Brussels, 12/01/2004 (Agence Europe) - In a speech in Berlin at the ceremony where the Reader's Digest Prize was awarded to the President of "Transparence Internationale", Peter Eigen, European Commissioner Pascal Lamy highlighted the efforts made by the European Union to fight corruption, including that the World Trade Organisation. He urged the WTO to take the first steps to combat corruption despite the obvious problems and restraints. He said that the Europeans were already trying to promote basic transparency rules for public tender under the Doha Development Agenda, not to mention investment and competition, two areas which have just as huge a potential when it comes to cutting the opportunities for corrupt practices and penalising active and passive corruption. On these issues, known as the Singapore issues, the Commissioner said they had learned the hard way that if you put systemic issues on the agenda of an essentially market-oriented negotiating meeting, this gives rise to suspicion and opens one up for accusations of diversionary tactics. He went on that the WTO was moved by its members and lacked autonomy when it comes to making an official declaration about combatting corruption. He said to Peter Eigen, that he could not promise that the European Commission would stand up and be counted as the only defender of an explicit agenda to combat corruption at the WTO, but said he was prepared to extend the scope of the EU's trade policy to the WTO to include policy dealing with supply and demand (private stakeholders and the state, Ed.) and corruption. He said that if the EU could get others to follow, this would be a good step in process of making the fight against corruption an explicit, rather than implicit target of the WTO.