The Kick-off Conference of the European Anti-Corruption Training (EACT) was held in Austria from 19 to 24 September 2011. More than 50 representatives of anti-corruption bodies, police and judicial authorities from 27 countries participated in this event, which was inaugurated by the Austrian Federal Minister of the Interior, Johanna Mikl-Leitner. In their speeches, Johanna Mikl-Leitner and the Slovak Minister of the Interior, Daniel Lipšic, emphasized the importance of this European initiative, which is implemented by the Austrian Federal Bureau of Anti-Corruption (BAK) in cooperation with three project partners: the Slovak Anti-Corruption Unit (UBPK), the National Unit of Anti-Corruption Investigation of the Slovenian Ministry of the Interior (NPU), and the Slovenian Commission for the Prevention of Corruption (KPK).
On 20 September 2011, the first day of lectures, international aspects of the fight against corruption were the main issue. Representatives of international organizations or bodies – such as UNODC, GRECO, the World Bank, IACA, the European Commission and OLAF – lectured on the challenges and needs in the fight against corruption. During a fireside chat held in the evening, they answered questions posed by the audience, which led to in-depth discussions on several interesting topics.
On 21 September, the presentations dealt with practical aspects of combating corruption and took a social and sociological approach. They also focused on the role of PR and media relations. Subsequently, the participants were engaged in solving a case study including important elements of crime investigation.
In the field of corruption prevention the issues of “Financial flow analyses”, “Purpose and development of integrity plans” and “Lobbying” were dealt with on 22 September. Diana Wallis, Vice-President of the European Parliament, presented the European Parliament’s view on lobbying, one of the topics that were further discussed in the framework of an evening fireside chat entitled “More transparency for less corruption”.
Matters relating to international cooperation were on the agenda of 23 September. Representatives of Europol held a lecture on “Joint Investigation Teams” and presented the “Europol Platform for Experts”, which, from the end of this year, will serve as EACT’s communication and coordination tool.
Moreover, the three working groups “Investigation and Prosecution”, “Prevention” and “International Cooperation” were established in workshops. The future working group participants proposed topics to be treated at the first meetings of the working groups, which will take place from January 2012. The working groups shall develop expertise and best practice models in the field of anti-corruption. Their findings will be documented in a manual and presented at the final conference of EACT in 2013.
The successful EACT Kick-off Conference ended with an outlook on the next steps to be taken for the preparation of the working group meetings.
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