'Berlin is weak on corruption'

Berlin lags far behind its European neighbors in the fight against corruption and transparent party financing, the Council of Europe said in a report published on Monday. Germany had only implemented or adequately addressed four of 20 recommendations made by the body's Group of States against Corruption (GRECO), the report said.

The report was a "grave indictment" of the German government, said Edda Müller of Transparency International Deutschland.

GRECO was established in 1999 to help the 49 states in the Council of Europe combat corruption. Germany was one of the founding members.

At the time, Berlin committed itself to ratifying the Criminal Law Convention on Corruption, but it had taken no steps to do so - a point that was sharply criticized by the GRECO report.

Two years ago, GRECO recommended the German government make changes in 20 areas to beef up the fight against corruption and bring its laws and regulations in line with other European countries. These include strengthening laws to punish parliamentarians who accept bribes, the lack of legislation barring influence peddling and limits on the criminalization of bribing foreign officials.

The report was particularly critical when it came to the subject of political financing.

"Little concrete and substantial action has been taken to implement the recommendations" on [political financing] it said, pointing out that Germany needs to publish election campaign accounts in a timely manner and to improve transparency regarding direct donations to parliamentarians and candidates for political office.

Political parties are obliged to declare donations of 50,000 euros or more. GRECO has said that benchmark should be lowered.

Now Germany will have to provide a progress report to GRECO on implementing the remaining recommendations by the end of June.

ncy/acb (dpa)