At its meeting on 14 June 2024, the Council (Justice and Home Affairs) approved a general approach for a Directive on Combatting Corruption, replacing Council Framework Decision 2003/568/JHA and the Convention on the fight against corruption involving officials of the European Communities or officials of Member States of the European Union, and amending Directive (EU) 2017/1371 of the European Parliament and of the Council.
The purpose of the Directive is to criminalise cross-border corruption offences to ease enforcement efforts between domestic competent authorities across the EU identified in the current criminalisation system for corruption. The proposed Directive will provide the base-line rules for measures to tackle corruption, so Member States will remain free to adopt or maintain more stringent criminal law rules for corruption offences.
Measures adopted at national or Union level will take into account the work of the Group of States against Corruption of the Council of Europe (GRECO), the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the United Nations Office against Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in addressing the transnational dimension of corruption.
The finalised general approach will be considered by the European Parliament in the context of the ordinary legislative procedure, and can be accessed here.