Ethics and governance in the European Financial centers

[Strasbourg, 14/06/2007]

The Group of States against corruption - GRECO has this week published its Seventh General Activity report (2006) which was presented yesterday to the Committee of Ministers by GRECO’s President, Mr Drago KOS (Slovenia).

The report provides details of GRECO’s operation during 2006 and of its co-operation with other international players. GRECO presents information about its First and Second Evaluation Rounds and about the preparation of the Third Round which was launched in January 2007. The Third Round deals with two distinct themes, i.e. the incriminations provided for in the Criminal Law Convention on Corruption (ETS 173), its Additional Protocol (ETS 191) and Guiding Principle 2 of Resolution (97) 24, and the transparency of party funding (Recommendation Rec(2003)4).

An entire chapter devoted to the protection of “whistleblowers”, based also on GRECO’s second round evaluations, provides some interesting pointers for countries which are considering adopting measures to enhance the protection of persons who report acts of corruption in public administration or to create a whistleblowing culture.

During the course of 2006, four new members joined GRECO: Austria, the Republic of Montenegro, Switzerland and Ukraine. Following the accession of the Russian Federation to GRECO in February 2007, the group now has 44 member States.

See report