Belarus bans publication of Council of Europe report on corruption

Group of States Against Corruption (GRECO) has presented to the Council of Europe a report on corruption in Belarus. It assesses the implementation of the recommendations that our country received in 2012. For the second time, Belarus authorities have banned the full publication of the report, Euroradio learned in the Council of Europe. The first such case was in 2012, when GRECO experts made an analysis of how to fight corruption in Belarus for the first time.

GRECO noted in its present report that Belarus had met only 4 out of the 24 recommendations from the previous report:

"The country has managed to achieve substantial progress only in training and specialization of police officers, in the introduction of new mechanisms of seizures of goods and the introduction of accounting and reporting in accordance with international standards."

The report also noted that most of the recommendations had not been implemented, while the corruption situation in the country requires a more ambitious approach and decisive action.

"GRECO is particularly concerned by the fact that in some areas where the implementation of the recommendations is absolutely necessary, there were no steps for change even planned or announced. As a result, the executive branch, particularly the President's function, does not correspond to democracy," the document says.

The report notes that the level of implementation of the recommendations is "globally unsatisfactory", despite the fact that in January 2014 Belarus signed an additional protocol to the Convention of the Council of Europe's Criminal Law.

On May 27 will be issued a brief summary of the report.

The report covers the period from 2012, the adoption of the first GRECO evaluation report, until 2014.

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