La política criminal de la Unión Europea contra la corrupción: dos décadas de esfuerzos
| Autor | Benito Demelsa |
| Páginas | 520-548 |
DEMELSA, Benito, “The European Union Criminal Policy against Corruption: Two
Decades of Efforts”.
Polít. crim. Vol. 15, Nº 27 (Julio 2019), Art. 15, pp. 520-548
[http://politcrim.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Vol14N27A15.pdf]
The European Union Criminal Policy against Corruption: Two Decades of Efforts
La política criminal de la Unión Europea contra la corrupción: dos décadas de
esfuerzos
Demelsa Benito Sánchez
Lecturer of Criminal Law – University of Deusto (Spain)
demelsa.benito@deusto.es
Abstract
Corruption has been in the agenda of the European Union for decades due to its
devastating effects on the political and economic systems of the EU Member States, and
on the European Union itself. Therefore, with the aim of combating corruption, the
European Union has adopted a wide list of legal instruments since the middle of the
nineties that Member States shall implement and enforce. This paper offers a critical
review of the main instruments, from the first initiatives, adopted already two decades
ago, until the most recent ones, focusing on the criminal law obligations they impose on
the Member States. Likewise, it analyses the implementation and enforcement of such
documents by Member States, with the final purpose of assessing if the European Union
criminal policy against corruption is working correctly or, by contrast, needs to be
improved.
Keywords: Corruption, criminal policy, European Union, Member State, public
official.
Resumen
La corrupción ha estado presente en la agenda de la Unión Europea desde hace décadas
debido a sus devastadores efectos sobre los sistemas políticos y económicos de los
Estados Miembros, y sobre la propia Unión Europea. Por eso, y con el objetivo de
combatir la corrupción, desde mediados de los años noventa, la Unión Europea ha
adoptado un amplio listado de instrumentos legales que los Estados Miembros deben
implementar y aplicar. Este trabajo ofrece una revisión crítica de los principales
instrumentos, desde los primeros, adoptados hace ya dos décadas, hasta los más
recientes, poniendo el énfasis en las obligaciones penales que ellos imponen a los
Estados miembros. Igualmente, este trabajo analiza cómo está siendo la implementación
y aplicación de tales instrumentos por los Estados Miembros, con el objetivo final de
valorar si la política criminal de la Unión Europea contra la corrupción está funcionando
correctamente o si, por el contrario, necesita una mejora.
Palabras clave: Corrupción, política criminal, Unión Europea, Estado miembro,
funcionario público.
Polít. crim. Vol. 15, Nº 27 (Julio 2019), Art. 15, pp. 520-548
[http://politcrim.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Vol14N27A15.pdf]
521
Introduction
Corruption is one of the main problems of the current world. It hinders economic
development, undermines democracy and causes human suffering1. Therefore,
corruption has been in the agendas of the principal international organisations for more
than two decades, as well as in the agendas of national governments. The European
Union is not an exception. It has been very aware of this problem for years, and
although most of the Member States of the European Union are among the best
positions in the Corruption Perception Index elaborated by Transparency International,2
corruption continues to be a challenge for the European Union, because apart from the
aforementioned consequences, it may harm the EU itself.
It was already twenty years ago, in May 1997, when the European Union adopted a
convention against corruption: the Convention on the fight against corruption involving
officials of the European Communities or officials of Member States of the European
Union. It is unquestionable that this document represents a milestone in the EU criminal
policy against corruption because for the first time, a legal document required Member
States of the European Union to criminalise bribery of public officials in general.
Before the adoption of the Convention of 1997, there were other documents on
corruption. However, the approach to corruption in such documents was very restrictive
since they demanded Member States the criminalisation of corruption only if it put or
may put the financial interests of the European Union at risk. The EU Convention on
corruption, by contrast, requires Member States to penalise corruption in any case, even
though the financial interests of the European Union are not affected.
The EU Convention on corruption is, thus, the most relevant document on the matter at
the EU level, and also, the first binding legal document for the European countries
which demands the criminalisation of corruption in general.3 Then, other legal
documents on this matter adopted in the framework of other organisations would be
binding for the European countries too. Namely, the Convention on Combating Bribery
of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions, adopted by the
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development at the end of 1997, has been
ratified by 24 Member States of the EU. The Council of Europe Conventions on
Corruption (Criminal Law Convention and Civil Law Convention), both adopted in
1999, have been ratified by the 28 Member States of the EU. Finally, the United
1 The research leading to this paper has been developed within the framework provided by the research
group Mutations of public power and the transnational law (Basque Government, Spain, 2016-2018,
reference: IT997-16), the research project La reforma del decomiso y la recuperación de activos
derivados del delito (Government of Spain, 2016-2019 , reference: DER2016-79895), and the SAPIA Jean
Monnet Module (Students ’ Awareness of Public Integrity and Accountability), awarded by the European
Commission (2017-2020, 586939-EPP-1-2017-1-ES-EPPJMO-MODULE).
2 The Corruption Perceptions Index measures the perceived levels of public sector corruption worldwide.
Results are available at
https://www.transparency.org/whatwedo/publication/corruption_perceptions_index_2016 (last access
22.12.2017). According to the 2016 Corruption Perceptions Index, 21 EU Member States are among the
50 first countries of the ranking, which includes 176 countries. The last EU Me mber State in the ranking
is Bulgaria, in position 75.
3 The Inter-American Convention on Corruption, adopted under the auspices of the Organization of
American State s in 1996, is the first binding legal document on corruption adopted by an international
organisation.
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