Christoph Demmke - EIPA European Institute of Public Administration c.demmke@eipa-nl.com

About this study 
Any honest dialogue about ethics requires an ability to speak about difficult issues and the courage to air dissenting opinions (with respect to the recommendation 13 in the EPAN Framework Document). It is well known that corruption is a very serious problem in some countries, whereas it is much less of a problem in others. This presents one important challenge for the Directors-General and all other EUPAN groups involved: many of the issues we wish to discuss are complex and sensitive. Consequently, organisations but also colleagues shy away from discussing them openly. Discussing public ethics on a European scale require more than a "compliance based approach" (like in the field of corruption). Whereas the establishment of Integrity systems aims at enabling and maintaining good and positive behaviour, the fight against unethical behaviour and corruption is more about avoiding and preventing wrongdoings. In establishing integrity systems, Member States need to answer to some fairly basic but fundamental questions:

• why is there a need for a specific public service code of ethics?

 • what is the difference between expectation and real attitudes of public officials?

• what are the day-to-day values of civil servants? What do we expect from public officials?

• are old and new values coherent or are they producing new dilemmas?

• what is the difference between public service ethics and private sector ethics? Are they different at all?

• what kind of instruments, tools, structures and processes are most effective in the fight against unethical behaviour?

As this study will show, there is no shortage of rules and instruments in the field of ethics and in the fight against corruption. On the contrary, the rules and codes look good in themselves, but people do not always take them to heart. Often, the rules are nothing but paper. Therefore, the problem is clearly not the rules but the shortcomings in the implementation of such and a lack of capacities and efforts in the enforcement process. For example, codes of ethics are essential at certain times and for certain purposes, but more is needed. They only work when they encompass people's existing beliefs and practices. "They do not work well when they are intended to change people's existing behaviour patterns, or make them adopt ways not broadly supported in their community. We only learn about what is right and wrong from encountering it in real life, in the heart of an actual community, and from real people1."

My greatest concern with this study is that if the Directors-General of the Public Services and various colleagues read this report, they may believe that it is only about theoretical and philosophical things and has nothing to do with daily life issues or - the "real life".

In fact, this report attempts to look critically, openly and honestly at public servants' values, and to find out how these can be taken more seriously. During all the discussions which took place in 2004, it became clear to me that there are no perfect answers. However, as this study will show, there are some promising answers.

I hope that this study will generate a productive debate among the Directors-General of the Public Services. I also hope that such a debate would offer sufficient scope for all important viewpoints to be heard in order to reach a fuller understanding. As this suggests, this fundamental dialogue is necessary to establish what constitutes perfect ethical behaviour, since this is unknown at the outset. Such a notion only emerges from the dialogue itself.

I would like to thank the Presidency Human Resource Management Working Group as well as the Dutch Presidency, and especially Peter Krekel and Alex Belling. I would also like to extend my thanks to the chairman of the HRM group, Peter van der Gaast, from the Dutch Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations for his cooperation during the past few months. I am also extremely grateful to the Directors-General and various national experts within the Member States and the European Commission for helping me to perform this study.

Finally, I would like to thank Silke Dettmer for her very valuable support and help with various parts within the study.

Christoph Demmke

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Related Categories

Integrity