Abstract: The Corruption Scandal of the European Commission and its possible effects on the institutional balance and the question of legitimacy
I. Defining Corruption
The first chapter is an attempt to define corruption. It is important to divide overlapping and complicated terms such as corruption, scandal and fraud. Corruption is defined as an illegal transaction, where both actors benefit from their special position in the market or the government. Scandal is the public reaction to allegations of corruption and thus it is interconnected with the issue of legitimacy. Fraud, however is a purely criminal cathegory.
The European Commission is a multicultural and multinational institution of the European Union so it is vital to take into account the cultural relativity of the meaning of corruption. Corruption can only be defined within a specific society and at a specific time. This culture specific aspect of corruption is reflected in the division of so called black, white and grey corruption.
Black corruption in a given society is a repremanded behaviour both by the public and by experts. It is a well defined area of the untolerated behaviour. White corruption on the other hand is the behaviour that is tolerated by the public in a given society and not looked upon as misbehaviour. Grey corruption is the area in between, which is tolerated by a part of the society, while seen as corruption by the other part. It is also important to realize the dynamics of the definition of corruption, as it changes with geography or time from black to grey to white corruption (or vica versa). Corruption scandals are often only a sign of this change in the public perception of corruption.
These cultural differences can be observed in the member states of the European Union. There is a dividing line on the imaginary corruption scale between the Northern protestant countries (Denmark being the least corrupt) and the Southern catholic countries (with Italy at the lowest end of the corruption scale).
The corruption in the Mediterranian countries can be identified along the lines of amoral familiarism, and the constant use of mediators. The cause of this southern type of corruption is the relative weakness of tthe central government and the inefficiency of the buerocracy. These madiators came to be the only effective channels between central governments and peripheries. Th...
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...gest institutional crisis of the EU.
The Treaty of Amsterdam strengthened the position of the president by giving the EP the right to vote for the president nominee in advance of appointing the whole Commission. It gives further legitimacy to the president.
The president got further authority by the right to rearrange portfolios and by having to accept the nominees of the Member States for commissioners. Santer also made all his commissioners agree that they will resign if he requests it.
VII. The consequences of the corruption crisis
The consequence of the crisis is that the commission has to reform itself. It has to oblige itself to fundamental values such as transparency, openness and responsibility to regain its legitimacy and the confidence of thte public.
If the commission manages to bring about fundamental changes it has a chance to strengthen the legitimacy and the influence of the institution and create real political leadership to the EU. If it fails doing so, the institutional balance will go towards giving more power to the Council. The EU will become more intergovernmental than supranational system. This process can set back the further deepening of integration.
Corruption is a persistent problem that plagues the world and it knows no boundaries. Transparency International defines it as the “abuse of entrusted power for private gain” (2013). For the purposes of this thread, ‘corruption’ is defined as any individual, collective, or structural act or process that permits the use of public authority or position for private gain. This definition captures the broad and many ways individuals and institutions abuse power and the public trust. In regard to whistleblowing, much conflict stems from the context in which the whistleblower is viewed.
When dealing with corruption, first question to ask or to clarify is what corruption is. NSW Research (2002) describes corruption anything from gaining materialistically by virtue of position (for eg. getting a special discount at stores) to engaging in ‘direct criminal activities’ (eg. selling drugs). Newburn (1999) believes that there is a thin line between the definition of ‘corrupt’ and ‘non-corrupt’ activities as at the end, it is an ethical problem. For common people, however, bribery generalises corruption.
For this reason, the Commission is referred as the “guardian of the Treaties” or “watchdog” of the EU. Moreover, the decisions made by the Parliament and the Council must be made on the basis of the proposals given by the Commission.
Many people know about or have witnessed this corruption taking place and numerous attempts to rid of it have been made. It is not an easy task attempting to bring justice to where justice should be made. There ...
For its part, the Commission enjoys a powerful role but is widel... ... middle of paper ... ... s no elected head of state to give democratically controlled direction to the EU and concerns gain plausibility from the open role played by non-elected officials in Brussels, and the geographical and cultural distance between those regulators and the average European ‘person in the street’. The recent enlargement has at least altered the democratic legitimacy in a positive way. Each country has only one commissioner now and it is further on its way towards a constitution and a fairer weighted vote.
