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Keeping the curtain raised: Defending #transparency in Europe

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Corruption scandals appear to have engulfed Europe, sparking massive protests from Russia to Romania. A wave of anti-corruption public sentiment no doubt paved the way for Macron to win France’s presidency after his rival was accused of embezzlement, and other countries are quietly working on their own anti-corruption campaigns. But as the FT’s Tony Barber has rightly observed, this is not necessarily an indication of heightened corruption in Europe’s political landscape. Instead, it appears Europe’s leaders have inherited a constituency that is no longer tolerant of the conflicts of interest and corruption scandals that have plagued the continent since time immemorial, writes Colin Stevens.

It is this very transition that makes the European Commission’s recent decision not to publish its EU corruption report all the more disturbing. Since 2014, EU chiefs promised to report every two years on the progress in the battle against graft. An update scheduled for 2016, however, was scrapped in a last-minute move that has left transparency activists slack-jawed. Releasing that report would have undoubtedly allowed the Commission to score some points with disgruntled citizens, who tend to assimilate Brussels with bonkers ideas such as bent banana and curved cucumber regulations.

Keeping the report under wraps is a shame, especially since the other tools Brussels has at its disposal to prevent member states from weakening the rule of law are poorly understood and heavily criticized by unruly leaders. Indeed, unbeknownst to many, the EU has been actively promoting good governance and tighter intra-European police co-operation.

One such tool is the European Arrest Warrant (EAW), which has proved essential in bringing all manner of criminals to justice. On more than one occasion, it has been used in counter-terrorism efforts, from the 1995 Paris metro bomber, to a host of failed attack attempts in London in 2005, to the recent arrest  of a man in Birmingham as part of a Spanish investigation into ISIS. In these cases, EU countries have had access to a centralised criminal records information system, joint investigation teams, and been able to send foreign criminals back home. As such, traditionally expensive extradition processes have been replaced with cooperative criminal justice measures that are proving effective in restoring justice Europe-wide.

The second tool at hand is the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism (CVM), which has been used to specifically target graft in Romania and Bulgaria due to acute corruption hurdles. So far, the mechanism seems to be working – the latest report, released earlier this year, pointed to a distinct willingness within the Romanian government to cooperate in the protection of judicial independence, no doubt spurred on by a spate of mass demonstrations in the country and the ousting of the prime minister last week. While progress in Bulgaria remains relatively stilted, the CVM has been a useful tool for Brussels to demonstrate its soft power through naming and shaming, and even threatening to sanction corrupt practices and practitioners in the two countries.

And yet both tools have been lambasted by a host of interest groups, keen on seeing them rendered toothless. The EAW is on the chopping bloc from Brexiteers, with a number of former MPs calling for Theresa May to make repealing the law a top priority during Brexit negotiations. Among the sceptics are those calling for a return to British control over when and how its citizens are arrested abroad, citing the languishing of innocents in European jails.

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Disturbingly, such sustained campaigns to discredit the extradition tool have gone as far as as painting corrupt European businessmen  as political victims, throwing their weight behind shady oligarchs in lieu of substantial debate. One case is particularly egregious: Alexander Adamescu, the son of a wealthy Romanian businessman, is trying to prevent the UK from extraditing him to Romania where he’s facing charges of bribing judges – to the tune of €20,000 in order to secure favourable decisions in the bankruptcy of several companies he chaired, including Romania’s biggest insurance company. Adamescu has deployed a wide-sweeping PR campaign to discredit both the EAW and the Romanian justice system, painting himself as the victim of a rogue European regime. However, despite claiming his innocence and presenting himself simply as a London-based playwright, Adamescu was in fact the president of multiple corporations, and heir to a business empire worth close to a billion euros.

Adamescu’s behaviour is indicative of a wider trend seen with Romania’s powerful and corrupt – a country whose intense anti-graft campaign has attracted criticism mostly from those targeted by it. The former Romanian Prime Minister Victor Ponta, himself involved in several corruption cases, has come out against the Romanian justice system and the European Union. In 2015, he demanded an equal CVM be applied to all EU member states as part of asserting an equal status within the polity, fundamentally undermining corruption concerns through his attempt to water down the mechanism. The CVM has also copped criticism for demanding that Romanian media draft a code of conduct amid widespread concerns regarding bias and manipulation. In neighbouring Bulgaria, a similar trend has seen a struggle emerge between Bulgarian MEPs and other EU representatives, forcing several EU ambassadors to Bulgaria to sign a joint statement in defence of the mechanism.

At a time of widespread moral relativism and sustained disregard for the rule of law in Europe, the EU simply cannot slide back on its commitment to name and shame those who seek to avoid Europe’s courts. Brussels has stood silent while the EAW and the CVM are lambasted by shady interest groups and failed to retaliate in defence of transformative transparency measures. Adding insult to injury, it has decided to pull a long-awaited anti-corruption report, presumably after data has already been collected. Brussels’s cowering must only be viewed as a gross mistake, and it would do well to revisit its decision while the momentum of public sentiment exists. Not all countries will be fortunate enough to elect a Macron to root out corruption – this much, at least, is clear.

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