Serbia Urged to Take Action to Prevent High-Level Official Corruption

Outgoing ministers at the Serbian parliament. Photo: EPA-EFE/Andrej Cukic.

The Council of Europe’s Group of States against Corruption, GRECO, said in its latest report on Tuesday that further measures are needed to prevent corruption among top public servants in Serbia, including the president, ministers, their assistants, state secretaries, chiefs of cabinet and political advisers, as well as police officials.

“A public strategy on corruption prevention covering explicitly PTEFs [persons with top executive functions] should be developed,” the GRECO report says.

It also urges the adoption of “a public strategy on corruption prevention in the police”.

The report says the role of the Anti-corruption Agency should be strengthened, the law on lobbying should be further improved and conflict of interest and political influence should be addressed when appointing to police leadership roles.

It also says that the remit of the Law on the Prevention of Corruption should be expanded to cover anyone who holds an executive position, including the prime minister and deputy prime ministers’ chiefs of officers as well as special advisers.

The report highlights the need for integrity checks to be carried out before the appointment of ministers, their heads of office and advisers “in order to identify and manage possible risks of conflicts of interest before joining government”.

It also says that the definition of ‘lobbying’ covered by the Law on Lobbying should be extended to contacts with people in the highest executive positions, “whether they have been formalised in a written request or not”.

The GRECO report proposes a review of immunity granted to the members of the government, in order to exclude criminal acts related to corruption.

The jurisdiction of the Organised Crime Prosecutor’s Office should be extended to everyone in the highest executive positions, including the president, it urges.

In the police force, the GRECO report argues that measures should also be taken to achieve a more open and transparent competition in the procedure of appointment of the chief of police and other senior management posts to prevent political appointments.

Members of the force need regular integrity vetting throughout their careers, while there should be rotation of staff in corruption risk-prone areas, it adds.

Requests for the provision of information that were submitted to the government or the presidential administration without a positive response should be the subject of an appeal to the Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and the Protection of Personal Data, the report says. At the moment this issue can only be addressed in court.

The Serbian government’s implementation of the recommendations will be assessed by GRECO in 2023.