Center for the Study of Democracy: ROMANIA

COALITION BUILDING AND MONITORING FOR ANTI-CORRUPTION IN SOUTH-EAST EUROPE

Corruption in Romania

This document represents a compilation of the assessment reports and program findings on corruption in Romania granted by foreign organisations such as:

- World Bank: requested by the Government of Romania, the report Diagnostic Surveys of Corruption in Romania is briefing the findings of the 3 surveys on governance and corruption undertaken by the World Bank and Management Systems International (partner of the United States Agency for International Development) in 2000,

- UNDP: started in mid-1997 and extended until March 2001, the project Institution Building and Strengthening of Corruption Control Capacity in Romania supported the new political regime of the epoque who addressed corruption as a top priority on its reform agenda in order to strengthen the legal framework and the state institutions capacity to fight corruption by training the professionals of the judicial system (judges, prosecutors, police) and drafting new anti-corruption norms designed after European and US models;

- Council of Europe in co-operation with the European Commission: the Octopus II joint programme report against corruption and organised crime in the transition states undertaken during February 1999 - December 2000. The section referring to Romania resumes the recommendations prepared by the project participants for improving policy, legislation, institutional structure, regulations and practise in the country.

- Freedom House: Media Responses to Corruption in the Emerging Democracies: Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Ukraine. "The objective of the Freedom House … assessment was to explore the media' capacity to accurately and effectively investigate and report on crime and corruption in the emerging democracies";

and the analysis of Ms. Alina Mungiu-Pippidi : For an Institutional Approach to Post Communism Corruption, Analysis and Policy Proposal Based on a Survey of Three Central European States: Romania, Bulgaria and Slovakia prepared for the Bertelsmann Conference on Accountability, Bucharest, May, 3-5, 2001. The objective of the project was to identify the actors and findings on which a step-by-step action plan against post communism corruption can by designed.

The structure of this document was elaborated according to the requirements of the annual Corruption Assessment Report. The findings and recommendations with regional relevance were underlined.

INTRODUCTION

"Corruption in Romania is a complex problem, with deep roots and exacerbated by false starts in the attempts to curb it. As in other transition countries, the pace and the quality of Romania's transition to democracy and a market economy have been impeded by systemic corruption. There is widespread belief that the very institutions charged with fighting corruption are themselves corrupt. t post communism corruption can by designed.

The nature and extent of actual corruption in society is difficult to measure and therefore less well documented. Little official data about corruption in Romania existed when the project began. Today there is considerable survey research on both domestic and foreign perceptions of corruption, but there still is not much reliable information on actual corruption.

The Foundation for Development of Civil Society's opinion research in Bucharest in 1999 revealed that 84.4% of respondents thought all or most civil servants take bribes. Moreover, respondents tended to identify moral or psychological factors (for instance greed), rather than structural or institutional aspects (such as low pay for civil servants), as the cause of bribe taking by public officials.

In a 1999 survey conducted by the US Department of State in several countries in Central and Eastern Europe, only 19% of Romanian respondents had confidence in their institutions of national government, a substantially lower percentage than in the other five countries surveyed. And diagnostic surveys conducted during 2000 with support from the World Bank and USAID indicate that many Romanians believe corruption has become routine: half of households reported bribery to be part of everyday life.

Objective indicators of Romania's transition during the project period are poor by any measure. The UNDP National Human Development Report for 1999 shows a decline in Romania's Human Development Index over 1998. The actual income of the population was lower than in 1989, and the percentage of Romanians living below the poverty line increased. Unemployment grew fastest among the under-25 population.

With 1999 economic growth at -3.2%, GDP per capita less than $1600, average monthly wages of $95, and the inflation rate projected in the budget for 2001 is 22-24%. Romania is in the grip of decline. At the same time, available information on the informal or black economy, estimated at 50% of official GDP, suggests there are dynamic economic forces operating outside of the rule of law. This leaves considerable potential revenue untapped by the government and perpetuates the public's low view of the quality of governing institutions.

…. in 1997, a time when there was heightened political rhetoric about the need to combat crime and corruption. The public was awakening to the costs of corruption. Drafting had begun on several new laws in the anti corruption domain. But the fight against corruption was hindered by insufficient coordination between key state institutions charged with enforcing the laws to stem corruption, and suspicion that the political leaders lacked the integrity to be credible partners in the effort" .

