Council of Europe GRECO has noted in a third evaluation round compliance report Cyprus’ efforts to comply with the recommendations previously issued on combating corruption.
In a report approved by the CoE plenary, on Thursday, GRECO notes that Cyprus “has been able to demonstrate that reforms with the potential of achieving an acceptable level of compliance with the pending recommendations within the next 18 months are underway”.
It concludes that “the current low level of compliance with the recommendations is not "globally unsatisfactory"” in accordance with the articles of its Rules of Procedure.
Cyprus was due to implement GRECO recommendations on incriminations and on transparency of party funding.
“In so far as incriminations are concerned, legislative reforms aimed at ensuring greater coherence of the existing provisions are to be commended”, it is noted.
Thus, the report adds, “a series of amendments introduced in the Criminal Code, the Prevention of Corruption Law and the two Laws ratifying the Council of Europe Criminal Law Convention and its Additional Protocol have remedied some important deficiencies, namely insufficiently dissuasive pecuniary sanctions for corruption offences, and imprecise definition of some bribery offences”.
However, it is further pointed out that “more steps are needed in order to create a coherent and robust legal framework free from inconsistencies, preferably through gathering all corruption crimes in a single legal instrument”.
For the moment, the coexistence of legal instruments with different personal and material scope breeds legal uncertainty, including through lack of practical application of the two laws ratifying the Council of Europe anti-corruption standards, the report says.
According to the GRECO report, “important efforts have been deployed in order to comply with the recommendations” as regards the transparency of political financing.
It outlines the actions taken by Cyprus. In particular it refers to the new Political Parties Law (PPL) was adopted in December 2012, replacing the previously existing legal act and bringing “enhanced transparency into political financing in Cyprus”.
The new legislation in place “has introduced an explicit obligation for political parties to keep accounting books, in accordance with the International Financial Reporting Standards, and to integrate therein information on income, expenditure, assets and debts, including from local branches and affiliated organisations, as well as income and expenses pertaining to election campaigns” the report says.
Political parties’ financial statements “are now subject to independent audit and external supervision by the Auditor-General of the Republic, which are to be performed on an annual basis, and the results of the latter are to be made available to the wider public”.
The lack of a consistent format for political parties’ account, the absence of an external supervision of incomes and expenditures in connection with election campaigns, as well as the lack of publication of parties’ accounts and individual donations above a certain threshold, are quoted as “remaining weakness”.
Cyprus is invited to submit addition information on the implementation of certain recommendations by September 30 2014.
Finally, GRECO “invites the authorities of Cyprus to authorise, as soon as possible, the publication of the report, to translate the report into the national language and to make this translation public”.
