The High Authority receives guests from Hungary, Ivory Coast and Romania

During the month of November 2018, the High Authority received guests from Hungary, Ivory Coast and Romania. These foreign figures, from different backgrounds and national contexts, expressed a common interest in the missions of the High Authority and in matters related to transparency, ethics and integrity in the public sphere.

On 14 November 2018, Ms. Alice Bossière, deputy secretary general, and Ms. Émilie Cazenave, international partnerships coordinator, met with Ms. Katalin Cseh, vice president and international relations coordinator of the Hungarian political party Momentum. Ms. Cseh invited to France by the International Visitor Leadership Program (PIPA) of the French Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs.

Ms. Cseh presented “Momentum”, a centrist and pro-European party founded in 2017 by young Hungarian personalities. She stressed that transparency and corruption prevention were her party’s priorities. Therefore, Ms. Cseh was particularly interested in integrity policies implemented in France since the adoption of the laws of 11 October 2013, and wished to discover good practices in this area.

Discussions focused on the independent status of the High Authority, as well as the powers and the means at its disposal to detect and tackle the ethical failings of public officials. Furthermore, the results obtained by the High Authority since its creation, similar experiences in Europe, and the involvement of civil society in the system were mentioned.

On 20 November 2018, Ms. Lisa Gamgani, secretary general, and Ms. Emilie Cazenave, hosted a delegation from the High Authority for Good Governance of Ivory Coast, led by its secretary general, Mr. Marc Antoine Koffi. This visit notably aimed at sharing good practices to strengthen the Ivorian system of prevention of conflicts of interest.

After a general presentation of the High Authority for transparency in public life, Ms. Anne de Moussac, deputy head of the legal and studies division, explained in more detail the missions of preventing conflicts of interests and providing ethical guidance to public officials. The delegation also discussed with Sébastien Margotte, the head of the control and data monitoring division, on specific issues pertaining to the verification of the content of declarations submitted to the High Authority.

Discussions between the secretaries general of the two institutions will be able to continue during the next plenary session of the Network for Integrity, organized on 10-11 December 2018 in Mexico City.

On 22 November 2018, a delegation of officials from the General Secretariat of the Romanian Government was received by Ms. Anne de Moussac and Ms. Izadora Zubek, international partnerships officer. This visit was part of a program on “effective mechanisms of administrative control and corruption prevention”, led by the French Anticorruption Agency in partnership with the Romanian Ministry of Justice.

The innovations introduced by the register of interest representatives especially attracted the attention of Romanian officials. Questions on the definition of lobbying, on the control of non-registered entities and annual declarations, and on the ethical rules applicable to public officials were asked. During these discussions, the role of transparency in the prevention of corruption was highlighted.