1. CREATING A FAVORABLE INSTITUTIONAL AND LEGAL ENVIRONMENT FOR CURBING CORRUPTION

1.A. Public Administration Reform and Institution Building Strategy

"When looking at the corruption in underdeveloped countries one has therefore to account for both the formal and informal institutions. An anti-corruption law will make little sense in a legal culture in which no law is enforced and nobody collaborates with the police, as is the case of the three countries we surveyed in this paper. A mass education program risks having no effect at all as long as attributing bad intentions to the government and considering the whole political class a band of thieves at the expense of ordinary citizens is a mass belief. Nobody will start clean the next day if the suspicion is there that the leaders are only in the business of stealing his or her family. A more comprehensive approach to solving corruption is needed under such circumstances, and this can only work if either the political will is there, or we have the means to put pressure on those who should have it."

Due to the political will and to the international support an inter ministerial Protocol of Co-operation was signed by the Ministry of Interior, the Ministry of Justice, the General Prosecutor, the Romanian Intelligence Service, the Romanian External Service, and the Ministry of Finance in December 1998. "This Protocol was a key building block and an important contribution … to creating more effective structures that would enhance inter ministerial co-ordination and eliminate overlapping competencies….."

A governmental step of the institutional building strategy was "the establishment of an independent National Anti-Corruption Advisory Commission under the aegis of the Prime Minister to coordinate policy and centralize authority for the storage and retrieval of official data relevant to fighting corruption. There was a critical need to redraw the "borders" around key information and to create new rules of access to information between state institutions engaged in law enforcement and the administration of justice."

"The draft Anti Corruption Law's provision for an independent national Anti Corruption Commission reporting to the Prime Minister was eliminated by the Senate in the process of legislative approval. This was an initial political setback to the achievement of project objectives. However, based on agreements embodied in the 1998 Protocol, the law was later amended and, in place of the Anti Corruption Commission, created a dedicated Specialized Section for Combating Corruption and Organized Crime in the General Prosecutors Office, attached to the Supreme Court."

The UN project participants drafted a list of recommendations on the anti-corruption measures, which underlines the following institutional approaches:

"1. Develop preventive measures, such as ethics training and codes of conduct for public service.
2. Extend financial disclosure requirements to more categories of public officials and implement verification and enforcement mechanisms.
3. Enforce financial disclosure requirements for political campaign contributions.
4. Reform management of natural resources, local government and privatization.
…..
7. Develop competitive entry and merit based promotion systems for all law enforcement positions.
8. Develop Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) legislation as well as privacy laws.
….
10. Utilize the Stability Pact Anti-Corruption Initiative as a useful mechanism to monitor and publicize progress in Romania.

These are important remedies for corruption and they are within reach for the Romanian government. While stronger law enforcement is important it cannot cure the problem alone. General reform of government operations that enhances the system of checks and balances and produces greater transparency is also needed."

1.B. Political Parties

"Even if a culture of corruption is widespread in the general public, it is not so serious as if such a culture is generalized at the level of political class. The public perceives it strongly: in the three countries surveyed MPs are considered only by around 10 % or less as serving the public interest and majorities agree that current leaders are more corrupted than communist ones had been. The political class seems determined to act for its own unpopularity, embracing symbols of abuse and corruption. It is not by mere chance that local administration, once the cradle of corruption, has managed to get some legitimacy as more autonomy brought a higher capacity to serve the needs of the community, and the direct election of the mayor proved an excellent accountability mechanism, while MPs and central governments remained, in the three countries surveyed, highly unpopular, endorsed by only 10-15 % of the total public. …

Based on these conclusions we see the following directions that should be pursued in order to come with a step-by-step action plan. Each should be conceived in a similar logic, that is, to solve a current problem by motivating involved actors to pursue change. ……

Politicians need to be reelected. If they often neglect this fact in pursuing bad practices is because they are aware that the whole political class is acting similarly, so the constituency is compelled to make an electoral choice by disregarding this criterion, on entirely different grounds. It is enough that one important political party is persuaded to endorse a policy of the 'mani pulita' type. The rest will have to follow. The problem of the Romanian political landscape so far has been that no party has decided to make this its prime electoral topic in 2000 except extremist Corneliu Vadim Tudor. The parties that had used it in 1996 had been totally disqualified by their cronyism. The civil society coalition must attract at least one party, which should act as the bearer of this cause in Parliament. A 'reform of the political class' should be again proposed: this reform would encompass the restriction of the MP immunity, the drastic reduction of the protocol habits and a clear set of regulations against conflict of interest, non-existing for the time being, separating politics from both business activity and trade union activism . Once a party would step in this direction the others could not afford to be left behind. The lack of action can only feed political extremism and the de-legitimating of the whole political system."

