A workshop entitled “The Role of Civil Society in Curbing Corruption” was held in Brussels for NGO representatives and journalists of EU candidate countries from 26 to 29 January.
Organised by the European Commission, the four-day workshop was attended by bianet editor Erol Önderoğlu, Milliyet newspaper reporter Gökçe Susam, Serkan Çakır from the Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges in Turkey (TOBB) and Emre Koyuncu from the Economic Policy Research Foundation of Turkey (TEPAV).
Cooperation a must
One speaker at the conference was Jana Mittermeier from Transparency International. She emphasised the importance of collaboration between institutions in order to curb corruption. There was, so Mittermeier, no agreed legal framework among European countries to deal with corruption. The United Nations Convention on Corruption states that NGOs in each country need to cooperate.
At the workshop, examples of corruption cases in Montenegro, Bulgaristan, Croatia, Turkey and Romania were discussed. Former Romanian Minister of Justice Monica Mocavei described how the judiciary in Romania gave priority to important cases in 2005, and was thus able to prosecute 19 ministers and MPs.
Corrupt politicians must go
She also emphasised the importance of alliances in the struggle against corruption. After leaving government, she has worked with NGOs to campaign for political candidates suspected of corruption to be taken off election lists.
As an example of corruption she cited the Romanian Minister of Agriculture, who received 50,000 Euros for allocating two public bids worth 6 million Euros to a company. After buying a restaurant with the money, he was caught through audio and video recordings.
EU membership no guarantee against corruption
Mocavei added:
“Shall I tell you how things can go backwards even when a country has become an EU member? The top manager of the TV station broadcasting the corruption scandal lost his job. In the same night, legal changes concerning recordings were passed unanimously, and recordings that have not been announced to the prosecution or to the person to be recorded have been ruled inadmissible. After coming back from the Constitutional Court, this law is now waiting somewhere…”
“You can thus see that the struggle does not end, even if good laws have been passed and good results have been achieved. If you do not form alliances, you will not get results. Passivity will not get you anywhere; you need to make use of laws regarding the right to information. You have to struggle against rules concerning state secrets. Do not imagine that you will always be protected, you will also experience danger. But do not forget that corruption has never been made public by itself.” (EÖ/AG)
