Agency for Prevention of Corruption

Keynote Speech Given by APC Director

In the meeting of the second round of negotiations on the conclusion of International Agreement on Exchanging Data for the Purpose of Verification of the Statements of Assets
March 27, 2019

It is my pleasure to have the opportunity to greet you all today on behalf of the Agency for Prevention of Corruption and to welcome you to Montenegro where we gathered to mark a very important event, i.e. second negotiation meeting on the International Agreement on Exchanging Data for the Purpose of Verification of the Statements of Assets.

As you know, this international instrument which is founded on principles of the UN Convention against Corruption and OECD model of the Tax Information Exchange Agreements aims to ensure direct administrative exchange of data on the assets of public officials between state signatories to this agreement. This will enable anticorruption bodies that conduct verification of public officials’ statements of income and assets to expand the scope of verification of assets and interests of public officials outside of national borders of the countries.

Verification of accuracy and completeness of the data and identification of potential conflict of interest contribute to a more efficient system for prevention of corruption, as well as to the increase in overall integrity of public office holders. Equally important, the framework for data exchange established in this manner contributes to strengthening inter-institutional and inter-agency cooperation at the regional level. I wish to remind you that the Agency for Prevention of Corruption has both, technical and IT preconditions for implementation of the agreement mentioned above since statements of income and assets of public officials are filed electronically and are publicly available on website of the Agency, while the Agency is directly and in real time connected to databases of the Ministry of Interior, Tax Administration, Real Estate Administration and Central Depository Agency which enables efficient verification of accuracy and completeness of the data on income, assets, shares and other data specified in statements. Establishing final text of the agreement and its conclusion is certainly not the end of the overall process for the purpose of its full application. It is also necessary to harmonise national regulations of state signatories to the agreement mentioned above and to consolidate technical capabilities of anticorruption bodies which will directly apply the agreement mentioned above through data exchange.

Also, dominant presence of delegations of the Southeast European countries in today’s meeting does not convey the message that application of this agreement must be limited exclusively to this region. We are well aware that there are other countries of central, eastern and western Europe which established certain mechanisms for the statements of income of public officials, and with proper risk analysis which would show directions of acquiring assets by public officials abroad it would be important to expand application of the agreement to the other European countries, and even beyond.

In that way, its scope of application will be expanded and practice and concerted action of the EU Member States will be ensured for the purpose of efficient prevention of corruption. I hope that application of this instrument will be an example of good practice in the region and beyond and that we will meet all the necessary preconditions for its successful application.

I wish you a successful work in the rest of this meeting and in any future meetings that will contribute to efficient application of the agreement mentioned above.

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