In Europe
9 countries are part of the Network for integrity.
9 countries are part of the Network for integrity.
The National Integrity Agency (ANI) is an autonomous administrative authority and legal figure operating at the national level as a single structure, with headquarters in Bucharest. By the adoption of Law no. 144/2007, Romania became the first EU country specialized in verifying wealth, as well as the legal regime of conflicts of interests and incompatibilities. Although the liability to declare wealth has existed since 1996 and asset disclosures have been public documents since 2003, the control mechanisms were difficult to use and the monitoring of conflicts of interests had never been exercised systematically. The emergence of the ANI was due both to the deficit of legislative regulation in this regard and to the lack of a specialized, unique institution administrating efficiently a system of verification in the areas of accumulation of unjustified incomes, of conflicts of interests and of incompatibilities.
The aims of the ANI are: ensuring integrity in the exercise of public positions and dignities; preventing institutional corruption through exercising responsibility in assessing wealth statements, data and information regarding wealth, as well as changes in assets, incompatibilities and potential conflicts of interest during the performance of public positions and dignities.
In its nine years of activity, the ANI has finalized over 12,000 investigations, identifying 1,461 cases of incompatibilities, 484 cases of administrative conflicts of interests, 139 cases of significant differences between incomes and assets, 304 criminal conflicts of interests and 333 cases of strong suspicion of criminal offence or corruption. These cases involved 122 deputies, 33 senators, 23 presidents and vice-presidents of county councils, 6 ministers, 5 general secretaries, 21 magistrates, 1,358 local elected officials and276 persons with management and/or control positions within public institutions. Alsothe ANI imposed more than 4,000 administrative fines for failure to file or for delay in filing asset and interest disclosures.
In Romania there are approximately 300,000 persons who are required to submit disclosures. The ANI ensures the procedures for collecting, processing, assessing and publishing themon the Public Web Portal of assets and interests disclosures, one of the ANI’s most important tools. In November 2016, 6,898,265 disclosures were published on the Portal.
“Although Romania aligned itself with western standards with regard to legislations governing the prevention and fight against corruption or breaches of integrity, the veritable paradigm shift in approaching these phenomena has now taken place. “