The European Union's Fight Against

The fight against corruption emerged as one of the most significant issues during the 2004 enlargement of the EU and gained even more importance with the accession of Romania and Bulgaria in 2007. In order to prepare candidate countries for membership, the EU found it necessary to create new institutions and mechanisms to address corruption. Patrycja Szarek-Mason traces the development of the EU anti-corruption framework, showing how recent enlargements transformed EU policy and highlighting inequities between the treatment of candidate countries and existing Member States. The experience gained during the 2004 enlargement led to a more robust anti-corruption stance during the accession of Bulgaria and Romania and will have implications for future enlargements of the EU. However, the framework can still be strengthened to address corruption adequately and promote higher standards among Member States, especially through greater use of 'soft law' in the form of mutually agreed, non-legally binding policy recommendations.

Table of cases	p. viii
Acronyms and abbreviations	p. ix
List of tables and figures	p. x
Introduction	p. 1
Corruption: concept, importance and international response	p. 5
The EU's definition of corruption	p. 6
Case study: corruption in the Central and Eastern European countries	p. 11
The prevalence of corruption in the post-communist countries	p. 11
Causes of corruption	p. 16
The importance of combating corruption	p. 19
Corruption as an international policy problem	p. 21
The context	p. 21
Evolution of international cooperation	p. 23
The importance of international cooperation	p. 33
Monitoring mechanisms	p. 34
Conclusion	p. 40
The scope of EU legal powers and development of the policy in the area of anti-corruption	p. 43
The legal bases in the area of anti-corruption policy	p. 44
The EC Treaty	p. 47
The EU Treaty	p. 56
The development of the EU policy against corruption	p. 69
Phase One: the fight against corruption in the context of the protection of the Communities' financial interests	p. 73
Phase Two: beyond the protection of the Communities' financial interests	p. 82
Phase Three: a comprehensive policy against corruption	p. 83
Conclusion	p. 87
The EU strategy against corruption within the Member States	p. 89
EU legislative and institutional framework	p. 92
The first pillar measures	p. 92
The third pillar measures	p. 98
The anti-corruption dimension of EU anti-money laundering legislation	p. 116
Monitoring mechanisms	p. 122
Cooperation with international organisations	p. 130
Conclusion	p. 87
Conditionality in the EU accession process	p. 135
The general conditions of accession	p. 138
The requirements of the 2004 enlargement	p. 139
The Copenhagen criteria	p. 139
Combating corruption as a membership condition	p. 143
The pre-accession strategy and its instruments	p. 145
The Europe Agreements	p. 146
The 1997 Opinions	p. 148
The Regular Reports	p. 150
Accession Partnerships and the National Programmes for the Adoption of the Acquis	p. 150
Impact of conditionality on domestic policies of the Central Eastern European countries	p. 152
Conclusion	p. 155
The EU's evaluation of corruption in the Central and Eastern European candidate countries	p. 157
The importance of evaluation	p. 158
The pre-accession institutions and mechanisms of evaluation	p. 160
Evaluation within the Commission	p. 161
Evaluation within the Council	p. 168
Conclusion: assessment	p. 178
The EU anti-corruption strategy towards the Central and Eastern European candidate countries: achievement or missed opportunity?	p. 182
The EU anti-corruption standards for the candidate countries	p. 185
Formal requirements of the acquis	p. 186
Anti-corruption standards beyond the acquis	p. 188
Technical and financial assistance as a policy transfer instrument	p. 199
The EU programmes	p. 199
Joint programmes with the OECD and the Council of Europe	p. 204
The impact of EU accession on the anti-corruption policies	p. 206
Case study: Poland	p. 208
Conclusion	p. 214
The impact of 2004 enlargement on the EU anti-corruption policy	p. 218
The reinforcement of the EU strategy towards Bulgaria and Romania	p. 221
The extension of anti-corruption policy to external relations of the EU	p. 238
Potential candidate countries	p. 239
European Neighbourhood Policy	p. 242
The anti-corruption policy after the 2004 enlargement	p. 245
Possible developments	p. 250
Arguments for a closer cooperation with the Council of Europe	p. 253
The case for a separate EU anti-corruption framework	p. 257
Conclusion	p. 262
Conclusion	p. 265
	p. 271
	p. 273
Bibliography	p. 275
Index	p. 296
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The European Union's Fight Against Corruption: The Evolving Policy Towards Member States and Candidate Countries

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