The Union is a party to the United Nations Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC), which is the most comprehensive international legal instrument to combat corruption, combining measures to prevent and fight corruption. It requires that parties to the Convention take legislative and other measures to establish criminal offences concerning bribery, misappropriation and money laundering and consider taking legislative or other measures to criminalise additional acts, such as the abuse of functions, trading in influence and illicit enrichment. In line with the commitments contained in the political declaration adopted at the 2021 United Nations General Assembly special session against corruption entitled Our common commitment to effectively addressing challenges and implementing measures to prevent and combat corruption and strengthen international cooperation, the Union should, to the extent possible, go beyond the minimum requirements of UNCAC and lay down additional measures for preventing and combatting corruption. This Directive draws on the observations and best practices emanating from the Mechanism for the Review of Implementation of the UNCAC.
Text as published in the Official Journal, reproduced verbatim (including any typographical quirks of the source). For the authentic version, see EUR-Lex.
