Brussels, 14/02/2005 (Agence Europe) - Vice president of the European Commission Sim Kallas, in charge of the fight against fraud was in Berlin last week to discuss the struggle against corruption with the secretariat of Transparency International TI). According to a TI press release (TI is the main organisation involved in fighting corruption), the Estonian Commissioner expressed his wish to cooperate with TI and appreciated the “civil society perspective that the organisation offered”. The exchange of views, which was assisted by Peter Eigen, TI president and Chief Executive David Nussbaum, focused on “broader disclosure rules, including a public registry…and more transparent regulation of lobbying”, explained the press release. It also mentioned the possibility of excluding corrupt companies from obtaining contracts with the EU and a possible role for TI in assessing anti-corruption efforts in candidate countries.
The press release pointed out that the in 1997 European Commission published its first anti-corruption policy document under the Special Transparency Adviser Dieter Fisch (former Director General for Development at the Commission) and that this had received a follow-up in October 1998 with the European Parliament's Bontempi report; November 1999 with a Transparency Memorandum calling for an EU global strategy; 2003, a second policy document from the EU on the fight against corruption and at the European Parliament, the Ruttelin report on the fight against corruption in the private sector.