1.C. Legislation

"New modern legislative tools are in place. Although, not without their weaknesses, Romanian law and legal procedure pertaining to corruption clearly benefited from the European and US examples and experience introduced under the project. Law 143/1999 on Combating Drug Trafficking, Law 21/1999 on Preventing and Countering Money Laundering and Law 78/2000 on Prevention, Finding and Punishing Corruption Deeds were enacted.

Additional legislative progress included Law 188/1999 on the Statute of Public Servants, defining the general rights and duties of public servants, and the process for selecting, evaluating and promoting them, and Law 115/1999 on Ministerial Responsibility, defining how Government as a whole and Ministers individually are held accountable.

The Law on Public Purchasing Ordinance 118/1999 establishes fundamental principles to guide public procurement: free competition, efficiency of using public funds, transparency and access to information, non-discrimination, and appropriate confidentiality.

Law 115/1996 on Financial Disclosure was modified by Government Emergency Ordinance 130 in September 1999, in response to controversy in the parliament over the constitutionality of the legislation, which defined political responsibility but not judicial responsibility to disclose assets. Parliamentary discussion of this issue continues.

The most important new legislative tool introduced early in the project, Anti Corruption Law (78/2000), was successfully passed in May 2000, after considerable delay. It is generally thought by Romanian law enforcement professionals to be an improvement in the legal framework on corruption. Among the most important new features of the Law are provisions to:

1. Extend the definition of classic corruption crimes to the private sector,
2. Increase the maximum criminal penalties that can be applied in corruption convictions,
3. Establish new offences relating to economic activities and expand access to bank records in anti corruption cases, and
4. Publish sentences in the newspaper in corruption cases.

However critics of the Anti Corruption Law question the harsh sanctions provided relative to the norm for other criminal cases. It was suggested that the Law may have succumbed to an unfortunate tendency in Romania to rely too heavily on overly repressive and harsh criminal penalties. These in turn can lead to weak enforcement. The concern is that judges will avoid convictions in corruption cases because they are reluctant to impose such severe sentences. It remains to be seen if this concern is justified.

The new Drug Law (43/1999) inter alia formalises cooperation by lower level suspects willing to implicate their superiors and is unique among the family of Romanian anti-corruption laws in that it allows undercover operations and wiretapping. Separate Romanian legislative initiatives that would more generally authorize undercover operations and provide witness protection have so far not been enacted.

Critics of the Financial Disclosure Law point to inconsistencies in its sanctions. A penalty of three months is imposed on public officials lying about their wealth, while the penalty against informants making allegations of fraud that cannot be proven is six years.

New administrative structures related to the new laws are also in place. The Specialized Section for Combating Corruption and Organized Crime attached to the General Prosecutor's office and located in the Public Ministry lacks the independence originally envisioned for a free standing Anti Corruption Commission headed by the Prime Minister. But it is an embodiment of the commitments to cooperation made by the signatories (MOJ , police, financial guard, customs, intelligence services and prosecutors) to the 1998 Protocol.

At the time of this evaluation, the section had only been operational for three months, having moved from the informal exchange of information to collaboration on criminal investigations of corruption cases. Similar units were created at lower levels and attached to territorial courts staffed with prosecutors, police, customs officers, financial police and members of the intelligence service. Personnel serving in these specialized units are detailed by their agencies and receive 30% bonus pay as a financial incentive.

Computers originally designated under the project for the Anti Corruption Commission were allocated to the national Specialized Section. However progress to develop a national, integrated law enforcement data base has been slow, handicapped by technical issues, reluctance on the part of some parties to share information and the lack of budgetary resources. However, implementation of the database envisioned under this project is expected to be completed with funding by the European Union Catch-Up Facility.

The Money Laundering National Office is fully operational. However, there are reports of continued difficulty obtaining on a timely basis critical information from some government units.

Work has begun to strengthen "in house rules" to prevent corruption within ministries, including a code of conduct for the MOJ and for the police. An MOJ Internet web site on corruption is due to be launched in January 2001.

Specific to the weaknesses that remain in Romania's anti corruption legal framework is the question of whether the legislative reforms fostered by the project promote too much attention to petty corruption and too little to grand corruption. While prosecutors, judges and police spoke openly and frankly in the context of project activities, it is too early to know whether those with the courage to tackle corruption cases involving political and economic elites will remain free from interference. The issue of parliamentary immunities remains to be addressed."

