Justice Minister Zadic presents new strategy against corruption

2023-10-11 12:10:00

The Council of Ministers on Wednesday also decided on a new National Action Plan (NAP) for the Federal Chancellery and federal ministries, which contains measures for the years 2023 to 2025.

The Interior Ministry has agreed to step up its prevention efforts, and the Justice Ministry has agreed to step up its criminal prosecution, Zadic explained in the press foyer after the Council of Ministers. The latter is about conducting proceedings more quickly and distributing more resources to the prosecution of corruption. In your own department, laws and existing criminal law frameworks should be screened to see whether they can be tightened up to further combat corruption.

“Active Compliance Culture”

Overall, the aim is to maintain an “active compliance culture” across all ministries – through awareness training and clearly established responsibilities, said the minister. Risk factors in the area of secondary employment are prevented through annual audits and awareness is raised about accepting gifts, for example. The Federal Ministry of Art, Culture, Public Service and Sport (BMKÖS) will have codes of conduct for general secretaries and cabinet employees; the Ministry of Social Affairs has updated its code of conduct for employees and further developed internal control systems.

Raise public awareness

The public should also be sensitized, for example through events such as the Austrian Anti-Corruption Day. The topics of preventing corruption and promoting integrity should be increasingly included in school and university curricula.

The NAKS is now intended to serve as the basis for a framework for action by all relevant actors from public administration, civil society and business to prevent and combat corruption. It forms a strategic framework, while the NAP contains concrete measures for implementation. The funds for the new measures should come from the current budget of the responsible departments.

The government is thus updating the NAKS adopted in 2018 and the NAP for the years 2019 and 2020. Due to the corona pandemic, the deadline for evaluating the measures therein, which was actually set for the end of 2020, was extended. In March of this year, the Council of Europe’s Group of States Against Corruption (GRECO) called on Austria to improve its strategy against corruption on the part of the government and law enforcement.