ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the European Union (EU) Anti-Corruption Report and considers the areas of relevance for future EU anti-corruption policy, in particular, the European Semester process. It summarizes the Report’s achievements and discusses the latest phase of the EU anti-corruption policy—post-2017—under the European Semester, suggesting deficiencies, gaps and areas that could be given closer attention in future EU anti-corruption policy objectives. The Commission and the European Council set priorities for the EU, national performance, budgets and reform programmes, and issue country-specific recommendations, backed up in some cases by financial sanctions. The European Semester country-specific recommendations for 2018 shows that the scope of anti-corruption recommendations is very narrow under the European Semester framework, and it recommends anti-corruption action to few member states, rather than all. The country-specific recommendations in the European Semester 2018, have paid little attention to the impact that corruption has on good governance or rule of law, illegal political party financing, police and the judicial system.