2. Reform of the Judicial System

In the same time "…There was a need to upgrade the technical skills of prosecutors, police and judges. Roles and responsibilities lacked clarification and there was a general need to improve understanding and working relations between the various components of law enforcement joining forces to work together in the fight against corruption"

The following problems of the system were identified and addressed by the Octopus II programme:

strengthening the special investigation techniques against corruption through modernising the utilised techniques. Several recommendations were identified:
- legal and institutional framework to be established for the special investigation techniques;
- specific measures to be adopted on the under-cover pursuits such as: professional training and the establishment of code of conduct for the special agents, legal regulations for the under-cover agents, modification of the articles no. 68 and 172 of the Penal Code;
- specific measures to be adopted on electronic pursuits, communication intercepting and observation;
- to elaborate a convention on the special investigation techniques;
- the accede to the Schengen Convention, especially for the transfrontier pursuits.

In order to meet the underlined requirements several steps have already been undertaken: adoption of the law no. 78/2000 on the prevention, discovery and the sanction of the corruption facts, new provisions for the under-cover agents and witness protection were added to the Penal Code, the National Society for Organised Crime and Corruption Study, private Romanian moral entity was set up on August, 7th, 2000 together with a NGO for the crime and corruption study, police training on the special investigation techniques was made, etc.

co-operation between offices and specialised units and adoption of the multidisciplinary approach . The following recommendations were made: - the setting up of a central mechanism of co-ordinating the fight against corruption and organised crime;
- reinforce the basis of the corruption prevention;
- promotion of information exchanges at national level;
- training and resources development for the actors involved (police men, magistrates, etc).

which were taken into account through the provisions of the law no. 78/2000 and by the setting up the National Institute of Magistrates (2000).

co-operation with the penal justice authorities and the protection measures development for the vulnerable actors in order to investigate and pursue the corruption and organised crime affairs . The following recommendations were identified:
- to encourage the co-operating parties to action and the witnesses to co-operate in the framework of a protection program and specialised protection service;
- to adopt legal regulation on the protection of the vulnerable actors;
- to increase public awareness and education on the matter;
- to strengthen the international co-operation on the matter.
penal procedures for corruption according to European instruments, the increase of the efficiency and the adequate character of laws and sanctions represent the key elements of the strategies developed against the phenomenon . The following recommendations were underlined:
- to restructure and design the legal framework on the prevention and repression of corruption and to accelerate the adoption of the laws on corruption , civil servant status , law introducing to the Penal Code provisions on the witnesses protection;
- to harmonise the Romanian legislation with the Council of Europe Penal Convention on Corruption especially on matters concerning the corrupt foreign public agents.
penal accountability of the moral persons >. The following recommendations were made:
- to assure the coherence and the compatibility of new legal dispositions on penal accountability of moral persons with certain existing norms in the special laws (the criminal record and the Trade Register);
- to increase public awareness on the matter;
- to adopt rapidly the draft Penal Code and the Criminal Procedure Code especially for strengthening the criminal procedure against the moral persons implicated in corruption.

3. Curbing corruption in the economy

"When we write or say corruption we usually think of some correlation with business, such as faked bids involving large sums or other things of the kind. Corruption is commonly defined as the grease of commerce. Our point here is however that the large-scale corruption in the post-communist world is not the one correlated with business, but to the simple everyday functions of the public service. The picture these surveys offer of corruption is that of grease of public service, not business. Neither in the Romanian survey, nor in the Bulgarian one can we find any correlation between being engaged in business and bribing. Chi-square test on the Romanian survey data indicates no association is to be found between the two variables, and percentages look indeed strikingly similar. It is not the reinvention of business which prompted corruption in post-communist Europe: it is the survival of communist times organization and culture of administration."

Figure 5 - Crosstabulation of 'Engaged in business' with 'How often do you have to bribe'?

Business			Total
	Yes	No
Always	13.5%	13.8%	13.7%
Depens	57.1%	52.9%	53.4%
Never	27.1%	28.2%	28.2%

4. Enhancing civil control in the fight against coruption

4.A. NGOs

Civic competence is conceptualized in this paper as a citizen's awareness of his or her own rights and lawful actions and an active attitude in pursuing them. To be able to discern the patterns of civic competence we created a correspondence analysis index of 'civic competence' made of:

1. behavior when mistreated by a civil servant,
2. attitude when witnessing bribe given or taken,
3. awareness of accountability mechanisms the public can resort to if abused by the local government, local tax office, phone company, Court, Mayor, hospital, Parliament and Government.

