 Implementation 7.6.2 Risk assessment analysis 7.7 The future for the European semester process and EU anti-corruption policy 7.7.1 Including organised crime in EU anti-corruption policy objectives 7.7.2 Including the protection of whistle-blowers to EU anti-corruption policy objectives 7.7.3 Empowering specialised anti-corruption institutions at the member state level 7.8 Conclusion Conclusion Appendix A—European semester country-specific recommendations in 2018 Bibliography Index