Dr Christoph Demmke and Danielle Bossaert - EIPA, European Institute of Public Administration Maastr c.demmke@eipa-nl.com

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
1.Our present understanding of ethics seems paradoxical: on the one hand unethical behaviour has never been the focus of such attention. On the other hand, there is very little statistical evidence regarding the development of unethical behaviour in general.

2.The focus in national public administrations and the media is on corruption, fraud and conflicts of interest, but much less on unethical behaviour in general, e.g. using official resources for private purposes.

3.The topic of ethics is strongly linked to the issue of individual and organisational performance. In the future, more attention should be placed on the relationship between unethical behaviour and individual and organisational poor performance.

4.Despite the increasing public attention (particularly with respect to corruption, fraud and conflicts of interest), there is an overall feeling among the public that too little is being done to combat unethical behaviour. The answers given during our study cannot confirm this, at least in the short-term. In our survey, almost all countries reported that they see fighting unethical behaviour as one of their priorities for the coming years.

5.In contrast to public perceptions, a significant number of Member States indicated in the questionnaire that levels of corruption and unethical behaviour in national public services are quite low or even very low.

6.The contradiction between government responses to the questionnaire and the general perception may be due to the fact that media attention and public sensitivity to unethical behaviour is increasing. In addition, as a result of the increased openness and transparency of procedures and processes, more cases of unethical behaviour are being made public and reaching the media. Despite this positive development, it does not necessarily follow that unethical behaviour is increasing as such. Unethical behaviour may be low in official statistics, but the real problems may be greater.

7.Consequently, one may also conclude that public and private discussions about the development of ethical behaviour have insufficient basis and often consist of speculation rather than evidence.

8.Statistical evidence is almost totally lacking as regards unethical behaviour in general, e.g. bullying and sexual intimidation. If statistics about these forms of unethical behaviour exist, they are only available to certain organisations, and not to national public services as a whole. At the same time, bullying and sexual harassment are not rare, they are common throughout the European Union.

9.A growing number of citizens believe that values and norms are loosing ground in our societies. Consequently, people belief that criminality, corruption, fraud and other forms of unethical behaviour are increasing. Correspondingly, confidence in the public sector is decreasing.

10.As regards ethics, the focus in the public discussion is clearly negative. Media and politics focus on fraud and corruption. This concentration on negative aspects has one important consequence: media coverage about the work of the public service is mainly negative, too. Consequently, very little attention is placed on the quality, performance and the good work done by the vast majority of civil servants. For the future, it is also necessary to present the positive impact of civil service ethics and behaviour, e.g. less bullying than in some private sector organisations, to the public.

11.More citizens are longing for a solid moral base in order to halt the seemingly unstoppable cultural and ethical decline in our societies. In contrast, this study shows that unethical behaviour and corruption is not tolerated to a great degree by the population. Moreover, our survey provides no evidence that values are decreasing. On the contrary, societal values,e.g. democracy, are still strong.
 
12.Several countries responded to the questionnaire by saying that that there is a clear link between the image of the civil service and ethical behaviour. For example, according to the Italian contribution to this survey â€�this link is bilateral: high ethical standards improve the image of public administration and employment and the diffusion of a good image stimulates higher ethical performanceâ€?. European citizens do not have very much confidence in national civil services. This is even more so in most of the accession states â€" Lithuania, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovenia are having to face up to considerable lack of confidence in national civil services.

13.In Europe, perceptions about values differ. In addition, ethical behaviour is not confined to one type. Rather, from a European point of view, there are different national and regional perceptions with respect to different types of unethical behaviour.

14.The differences in perception with respect to unethical behaviour must be taken into account when thinking about a â€" possible â€" European Code of Ethics, e.g. a European Code of Ethics for the police. For example, it may be difficult to establish legally binding common European standards if national perceptions differ too much. However, this should not prevent Member States from discussing the issue, exchanging information and experience and establishing benchmarks and good practices in their efforts to combat unethical behaviour. Furthermore, the establishment of a voluntary non-legally binding European code of ethics may contribute to greater awareness of the issue. Nowadays, almost all countries have adopted codes of ethics or are in the process of doing so.

15.Despite the differences in general ethical perceptions, the obligations of civil servants regarding ethical behaviour are surprisingly similar in all 25 national public services of the enlarged European Union. This also applies to the ethical requirements as laid down in laws and disciplinary legislation. Moreover, the traditional values of national civil services (neutrality, respecting the rule of law, confidentiality, impartiality, avoiding conflicts of interest, etc.) are very stable and have survived all changes within the last decades.