Two classes surfaced after correspondence analysis: individuals who complain when mistreated, know where to complain in the case of most public institutions, report corruption encountered, try to talk out or avoid the persons involved (competents), and individuals who are unaware of accountability mechanisms and let rest the matter when they encounter abuse or corruption (incompetents).

What determines civic competence? Individuals, who are younger, more educated, relatively well off, residing in urban areas and being more politically competent (factor score we made of self-assessed interest in politics, reading or watching political reports in the media, and discussing politics with friends and family) tend to be more competent. Perceiving corruption as moderate despite encountering it quite a significant number of times and considering gifts acceptable only as a token of gratitude also increases the likelihood that one is more civically competent. For the rest, the three countries we surveyed differed. Romanians and Slovaks tend to be more competent as they attribute corruption to the low moral standards of the people, while Bulgarians are more likely to be competent as they blame the institutions more.

Figure 9-Determinants of the factor score 'civic competence'

PREDICTORS	ROMANIA	BULGARIA	SLOVAKIA
Status
Wealth	+	+	+
Age	+	-	-
Education	+	+	+
Sex	Male+	Ns	Ns
Urban	-	+	+
Private Sector	Ns	Ns	Ns
Political competence factor	+	+	+
Subjective corruption	Ns	Ns	Ns
Corruption is due to systemic causes (low wages)	Ns	Ns	Ns
Corruption due to institutional causes (law weak or not enforced)	Ns	+	Ns
Corruption is people's fault	+
Bad experience with a civil servant	+	+	Ns
Bribe acceptable as a token of gratitude	+	+	Ns
Bribe acceptable under other circumstances	-	Ns	Ns
R2	0.221	0.275	0.205

+ indicates a positive correlation, - a negative one. NS means the variable has no predictive value at p< 0.05

The quality of governance does depend strongly on the civic competence of citizens. More demanding and competent citizens may be more effective tools in raising the quality of the governance in the public sector than anything else. Asking this from a population with a history of abuse by authorities, living either around or below the threshold of poverty is however unrealistic. But this does not mean this is not one essential level of policy intervention….

1. Corruption is a diffuse post-communist phenomenon grounded in the ineffectiveness of public administration as a provider of public services; business-related corruption is only a variety of this general phenomenon, even if business-related corruption involves more money than the 'ordinary' corruption, this does not make it special; on the contrary, as entrepreneurs have more means and incentives to obtain certain public services indispensable to their activity, they are prone to become passive supporters of corruption more than ordinary citizens; the same happens with all citizens who dispose of more resources;

2. ……..

3. Corruption persists due to the lack of civic competence and self-assertiveness of the less educated and economically disadvantaged citizens: if those cannot be mobilized to act on their own behalf someone else has to do so; the practice of having local NGOs acting in an Ombudsman capacity should be generalized and such activity should receive support from local governments and business as it is an indispensable partnership for the increase in effectiveness of local administration.

4. In countries still missing an urban culture and only beginning the reform of the judiciary, the vertical accountability mechanisms (elections) and some of the direct accountability ones (Courts) may not work. Overloading these mechanisms in a time when they badly need to become effective in order to get some legitimacy is risky. When an average trial in the countries surveyed lasts 4-5 years it is clearly day-to-day accountability mechanisms cannot be entrusted to Courts. What is needed therefore is the development of alternative horizontal accountability mechanisms, based on institutions which work: the private sector and the NGO sector. Otherwise we shall only ask from weak state institutions to solve the problem of other weak state institutions, without empowering them to do so."

"There are still few champions in Romania's fight against corruption both inside and outside the state. While the project drew considerable support from the media and NGOs, these institutions lack skills and experience in the anti corruption arena. The media exposes examples of corruption but lacks the investigative skills to follow up. NGOS are better at analyzing corruption than in organizing effectively to prevent it. While CICP's comparative advantage in technical cooperation may not be in the arena of civil society development per se, it will remain an important component in any successful anti corruption strategy."

4.B. Media

The analysis of the media possibilities to investigate and report corruption represented the objectives of the Freedom House Assessment Report: Media responses to Corruption in the Emerging Democracies: Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, and Ukraine. The document is pointing out the main area of difficulties:

- Lack of independence: "… many new organizations are not economically viable, and subsist on state or owner subsidies….. In broadcast media the state still exercises control over assigning frequencies and broadcast licenses…. This lack of financial and political independence by many new organizations had led to a variety of ills. Editors are more vulnerable to political pressures and professionalism suffers. Their state or private owners often regard them as tools to further political of personal agendas (usually commercial interests) and pressure editors to slant their coverage.

