The existence of domestic laws and policies on prevention and fight against corruption reflecting all international and regional standards

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Status requiring significant improvement
Status requiring moderate improvement
Compliant status

Anti-corruption strategy

The crucial policy at the governmental level is the Slovak Anti-Corruption Policy for 2019-2023. Implementation of the policy is supported by the National Anti-Corruption Programme, and other central authorities and sectoral ministerial programmes. According to the OECD the regulation itself fulfils the OECD standards by 53%, hoverer implementation reaches only 37%.

The OECD average for regulation is 45% and for the implementation is 36%.

Corruption risk management and audit

The role of central harmonisation unit in Slovakia is given to the Ministry of Finance that promotes methodologies for internal control and audit based on international standards. Internal control activities are not reported to the Ministry of Finance, but they are made publicly available and shared with the Committee for Internal Audit and Government Audit, where the supreme audit institution (Supreme Audit Office) is also present. According to the OECD, the regulation itself fulfils the OECD criteria by 84%, while implementation reaches 47%. The OECD average for regulation is 67% and for the implementation is 33%.

Lobbying

The absence of legal act regulating lobbying activities is a persisting challenge regularly reported in the annual Rule of Law Report by the European Commission. Thus in the area of lobbing regulation, Slovakia fulfils the OECD criteria by 0%. OECD states that there is no entity in charge of monitoring lobbying activities in the Slovak Republic, nor a law regulating lobbying activities, nor examples of at-risk behaviour in existing codes of ethics or conduct. Regarding the implementation the criteria in practice, Slovakia reaches 25 %. The OECD average for regulation is 38% and for the implementation is 35%.

Conflict of interest

The regulation at the national level covers:

  • limited cooling-off period for public officials who provided state aid or other benefit to third persons;
    • mandatory submission of interest declarations for elected officials, members of the judiciary and senior civil servants;
    • and the obligation to manage potential conflict-of-interest situations.

The compliance with conflict-of-interest regulations and sanctions for public officials for breaching the obligations are supervised by the parliamentary committee on incompatibility of functions.

OECD alerts that cooling-off restrictions for former public officials do not apply to lobbying activities, and no data was provided on whether elected officials, members of the judiciary or senior civil servants comply with the regulations on submission of interest declarations. Therefore, the regulation itself fulfils the OECD criteria by 78%, while implementation reaches only 22%. The OECD average for regulation is 76% and for the implementation is 40%.

Political financing

In the Slovak Republic, anonymous donations are banned as well as contributions from foreign states and enterprises and state-owned enterprises. Regulations also lays obligations to submit annual and electoral financial reports. Even though parties comply with the regulations on submission of financial reports, these are not all publicly available. Supervision over the regulation is done by the State Commission for Elections and Control of Political Party Financing. According to the OECD this body cannot be considered as an autonomous body as it depends on the Ministry of the Interior for its budget and hiring decisions. According to the OECD, the regulation itself fulfils the OECD standards by 70%, hoverer implementation reaches only 29%. The OECD average for regulation is 73% and for the implementation is 58%.

Transparency of public information

Most responsibilities for the open data policy are shared between the Ministry of Investment, Regional Development and Informatisation for supervision of public access to data, and the Ministry of Justice for compliance with the Act on Access to Information. However, there is no an autonomous central body that would supervise collecting and publishing data on access to information requests. Disclosure of the information is regulated by the Act No. 211/2000 Coll. on free access to information. Every state body is responsible for the implementation of the Act within their scope of jurisdiction. According to the OECD, the regulation itself fulfils the OECD criteria by 78% and implementation reaches 58%. The OECD average for regulation is 67% and for the implementation is 62%.