31st Session of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities – 19-21 October 2016, Strasbourg, France

The Congress adopts a roadmap against corruption at local and regional levels

Preventing corruption and promoting public ethics at local and regional levels, which are “indispensable requirements for stability and democracy”, were the main theme of the 31^st session of the Congress, which opened on 19 October, with two debates followed by the adoption of two resolutions aimed at implementing these principles.

Herwig van Staa (Austria, EPP/ECC), who has for many years been committed to fighting corruption, spoke of the importance of ensuring that the regions had courts of auditors that are independent of political leaders.  This requirement is particularly essential given that, as a result of European funds, local and regional authorities are having to manage increasingly large budgets. He then presented a 6-point roadmap, including both practical measures and political principles.

The Congress will draw up six individual reports on misuse of administrative resources during electoral processes, public procurement, transparency, conflicts of interest, the protection of whistle-blowers and nepotism. It also intends to include the theme of corruption and transparency in its monitoring reports and to update the European Code of Conduct for the political integrity of local and regional elected representatives, whose latest version dates back to 1999 and does not take account of a number of new facts, such as the development of Internet. It also intends to include ethical issues in its programmes of co-operation with local and regional authorities, to step up its co-operation with other Council of Europe bodies on this theme and to improve its own transparency, while enhancing the training of local and regional elected representatives and officials dealing with such issues.

Preventing corruption: an ethical but also an economic issue

At the end of this presentation, several young delegates of the Congress stressed the importance they attached to the transparency of local and regional policies, but they also expressed concern at the corruption that could sometimes be seen in the field of education and in schools and which could sometimes undermine their chances of a future. Manuela Bora (Italy, SOC), stressed the need to foster transparency online and generally speaking in all new technologies. Yuliya Svitlychna (Ukraine, EPP/ECC) underlined the progress made in her country in terms of democracy and governance, and which must now apply to the regions. In the region of Kharkov, the development of “One-stop-shops” and the use of electronic means for dealing with administrative problems had helped not only to improve transparency but to save 4 million euros.

Luc Martens (Belgium, EPP/ECC) stressed the importance of ethics and transparency in increasing citizens’ confidence in the administrative authorities, and Irène Dourou (Greece, NR) said that corruption “demeaned politics and fostered the emergence of racist parties”. Rafet Vergili (Turkey, ECR) described the good example set by his town, Karabük: he did not receive a salary - he gave it to students in the form of a grant - and did not use an official car:  “We do not owe anyone anything”, he said, calling on the Congress to be vigilant in the face of “exported corruption”, in particular by major international companies but also through EU funds”. Finally Andreas Galster (Germany, EPP) pointed out that in order to prevent and fight corruption it was necessary to have a strong rule of law and an independent judiciary.

Use of administrative resources at elections: an unacceptable “par for the course”

Stewart Dickson (United Kingdom, ILDG) then presented the first of the six reports planned by the Congress on the subject of corruption and transparency concerning the misuse of administrative resources during electoral processes. On the strength of his experience in observing elections, he regretted that some of these practices concerning, for example, methods of registering candidates or relations with the media “find their way into the established political culture of some countries so that they seem normal whereas they are unacceptable”. Where rules of conduct existed at national level, the Congress wished to adapt them precisely to the local and regional levels, after having identified the more important and more frequent problems, which were “a concrete example of the many facets of this form of corruption”.

At the end of his presentation, several members of the Congress gave examples of  sometimes dubious practices in the use of  administrative resources, such as the use of schools and their staff during election campaigns, an issue raised by Xavier Cadoret (France, SOC), who asked whether it was not necessary to add more coercive measures to the codes of conduct. Giovanni Maria Ferraris (Italy, ILDG) said that the Italian Region of the Piedmont had developed a transparency plan for all of its administrative documents and this plan also addressed the issue of electoral expenditure.

Aleksev Ostrovsky (Russian Federation, ILDG) described the progress made in Russia in the field of electoral transparency. By way of example, he said that in his region, Smolensk, no-one had challenged the outcome of the ballot in which he had been re-elected whereas 14 party lists had been presented and he himself was the member of an opposition party. Finally, Andreas Galster (Germany, EPP/ECC) said that the misuse of administrative resources during an election was part of a whole: “if someone who holds political office is honest during his term of office, he will be honest at the time of the elections”.