- Lack of access to basic government information. … there are few laws giving the public the right to certain information on essential state functions such as the state and local budgets, economic statistics, public procurement, privatization, tax revenues, and court proceedings. Where freedom of information legislation exists, its lacks implementing legislation or is contradictory or confusing. Understandably, then, it is neither understood nor enforced…. This state of affairs has compromised the ability of even the best journalists to report on corruption and organized crime, and frustrates both journalists and government officials. Because the main avenues for information and documentation are blocked, journalists resort to back channels and anonymous sources to provide information on … corruption issues. …..Officials are frustrated by what the perceive as inaccurate reporting in the press. It makes them even less inclined to provide information to journalists, and thus the cycle perpetuates itself.

- Punitive libel law and prosecutorial abuse: … In many cases the laws prescribe heavy civil and even criminal penalties for vague offenses such as "damaging the honor and dignity of a person". Almost always, the onus is on the journalist to prove that the allegations are "facts" in a situation where most journalists have no access to documentation to prove their case. Courts may require journalists to reveal their sources as part of their defense.….

- Weak advocacy groups: Press associations in established democracies represent the interests of the entire journalistic community, including managers and owners, and lobby governments to expand press freedoms and promote the media's welfare. …. The associations are typically very weak, ineffective, and sometimes highly politicized. There often are several competing press associations set up by rival fractions…..

- Disincentives to investigative journalism: Investigative journalism is expensive and time consuming. Even sympathetic editors cannot afford to release staff to do extended, in-depth investigations. This is especially true for new organizations outside the capital. In addition, the editors do not want to risk trouble with the authorities. Virtually no journalists have an opportunity to do any kind of cross-border investigation, crucial in this region in order to report effectively on organized crime networks. In addition to fear of retribution, investigative journalists get little recognition or support when they run into trouble or are threatened. Often, they feel their efforts are for nothing, as law enforcement officials seldom follow up on allegations in the press….

- Lack of experience and opportunities: There is considerable confusion among journalists … as to what constitutes true investigative journalism. Some confused publication of speculation and unsubstantiated rumors with investigations. Few journalists have experience doing financial investigations, or understand how criminal activities….work. Some local publications are now on the Internet, but most of the press do not have access to Lexis/Nexis or other specialized electronic data bases or the training that enable them to retrieve new stories and other information.

- Public cynicism regarding corruption: corruption has long been considered - even a sensible modus operandi…A common attitude in the region is that everybody at every level of society is somehow supporting and using the system of corruption. Even when the public clearly suffers from corrupt practices, they feel they have no choice. They doubt the will of their political leadership to put a stop to it. Few, if any, senior public officials are prosecuted for corruption."

The same report is suggesting the following recommendations:

- explore the establishment of effective, independent associations that unite sectors of the media in areas where they share common interests;
- support legal reform initiative to promote the passage and effective implementation of freedom-of-information laws;
- legal defense funds that assist journalists and/or news organizations targeted by punitive libel laws should be established of strengthened;
- encourage and facilitate more aggressive international monitoring of threats and punitive actions against journalists;
- establish or expand regional and US journalism exchange programs that emphasize training and reporting on transnational crime and corruption;
- regional journalists should be encouraged to cooperate with each other and expand their efforts to report on corruption and transnational crime on a continuing basis;
- to counter the high costs to the regional press of investigative reporting, establish incentives, including small research stipends, for promising investigative projects;
- in order to be truly independent, regional media must become economically viable, and cease its reliance on state and owner subsidies;
- support and technical assistance should be provided to willing governments on press relations, government transparency, framing legislation to provide access to official information, and laws to protect whistle blowers, watchdog organizations, and the press;
- public education efforts to illustrate the costs of corruption to individuals and the country need to be established or strengthened;
- stronger diplomatic efforts need to be made in the struggle against corruption.

4.C. Civil society and the passive support of corruption

"Nobody wants to be extra taxed - this is the reason why people denounce corruption in surveys, while contributing to it in the real life. For in the real life the need to get the goods from the administration prevails. Would it prevail if a way to get the same thing would be at hand with no extra tax, only by resorting to some clear, on-spot mechanism of accountability? It is doubtful it would. Whenever mechanisms of accountability allow immediate resolution people use it. The participation of the population as the passive supporters of corruption would be greatly reduced once these mechanisms would be installed."

