Page 5 - Aanbevelingen om de integriteit

III. CONTEXT

11. The Netherlands has been a member of GRECO since 2001 and has undergone four
evaluation rounds focusing on different topics related to the prevention and fight against corruption.
Overall the Netherlands has a good record in implementing GRECO’s recommendations under each
evaluation round. At the closures of procedures on compliance with recommendations, 100% of
recommendations of the first evaluation round had been fully implemented, 50% of the
recommendations of the second evaluation round (with three out of six partly implemented), 74% of
the recommendations of the third evaluation round (with two partly implemented and three not
implemented out of nineteen) and 42% of the recommendations of the fourth round (with two partly
implemented and two not implemented out of seven). The compliance procedure under the fourth
evaluation round is currently on-going.

12. Public perception of corruption in the country has been consistently low over the years. In
2017 the Netherlands was ranked tenth best country in the world at fighting corruption by the
2
Inclusive Growth and Development Report of the World Economic Forum and it resulted eighth
among the least corrupt countries in the world according to the 2017 corruption perception index
3
published by Transparency International (TI). Similarly, the 2017 Special Eurobarometer on
4
Corruption ranked the Netherlands among the countries with the lowest level of corruption in the
EU. According to the survey, 44% of Dutch respondents believe that corruption is widespread in their
country (EU average: 68%), however, the actual number of people having experienced or witnessed
cases of corruption in the last 12 months is low (5%, in line with the EU average), and only 4% of
respondents felt personally affected by corruption in their daily lives (EU average: 25%). Half of those
polled believe that the giving and taking of bribes and abuse of power for personal gain are
widespread among politicians at national, regional or local level and 43% of respondents believe it is
common among police and custom officers (above the EU average of 31%).

13. With regard to top executive functions, the 2014 EU Anticorruption Report on the
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Netherlands highlighted some weaknesses in the integrity framework applicable to politicians,
particularly with regard to transparency and oversight of financial and business interests of ministers
and state secretaries. Moreover, in practice, alleged conflicts of interest involving former ministers
and state secretaries have been increasingly discussed in Parliament and society together with the
possibility to develop stricter and clearer rules on post-employment restrictions. The same problems
were also reported by the 2012 National Integrity System Assessment published by Transparency
6
International.

14. The public perception on corruption among police and custom officers is dealt with in a study
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on integrity violations within law enforcement agencies published in 2017 which shows that
although there is no indication that corruption within such agencies is increasing, more needs to be
done to fight corruption and other integrity violations (e.g., leaking of information and private
contacts with criminals) within their own ranks. The Police came out as being especially vulnerable
on this front, as officers, in their daily work, regularly come into contact with crime and offenders.
There have been a number of integrity related incidents and crime committed by the police in recent
8
years, concerning leaking/selling of confidential information .

2 http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Forum_IncGrwth_2017.pdf
3 https://www.transparency.org/news/feature/corruption_perceptions_index_2017
4 https://data.europa.eu/euodp/data/dataset/S2176_88_2_470_ENG
5 https://ec.europa.eu/home-affairs/sites/homeaffairs/files/what-we-do/policies/organized-crime-and-human-
trafficking/corruption/anti-corruption-report/docs/2014_acr_netherlands_chapter_en.pdf
6 https://www.transparency.org/whatwedo/nisarticle/netherlands_2012
7 https://www.maastrichtuniversity.nl/blog/2017/10/increased-pressure-law-enforcement-organised-crime
8 https://nltimes.nl/2018/02/19/cop-gets-5-years-selling-police-info-criminals

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