European Parliament Adopts Resolution on Corruption

On December 4, 2003, the European Parliament adopted a resolution on a comprehensive European Union (EU) policy against corruption. The resolution called on the Council Presidency to sign the United Nations Convention on Corruption, welcomed the Council?s adoption on July 22, 2003 of the Framework Decision 2003/568/JHA on combating corruption in the private sector, called on EU Members to transpose Framework Decision 2002/584/JHA into national law no later than January 1, 2004, urged EU Members to ratify all outstanding international conventions in anti-corruption without further delay and encouraged the Commission to adopt a policy of ?naming and shaming? those EU Members that have not fulfilled their undertakings to ratify, called on the Commission and Council to help establish an evaluation system that would be independent of the Council of Europe?s system to monitor the proper implementation by EU Members of anti-corruption legislative measures, called on the Commission to require the candidate countries and EU Members to make equivalent efforts in the fight against corruption, reiterated that Eurojust and Europol should be the appropriate bodies to ensure judicial and police cooperation between national authorities responsible for anti-corruption measures, and called on EU Members and candidate countries to establish bodies specialized in fighting corruption, to improve the investigation mechanism.