5. Changing public perceptions on corruption

Due to the civil perception of corruption different measures have to be taken:

- to empower the civil society as an actor in the fight against corruption,
- to educate the public about the causes and the results of corruption, about citizens rights in this respect,
- to organise clear public awareness rising campaign on the negative implications of the corruption;
- to strengthen the participation of NGOs in the decision making processes on fighting corruption.

These actions have to be connected with all recommendations underlined in the other sections of this paper in order to form a comprehensive strategy and improve the quality of actions.

6. International Co-operation

The Octopus II project identified certain recommendation on the international co-operation development in the field of fighting against corruption:

- at the national level, it is required to accelerate the adoption of the new legislative measures on extradition, common judiciary assistance, and transfer of convicted persons;
- in order to meet the standards of the Council of Europe and European Union the following laws have to be adopted: Law on the status of the police agents, law on the police, and the law on the Interior Ministry management has to be improved;
- according to the possibilities and requirements of the international co-operation, the training of the specialised persons has to be improved by using the Phare programs together with bilateral programs between Romania and the EU countries, improving the activity of the National Institute for Magistrates with the support of foreign experts, etc.
- the Schengen and Europol acquis have to be adopted, keeping in mind the advantages offered by the electronic data basis;
- encouraging the rapid exchange of information by means of direct exchanges.

An assessment of the international conventions adopted by Romania at different levels was made by the participants to the Octopus II program:

Romania ratified the following international conventions and instruments:

- European Convention on Extradition and its two protocols;
- European Convention on Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters and its protocol;
- Convention on the Transfer of Sentenced Persons and its additional protocol.

In 2000 Romania started the ratification procedure for:

- European Convention on the International Validity of Criminal Judgements (law no. 35/2000)
- European Convention on the Transfer of Proceedings in Criminal Matters (law no. 34/2000).

Romania signed:

- Convention on Laundering, Search, Seizure and Confiscation of the Proceeds from Crime;
- Criminal Law Convention on Corruption;
- Civil Law Convention on Corruption.

Romania signed, as well, different accords such as: Romania-Bulgaria-Turkey, Romania-Bulgaria-Greece, together with the multilateral accord SECI.

In the framework of the joint projects utilised in this document to describe the assessment of corruption on Romania, several initiatives were undertaken jointly with the Romanian authorities implicated into the matter (Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Interior, Romanian Police, National Institute of Magistrates, Police Academy):

- public awareness raising program in order to educate people on the negative impact of corruption and the possible means for the public to respond to the problem;
- under the Phare program on corruption seminars supported by French. Italian and Spanish experts were organised for the specialised judges and prosecutors belonging to the Ministry of Justice, Public Ministry, and Section on Fighting Against Corruption from the Justice Supreme Court;
- several seminars were organised, as well, on the fight against corruption for the specialised persons implicated in Romania or in other relevant countries: Germany, France, Italy, Greece, Spain, etc.
- in order to accelerate the accession to UE in 5 countries, including Romania, were granted an EU programme to strengthen the institutional capacity of the State on its fight against corruption. Participants to the project are: Ministry of Justice, Public Ministry, Ministry of Interior, Ministry of Finance (Customs General Direction). Technical assistance will be provided by the EU to revise the national institutional and legislative framework;
- a Permanent Instruction Centre will be set up jointly by the Public Ministry and Bucharest University with the EU financial support. The project is designed for 2 years and will provide the training for 30 specialised prosecutors on criminal matters together with a documentation unit on the matter;
- Ministry of Interior concluded with the European Commission a joint convention for 2 years. Experts from United Kingdom, France, and Spain will participate in order to modernise and find a more efficient way of structuring the Ministry of Interior and the General Inspectorate of the Police ;
- Ministry of Justice is participating to the program for the development of the institutional capacities on the fight against corruption concluded with the International Commission on the crime Prevention, Vienna, in 1998, and with UN Program for Development (UNPD);
- Romania is participating to programs as ADACS, Leonardo da Vinci, and to regional co-operation programs such: SECI, CEMN.

