Ethics and governance in the European Financial centers

The Council of Europe’s anti-corruption monitoring mechanism, the Group of States against Corruption (GRECO) has published three weeks ago its Second Round Evaluation Report on Cyprus. The report has been made public with the agreement of the Cypriot authorities.

GRECO’s Second Evaluation Round focuses on measures taken to recover the proceeds of corruption, to prevent and combat corruption in public administration and to prevent companies being used to shield corruption.

GRECO addresses a series of recommendations to Cyprus tailored to improve its capacity to combat corruption. They deal, inter alia, with police specialisation in the use of confiscation and interim measures regarding corruption proceeds, citizen’s access to information held by public authorities, the mandate of the Commissioner for Administration (Ombudsman), conflicts of interest in situations where public officials move to the private sector and sanctions applicable to legal persons convicted of corruption offences.

Measures taken by Cyprus to implement the recommendations will be assessed by GRECO in the context of a specific compliance procedure, towards the beginning of 2008.

See Report