20.07.2017
The Deputy Prime Minister for the Justice Reform and Minister of Internal Affairs Ekaterina Zaharieva for the first time today chaired a meeting of the National Council for Anti-Corruption Policies at the Council of Ministers as its Chairperson and National Coordinator.
“I am convinced that until each minister or director of a directorate takes up the creation and implementation of anti-corruption policies in their administration as a personal cause, we can hardly speak about fighting corruption, even as a preventive measure,” pointed out the Deputy Prime Minister at the beginning of the meeting of the Council.
“I strongly hope that in our future work we will give concrete recommendations and not just have a formal approach,” added Zaharieva. Before the members of the Council she clarified what style and pace of work the structure will have: “I expect that each institution does not have just a formal approach by copying normative regulations but that it describes the concrete anti-corruption measures that it will implement.”
The Council determined the deadline of 30 August for all ministries to present their anti-corruption plans, after which the Centre for Prevention and Counteracting Corruption will undertake an analysis and will suggest concrete anti-corruption measures, including the drafting of standards for verification of the integrity of employees within the state administration.
A roadmap was discussed and adopted, which follows the recommendations from the report within the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism from 2017, by suggesting measures for eliminating the weaknesses of the investigation and criminal procedures in relation to corruption cases, as well as a mechanism for reporting the achieved progress publicly.
The roadmap foresees that in the end of October, after a debate, a working group will prepare suggestions for amendments to the Criminal Code regarding corruption crimes, thereby including in their scope also the private sector.
“I agree that a completely new criminal code concept is needed,” added Minister Zaharieva during the discussions with the clarification that those legal amendments should be drafted in the very short term.
The National Council for Anti-corruption Policies was created in 2015 with the task of coordination and controlling the creation and implementation of anti-corruption policies.