"In conclusion, the main recommendation coming out of this paper is that both the administration and the citizens should be empowered, the former to deliver the public services it is supposed to, the latter to demand them and collaborate with the administration in the process. This should subordinate the other strategies against corruption, and especially the repressive ones. Corruption should be fought first and foremost by clear and transparent procedures and horizontal accountability mechanisms: audits and Ombudsmen. The NGOs have a large role to play here. As to the top executives, pressure from anti-corruption coalitions and strong endorsements of best practices whenever these are to be found, mainly by the international donors, seem to be the only solution. A government which reacts when asked to stop corruption in a poor country by setting up an expensive anti-corruption center is clearly giving a signal it is not interested in curbing corruption. An international donor choosing as an intermediate grant-making organization one reputed for malpractice or encouraging the government to set up a NGO to get grants for the third sector is also giving the wrong signals. We are speaking of societies in which all incentives are still there for dishonest behavior and none for hard and honest work. Adding extra incentives for more cheating in the form of mismanaged international aid is only a way to invest in the status quo. So are workshops and conferences which do not propose to arrive in the end at an action plan. A comprehensive anti-corruption plan should therefore start from the means of pressure on the government and top executives to move through the revision of procedures and regulations in order to get more simplicity and transparency, to arrive in the end at the empowerment of civil society who would act on the behalf of the many poor. Speaking at least for Romania this is the time to act."

[1] The official document was elaborated only in French. This material's author carried out the translation into English of the paragraphs cited in the present document.

[2] Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Ukraine. Bosnia-Herzegovina participated to certain parts of the project as an observer.

[3] Freedom House, Media Responses to Corruption in the Emerging Democracies: Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, Ukraine, May, 1999.

[4] Alina Mungiu-Pippidi is Professor of Political Science with the Romanian National School of Government and Administration, director of the Romanian Academic Society think-tank and the Early Warning System Project Coordinator for UNDP Office Romania.

[5] UN Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention, Institution Building and Strengthening of Corruption Control Capacity in Romania, ROM/98/008, report of evaluation, Vienna, January 15th, 2001.

[6] Alina Mungiu-Pippidi, For an Institutional Approach to Post Communist Corruption, Analysis and Policy proposal Based on a Survey of Three Central European States, 2001.

[7] UN Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention, Institution Building and Strengthening of Corruption Control Capacity in Romania, ROM/98/008, report of evaluation, Vienna, January 15th, 2001, page 9.

[8] UN Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention, Institution Building and Strengthening of Corruption Control Capacity in Romania, ROM/98/008, report of evaluation, Vienna, January 15th, 2001, page 9.

[9] UN Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention, Institution Building and Strengthening of Corruption Control Capacity in Romania, ROM/98/008, report of evaluation, Vienna, January 15th, 2001, page 9.

[10] Romania, Bulgaria and Slovakia

[11] It has become current procedure that union leaders run on party lists for Parliaments, which raises serious doubts on their ability to represent first and foremost the interest of union members.

[12] Alina Mungiu-Pippidi, For an Institutional Approach to Post Communist Corruption, Analysis and Policy proposal Based on a Survey of Three Central European States, 2001.

[13] Romanian Ministry of Justice

[14] UN Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention, Institution Building and Strengthening of Corruption Control Capacity in Romania, ROM/98/008, report of evaluation, Vienna, January 15th, 2001.

[15] UN Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention, Institution Building and Strengthening of Corruption Control Capacity in Romania, ROM/98/008, report of evaluation, Vienna, January 15th, 2001, page 9.

[16] Octopus II Program Theme 2 Briefing

[17] Octopus II Program Theme 3 Briefing

[18] Octopus II Program Theme 4 Briefing

[19] Octopus II Program Theme 5 Briefing

[20] At present the law is already adopted

[21] At present the law is already adopted.

[22] Octopus II Program Theme 6 Briefing

[23] Alina Mungiu-Pippidi, For an Institutional Approach to Post Communist Corruption, Analysis and Policy proposal Based on a Survey of Three Central European States, 2001.

[24] Alina Mungiu-Pippidi, For an Institutional Approach to Post Communist Corruption, Analysis and Policy proposal Based on a Survey of Three Central European States, 2001.

[25] Alina Mungiu-Pippidi, For an Institutional Approach to Post Communist Corruption, Analysis and Policy proposal Based on a Survey of Three Central European States, 2001.

[26] UN Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention, Institution Building and Strengthening of Corruption Control Capacity in Romania, ROM/98/008, report of evaluation, Vienna, January 15th, 2001.

[27] UN Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention, Institution Building and Strengthening of Corruption Control Capacity in Romania, ROM/98/008, report of evaluation, Vienna, January 15th, 2001.

[28] Alina Mungiu-Pippidi, For an Institutional Approach to Post Communist Corruption, Analysis and Policy proposal Based on a Survey of Three Central European States, 2001.

[29] Already ratified, at present.

[30] Already ratified, at present.

[31] Alina Mungiu-Pippidi, For an Institutional Approach to Post Communist Corruption, Analysis and Policy proposal Based on a Survey of Three Central European States, 2001.