This Anti-Corruption Helpdesk brief was produced in response to a query from one of Transparency International’s national chapters. The Anti-Corruption Helpdesk is operated by Transparency International and funded by the European Union.
Query
What lessons and promising practices from Europe and, where relevant, other countries can help inform the content of national anti-corruption strategies for EU member states?
Summary
The recent (2025) EU provisional agreement on the new directive on combating corruption requires all member states to adopt national anti-corruption strategies. While many EU countries, particularly former candidate countries, already have in place existing strategic frameworks, one intent behind the directive is to raise the bar for the quality of these strategies. To inform EU countries embarking on anti-corruption strategy processes, this Helpdesk Answer synthesises standards, recent lessons and emerging promising practices, ranging across the issues that these strategies often address.
Caveat
This Helpdesk Answer is concerned with the content of national anti-corruption strategies in the EU. For further reading on existing international standards and recommendations focused on the process of crafting such strategies, see Coordinated and inclusive development of National Anti-Corruption Strategies (2026).
Main Points
- The first national anti-corruption strategies were developed by EU candidate countries as a tool for managing the domestic
implementation of EU anti-corruption initiatives in a manner that remained responsive to local circumstances. - The EU anti-corruption directive, for the first time, legally obliges all member states to adopt and publish an anti-corruption strategy. This makes preparatory work an urgent matter for the six states that have yet
to do so, including Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, while others may use this opportunity to improve their existing strategic framework. The directive imposes wide-ranging obligations on all member states, so even countries with existing national anti corruption strategies will have to adapt to these obligations in future updates. - In terms of the normative framing, procedures and authorities of national anti-corruption strategies, recent examples consider domestic and multilateral anti corruption obligations, preparation by semi autonomous committees, and facilitation through widespread consultation with civil society.
- National anti-corruption strategies tend to adopt policy definitions of corruption, which are broader than enumerated criminal corruption offences. Mobilising such definitions, they describe evidence led, situational analyses and risk assessments of corruption problems that draw holistically on a wide range of sources and methods. A recent study from the Czech Republic, commissioned in the course of preparing the country’s national anti-corruption strategy, sets a new benchmark.
- The EU directive requires national anti-corruption strategies to specify objectives, priorities and measures. To explore this question, this Helpdesk Answer looks at examples from: Australia’s new national anti
corruption commission; the maturation of Italy’s corruption risk management system; France’s recent whistleblower reforms; and
the Biden administration’s efforts to promote global anti-corruption cooperation. - Implementation, monitoring and evaluations are gradually moving toward a model of continuous adaptation across the strategy cycle.
Authors
Ryan Brunette
Reviewers
Caitlin Maslen, Maria Constanza Castro (TI),
Tom Shipley
Date
28/04/2026
