Key issues for EU action (2015-2019)

To follow-up on previous political commitments and recommendations made by different EU institutions and to prompt effective change in practice, TI-EU recommends that the EU ensures now that anti-corruption legislation and ongoing legislative proposals are implemented and enforced across the board in the 28 EU Member States.

Further, TI considers the following areas of concern to call for further action, in which:

Abuse of Functions : Abuse of functions refers to a public employee or public office holder that is doing something which is illegal or something that the official has no legal authority to do, in order to obtain a personal economic benefit or cause an illegal damage to others. One sort of abuse of office is the misuse of information.

There is no globally accepted definition of corruption. Transparency International defines corruption as ‘the abuse of entrusted power for personal gain’. Corruption can be distinguished between 'true corrupt intent' and 'necessary corruption'. True corrupt intent implies bribery or an action to obtain an illicit benefit, whereas necessary corruption occurs to get things done (i.e., to obtain a legally entitled service); facilitation payments fall under this category of corruption. The main forms of corruption are bribery, embezzlement, fraud and extorsion.

The EU-Ukraine Civil Society Platform is the joint civil society institution established under Articles 469-470 of the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement. The Platform, together with the Association Council, the Association Committee and the Parliamentary Association Committee, is one of the official institutions established in the framework of the Association Agreement.

Coastal risks refer to coastal erosion, tidal inundation and coastal flooding. That means that coastal riks are those currently at risk and those additional areas that are likely to be at risk in the future as sea level continues to rise unless the impacts of sea level rise can be effectively mitigated. Coastal flooding in lowland areas will be of particular concern in the future as a consequence of sea level rise, including increased likely frequency, duration and height of flooding and consequently emergency evacuation and likely property and infrastructure damage.

• Adam Mickiewicz University, Poland
• AEA Technology, United Kingdom
• Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (AMAP), Norway
• Bundesamt für Seeschifffahrt und Hydrographie (BSH), Germany
• Catalan Office for Climate Change, Spain
• Centre for Marine and Atmospheric Sciences (ZMAW), Germany
• Centro Euro-Mediterraneo sui Cambiamenti Climatici (CMCC) and Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV), Italy
• Climate Change Group of the European Network of Heads of Nature Conservation Agencies;

1. Enactment of legislation to provide for the regulation of lobbyists, including the establishment and management of a Lobbyists Register.

2. Development of a model policy and procedure for adoption by all departments, agencies and ministerial offices concerning the conduct of meetings with lobbyists, the making of records of these meetings, and the making of records of telephone conversations. As a minimum, the procedure should provide for:

There are perceptions of corruption in the interaction between lobbyists and those lobbied. But equally there is also evidence from both lobbyists and the lobbied as to the professionalism of the lobbying industry, and the ethical conduct of both lobbyists and the lobbied. The two viewpoints are not inconsistent. In any endeavour, the activities or perceived activities of a few individuals can affect the reputation of a whole industry, even if the actions of the majority are above reproach.

1. Polity: Polity is the institutional system forming the framework for political action and covers the concrete normative, structural elements of politics set out in the constitution. Both written rules such as the constitution and the laws governing the voting system, the structure of the state etc. and unwritten rules form the framework for the political sphere. The most important unwritten rules in the broader sense include the political culture of a community.

Lobbying offers companies the chance to procure information from politics which is an important and necessary basis for their own business decisions. Business is part of society and ‘politics for the people’ is inconceivable without ‘politics with business’. In the same way, business relies on attractive economic conditions and has a vested interest in the abolition of unnecessary regulation. 'Business without politics' is thus also out of the question.