Taken from their website https://www.coe.int/en/web/greco/about-greco/what-is-greco

What is GRECO

The Group of States against Corruption (GRECO) was established in 1999 by the Council of Europe to monitor States’ compliance with the organisation’s anti-corruption standards.

GRECO’s objective is to improve the capacity of its members to fight corruption by monitoring their compliance with Council of Europe anti-corruption standards through a dynamic process of mutual evaluation and peer pressure. It helps to identify deficiencies in national anti-corruption policies, prompting the necessary legislative, institutional and practical reforms. GRECO also provides a platform for the sharing of best practice in the prevention and detection of corruption.

Greco published a new report investigating corruption in Austria (April 2022) which can be read on their website: https://www.coe.int/en/web/greco/-/austria-publication-of-the-2nd-interim-compliance-report-of-4th-evaluation-round

GRECO has made public today its Fourth Evaluation Round 2nd Interim Compliance Report on Austria, which deals with corruption prevention in respect of members of parliament, judges and prosecutors. This report was adopted by GRECO at its 89th Plenary Meeting (Strasbourg, 29 November – 3 December 2021).

Extracts from this report

In the Compliance Report adopted by GRECO at its 81st Plenary Meeting (7 December 2018) and made public on 17 July 2019, following authorisation by Austria (GrecoRC4(2018)15), it was concluded that only one of the 19 recommendations contained in the Evaluation Report had been dealt with in a satisfactory manner, five recommendations had been partly implemented and 13 had not been implemented.

GRECO concluded that the very low level of compliance with the recommendations was “globally unsatisfactory” in the meaning of Rule 31, paragraph 8.3 of the Rules of Procedure. GRECO therefore decided to apply Rule 32, paragraph 2 (i) concerning members found not to be in compliance with the recommendations contained in the mutual evaluation report.

In the Interim Compliance Report adopted by GRECO at its 85th plenary meeting (25 September 2020) and made public on 1 March 2021, following authorisation by Austria, GRECO concluded that the low level of compliance with the recommendations remained “globally unsatisfactory” in the meaning of Rule 31 revised, paragraph 8.3 of the Rules of Procedure and asked the Head of delegation of Austria to provide a report on the progress in the implementation of the outstanding recommendations at the latest by 30 September 2021. This report was received as requested and served as a basis for the present Second Interim Compliance Report.

CONCLUSIONS

In view of the foregoing, GRECO concludes that Austria has now implemented satisfactorily or dealt with in a satisfactory manner three of the nineteen recommendations contained in the Fourth Round Evaluation Report. Of the remaining recommendations, nine have been partly implemented and seven have not been implemented.

More specifically, recommendation i, xiii and xv have been dealt with in a satisfactory manner, recommendations ii, iii, vi, ix, x, xiv, xvii, xviii and xix have been partly implemented and recommendations iv, v, vii, viii, xi, xii and xvi have not been implemented.

As far as judges and prosecutors are concerned, progress has been minimal. That said, online programmes for in-service training of judges and prosecutors have been launched and the attendance levels have been high. Additionally, the Service Act for Judges and Prosecutors is being amended to revise the appointment procedure for candidate-judges to the ordinary courts. The exact scope and status of these amendments however remain to be seen.

In application of paragraph 8.2 of Article 31 of the Rules of Procedure, GRECO asks the head of the Austrian delegation to provide a report on the measures taken to implement the outstanding recommendations (i.e. recommendations ii-xii, xiv, xvi-xviii) by 31 December 2022 at the latest.

Finally, GRECO invites the authorities of Austria to authorise, as soon as possible, the publication of this report, to translate it into the national language and to make the translation public.