How to use Finnish anti-corruption experience in Ukraine
May 27, 2015
Kiev, 27 May 2015. “How to effectively tackle corruption in Ukraine? Best practices from Finland” – this was the title of the workshop the Embassy of Finland in Ukraine has organized together with the European Union Advisory Mission. The aim of the workshop was to share Finnish experience in anti-corruption and to discuss how this knowledge can be used in the Ukraine.
The Director of National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine, Artem Sytnik, his First Deputy Gizo Uglava and Head of Anti-Corruption Committee of Verkhovna Rada Egor Sobolev, provided short presentations on the fight against corruption in Ukraine and future structures. They also elaborated on innovative investigation methods which the National Anti-Corruption Bureau will use. Yet, he also mentioned existing challenges and drawbacks in the Ukrainian legislation. And there still remain many challenges ahead, admits Artem Sytnik: “The fight against corruption is sometimes even harder than the front in the east of Ukraine.”
The Deputy Head of European Union Advisory Mission, Hugues Fantou, underlined that anti-corruption is one of the issues the mission is advising on and that positive results in this sphere are extremely important for the success of all reforms in Ukraine which is strongly supported by the EU. “There are a lot of countries that succeeded in combating corruption as for example Finland did. I don’t see any reason why Ukraine can’t repeat such a success,” said Egor Sobolev.
The Finnish experts Arto Kujala, Jukka Rappe and Kimmo Vikman presented their experience of cooperation between all law-enforcement agencies as well as methods of investigation they use when it comes to corruption cases. He also explained some of the reasons why the corruption level is so low in Finland which amongst others include the freedom of media, a transparent public administration and free access to public documents.
The latest Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index – the most widely used indicator of global corruption worldwide – rates Ukraine 142nd in the world. Finland is in comparison perceived to be the third least corrupt country in the world. Altogether, the Index incorporates 177 countries.