The FIFA’s executives and Officials days of freedom are numbered. Since May 2015 evidence has been released that can incriminate the sixteen members involved in the FIFA scandal. New evidence is released weekly about the FIFA corruption scandal and there comes a point where the arrest need to start to help the organization get passed the scandal. The questions at the start of the investigation were is FIFA actually corrupted? Did FIFA accept bribes during the World Cup voting process? Now the questions have shifted towards when will Sepp Blatter resign or get convicted? Will more evidence get uncovered in the upcoming weeks that will convict more FIFA officials? And can anyone be trusted to run FIFA? FIFA’s problems began with the president’s
Schmitter, P. C. 2001. What is there to legitimize in the European Union… and how might this be accomplished? IHS Political Science Series: 2001, No. 75. Institute for Advanced Studies, Vienna.
By being granted the power to appoint six new justices, Roosevelt hoped to reverse the Court’s disapproval of his legislative initiatives.
If proper order is so necessary yet so fragile, how is it possible to obtain the ideal of proper order. This can be done with proper methodology and management. There should be the will and resources to put good policies into effect as well as a method to study humans so we are sure that the right path is being taken (Magagna, October 20, 2014). Not only this but the creation of proper institutions with the intentions to minimize coercion, maximize merit, and minimize fiscal and bureaucratic orders is a way to achieve proper order (Magagna, October 20, 2014). To lessen coercion is to lessen distrust and to threaten honesty and trust between people.
Bribery poses difficulties on moral grounds because it is incompatible with the principal of human equality and the fundamental right for individuals to be treated with equal respect and concern. For an institution to adhere to this principle, they must operate with fairness and impartiality: nobody should have access to influence that is not accessible to all. Bribery operates as part of a mechanism by which influence is only available ...
When considering the relationship between the three bodies of the EU system of governance*, it is necessary to examine the image that the EU seeks to construe to the wider European community and to the rest of the world. It is one of unity, ‘cohesion and solidarity’, which is founded on human rights and the rule of law. However, discord is implied in the balance of institutional power which is ensured within the tricameral system.
Bribery is wrong, and it would be almost instinctive to point at the benefits of impartially functioning public servants and incorrupt corporations to our democratic society as justification. However, in this imperfect world where bribery is rife in varying degrees, is it possible to express this notion convincingly? Certainly 'because the UK Bribery Act says so' is far less persuasive to a council planning office in Shanghai than in London, and indeed in compliance with section 7 of the Bribery Act 2010 which relates to commercial offences, it is essential that this question is engaged with on a corporate scale and without assertion through dogma. Accordingly, this essay will argue that elements wrong with bribery are inclusive of both moral and economic considerations. Moreover, in conjunction with international mandates, advent of aggressive legislation such as that of the UK Bribery Act 2010 is representative of global efforts to eliminate bribery. Hence, it follows that bribery can never be considered a normal part of business because it is economically unsustainable in the long term.
This essay will attempt to explore the relationship between the two from the definitions, causes, consequences and the solutions. Corruption can be defined as the abuse of public power for private gain. (World Bank, 2004) Corruption is attracting a lot of attention around the world, and is a growing international and regional concern. According to Corruption Around the world (Tanzi, 1998), in its end-of-year editorial on December 31, 1995, The Financial Times characterized 1995 as the year of corruption.
According to Amundsen (1999), the illicit or immoral nature of political corruption makes it even more “inaccessible to scientific investigation than most human behavior.” The concealed, under-communicated, and illegal nature of corruption “indicates the feebleness of statistical methods in assessing its quantitative aspects. ” It is problematic to measure the actual extent of corruption for four main reasons. Firstly, it is difficult to collect data on bureaucratic corruption in government agencies as corrupt bureaucratic conceal their activities to evade detection. Secondly, given the sensitive nature of bureaucratic corruption, survey research methods cannot be employed to obtain direct ...
Montesh, M. (n.d.). Conceptualizing Corruption: Forms, Causes, Types and Consequences. Retrieved May 4, 2014, from