16.Surprisingly little is known about the impact, effects and reform of traditional civil service principles on the individual behaviour of civil servants. On the other hand, scant evidence exists of the effects of organisational and human resource management reforms on civil service ethics. Our survey revealed that thirteen countries believe that new public administration reform measures (improving mobility between the public and private sectors, decentralisation of responsibilities, etc.) will increase the risk of unethical behaviour. This is a surprisingly high number since very little is known about the effects of ongoing reforms. Accordingly, there is little information regarding the alignment of working conditions and regulations to those reforms applied in the private sector, as well as their impact on ethical or unethical behaviour.

17.General and ethical obligations as well as ethical guidelines are often rather theoretical and abstract. In addition, they do not always offer assistance to or provide useful guidelines for civil servants. However, the crucial point is that civil servants often face dilemmas when they have to make decisions regarding issues where different values are contradictory, e.g. the rule of law versus efficiency. In this respect, the importance of dilemma training should be emphasised.

18.Today, the alignment with the private sector raises questions about possible threats to the traditional ethos. The boundaries between public and private services are increasingly difficult to define, and the picture is made more complex by the emergence of new types of public-private partnerships. During our survey, a number of Member States raised concerns about the increased contacts between the public and private sector and the impact on unethical behaviour.

19.The national public services are significant breeding grounds for corruption. The most sensitive sector in this respect is public procurement.

20.In most cases, corruption is rife when two parties (the party offering bribes and the party accepting) have a close personal relationship and when the civil servant has been working for a longer period in the same position. Civil servants in leading position are often the targets of corruption but also the initiators of unethical behaviour. Encouraging job rotation is an obvious means of fighting these forms of corruption.

21.Most forms of corruption start with gifts or other perks, e.g. cash or free travel.

22.Incorruptible behaviour in the public sector does not depend on one single instrument such as effective disciplinary legislation, the setting-up of efficient control and monitoring bodies or an attractive code of conduct, but on the existence of an overall national integrity system (Transparency International), a multi-pronged anti-corruption strategy (World Bank), or a multi-dimensional ethics infrastructure (OECD). The main characteristic of such a multi-dimensional approach is that ethics is considered a key principle of good governance. It is also influenced by the characteristics and interaction of the political and legal context, as well as by economic policy.

23.One of the main assumptions of this survey is that unethical behaviour is the result of horizontal policy and an ethical public sector with a low level of corruption depends not only on the introduction of effective punitive measures but more widely on guidance, prevention and greater awareness. Consequently, the main task of effective instruments is not just to penalise wrongdoings, but to prevent such occurrences and to promote incorruptible behaviour by guidance and awareness measures, such as training and the introduction of codes of conduct.

24. 
Whereas some years ago, codes of ethics and policies on whistleblower protection were almost non-existent, today there are hardly any countries that are not willing to invest in these new instruments. However, codes of conducts and whistleblower instruments differ from country to country, from organisation to organisation and from culture to culture. The concept of whistleblowing, in particular, is interpreted very differently in various countries.

25.Despite their popularity, codes of ethics make little sense unless they are accepted by the personnel, and maintained, cultivated and implemented with vigour. In addition, codes of ethics are useless if staff are not reminded of them on a regular basis and given continuous training on ethics. Codes are only effective if they are impressed upon the hearts and minds of employees.

26.With respect to the various instruments, a certain consensus exists throughout Europe regarding the significance of punitive measures to combat wrongdoings. Most Member States believe that punitive instruments are vital in the fight against unethical behaviour. Nonetheless, it is interesting to note that 9 states believe that punitive measures are not always the most efficient instruments. In this context, it is interesting to note that among the 26 States and the European Commission, no state believes that punitive measures alone are sufficient to counteract wrongdoings. The overall majority has a strong preference for a combination of three or four different instruments.1 Among these different instruments, training was considered by 22 states as being crucial for fostering integrity, commitment by political leadership by 19 states and working conditions by 16 states.

27.There is considerable evidence that unethical behaviour is primarily an elitist problem associated with leadership. Consequently, there is a need to focus on the role of senior officials in the context of the ethics debate. This is particularly important bearing in mind that human resource management reforms in the Member States concern the role, nomination and status of senior officials. However, due to the different correlation between integrity violations and management styles, the EU Member States (including Bulgaria) and the European Commission would need different styles of leadership.

28. (...)

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