Portugal stands out as “the country in Europe that fights least against corruption”?
“Attention, that’s what they say about us Portuguese. I don’t know if they’re right, but I agree”; “The Portuguese media hides what is said about Portugal abroad”. Two examples of comments, among thousands of shares on social networks, of an image of supposed news from the Spanish newspaper “El Mundo”, with the following affirmative title: “Portugal, the country in Europe that fights less against corruption.”
Above a photograph of the President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, the following highlight is also legible: “It is positioned behind Turkey, Serbia and Romania in the list of countries that do not apply anti-fraud measuresaccording to a report by the Council of Europe.”
the article is real, but it is not current. It was published on June 25, 2019 and written by Aitor Hernández Morales, correspondent for the Spanish newspaper “El Mundo” in Lisbon, Portugal.
In the text it is emphasized that “the Council of Europe censured Portugal for being the country in Europe that fights least against corruption. According to the new report by the Group of States against Corruption (GRECO, for its acronym in English) – the body responsible for evaluating and improving the fight against corruption in the Member States of the Council of Europe -, the neighboring country [Portugal] is the one that least complies with the recommendations of anti-corruption legislation promoted by the international organization”.
“The GRECO report places Portugal in the Latest Position from the list of countries that have not yet implemented anti-fraud measures that the organization has recommended for years; the neighboring country lags behind countries such as Turkey, Serbia, Romania and Croatia in the fight against corruption. Until today, the Portuguese State is one of only 13 that not yet ratified the Convention on Corruption and Criminal Law, a fundamental agreement for combating this type of crime”, is detailed in the article.
“The body of the Council of Europe points out that Portugal’s failure is due to the fact that the Portuguese State not have implemented any of the recommendations made for prevent political corruptionin addition to the fact that, in the best case scenario, the implementation of 93% of the recommended measures was only partial“, it is underlined.
In fact, on the same day, 25 June 2019, in which the article in the newspaper “El Mundo” was published, the Group of States Against Corruption (GRECO), the anti-corruption monitoring body of the Council of Europe, presented a new report indicating that Portugal was the country with the highest proportion (73%) recommendations not recommendedfollowed by Turkey (70%).
GRECO is a monitoring body created in 1999 by Council of Europe (not to be confused with the European Council) with the aim of “improving the capacity of its members in terms of fight against corruptionaccompanying, through a dynamic process of reciprocal evaluation and peer pressurethe fulfillment of commitments made in this field”. It also counts on the participation of all member states of the European Union.
In the meantime, however, the same GRECO presented new reports (annual periodicity) with most updated data. And it is important to underline here that in sharing on social networks the date of the news is hiddenhence our final rating of “Decontextualized”, as the data is outdated and there is no indication of data or hyperlink to the article in question.
No report released on June 3, 2020 (you can consult on here) it is reported that only 6.7% of the anti-corruption measures recommended by GRECO were implemented in Portugal. The country’s rating is “globally unsatisfactory“. The only recommendation followed is related to the publication of disciplinary measures applied to public prosecutors.
“Portugal again did poorly in the GRECO anti-corruption test. Of the 15 recommendations recommended by this body, only one was included in Portugal. Eight were only partially integrated and six were ignored”, reported the newspaper “Expresso” at the time, based on the same report. “The assessment is ‘globally unsatisfactory’ and Portugal is among a group of 15 non-compliant countries. According to GRECO’s annual report, which reports to 2019, Portugal only implemented 6.7% of the measures addressed to prosecutors, deputies and judges”.
“Among the recommendations not applied is, for example, the fact that the Superior Council for the Judiciary has a majority of non-judgements, which is considered by GRECO as a possible risk for the independence of magistrates. The Superior Council of the Public Ministry, for its part, has a majority of prosecutors. Also according to the report, Portugal fails to meet legal deadlines and civil society access to the legislative process. With regard to deputies, it is yet to implement a code of conduct for members with effective supervision. GRECO says that the interest conflicts of those elected by the Portuguese and failures in the declarations of interests also are not fully resolved“, highlighted the “Expresso”.
We are born from the latest 22nd General Activity Report (2021) it is indicated that Portugal only implemented three of the total of 15 recommendations of GRECO in order to combat corruption, focusing mainly on the component of prevention prevention. As for the other 12 recommendations, seven were partially applied and five were not applied at all.
More specifically, of the five anti-corruption recommendations intended for deputiesof the GRECO member states, in Portugal none has been implemented, or at least not entirely. It is important to note here that three were partially applied. The remaining two were not applied at all.
As for the six recommendations addressed to judges, only one was fully realized in Portugal, while three were partially applied and two were not integrated.
The best execution percentage (50%) is registered in the category of public prosecutorsinsofar as two of the four recommendations interns by GRECO were fully realizedwhile one was partially implemented and the other remained to be implemented.
Overall, the fact is that Portugal only completed three (20%) of the total of 15 GRECO recommendations, below the average of 44.9% among all members of the body integrated in the Council of Europe. the neighbor Spainfor example, accomplished six (54.5%) out of a total of 11 recommendations, in addition to four partially implemented and only one (focusing on the judges) that was not implemented at all.
In global terms and in relation to the 46 GRECO Member States as a whole, the situation in 2021 indicates that 44.9% of the recommendations were fully implemented, 36.85% partially applied and 18.16% still to be applied. The highest proportion of fully implemented measures concerns prosecutors (53.64%), followers of judges (46.97%) and deputies (35.85%).
“This inaction of the political class is not understood”
Questioned at the time by polygraph on how to draw up the report in question, Susana Coroadothen the president of Transparency and Integrity – Associação Cívica (TIAC), considered that “the lack of full compliance by Portugal with the recommendations of GRECO is already becoming habitual, but that doesn’t stop it from being worrying“.
“Especially if we consider the fact that none of the recommendations on deputies has been fully completed. The political class thus reveals very little desire to self-regulate, improve integrity in Parliament and gain the trustcitizens”, he underlined.
“When we are faced with setbacks in various democratic regimes and all opinion studies conclude that political institutions are the least trustworthy by the citizens, it is not understood this political class action“, he concluded.
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