Enforcement is the weak link in the EU's anti-corruption chain

I've been reading a lot about the recent controversy in Ukraine, and it's led me to think more about Europe's anti-corruption efforts. While, of course, Ukraine is not yet a member state of the Union, such a high-profile scandal should ring alarm bells across the EU – corruption rarely adheres to land borders, and has long-lasting impacts on the rest of the continent.

For me, the EU must use this moment to once again look inward and put renewed efforts into strengthening anti-corruption enforcement, focusing not only on the public sector, but on those cases where bribery, scandal, and the scope for cross-border wrongdoing are most rife: the private sector. Most important, in my view, is establishing one, centralized, fully fanged enforcer.

Currently, the framework for uncovering and penalizing misconduct is far too fragmented – and the cracks create space for wrongdoing to creep in. At a supranational level, enforcement and investigation are spread across the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF), the European Public Prosecutor's Office (EPPO), Europol, and Eurojust, with the different institutions taking responsibility for different cases of bribery, corruption, misappropriation, fraud, and the like. Each Member State then has its own national authorities and agencies, making the landscape even more disjointed.

Naturally, each of these institutions has its own approach, and as the organizations stack on top of each other, discerning which cases fall under whose jurisdiction, which body is responsible, and what scope it has to sanction offenders becomes increasingly difficult. Cases are buried under bureaucracy and red tape, driving inaction while offending institutions and individuals avoid meaningful consequences.

That is why the EU must establish a centralized, fully fanged enforcer that can provide the institutional checks and balances necessary to deter corporate wrongdoing. One that has precedence over OLAF and EPPO, with multi-national jurisdiction to run or delegate investigations, coordinate national and international bodies, and impose financial sanctions on offending organizations. It must use a transparent, stringent review process to hold wrongdoers to account and, crucially, Member States must give it this mandate.

This will prove the most challenging hurdle. Few national governments want to hand over domestic sovereignty on such issues, especially as global politics grows increasingly polarized. Some might wonder why it's even necessary. After all, the bloc is renowned for its strong regulatory environment and its stringent application of the law.

Yet corruption is on the rise, and the EU is struggling with it. Since 2021, EPPO investigations have increased from 515 to a staggering 3,602 (OLAF). Suspected fraud cases are also growing in prevalence, with recent reports of a $15.7 million VAT fraud case in Germany (EPPO), and a $60 million VAT fraud scheme in Belgium (Brussels Times) – both reaching across borders.

This is only a tiny glimpse of the challenge, too. Plenty of industries are especially vulnerable: defense, financial services, healthcare, and even sports were highlighted by the European Commission as high-risk sectors (EUCrim), and annual losses in these sectors total billions. Lax oversight, opaque internal processes, and weak enforcement allow misconduct to thrive, with massive consequences not just for individual businesses and countries, but for European markets more broadly.

Now, this is not to diminish the strong step forward the EU has already taken this year. Its anti-corruption directive 2026/1021, which came into force in May, explicitly covers bribery in both the public and private sectors (EUR-Lex), clearly defining the scope of each. It has created a uniform definition for core corruption offenses, which will apply across all Member States and, in turn, give prosecuting bodies more confidence. But much more remains to be done.

My greatest doubts stem from the fact that enforcement of this new legislation remains at the national level. Member States are directed to maintain "one or several" anti-corruption bodies, and to handle cross-border cases through cooperation between national authorities and EU bodies. This is just more of the same core issue: fragmented enforcement, subject to differing applications of the law.

To see true progress on this matter, the EU needs a shift in mindset. An overarching body, with the power to run cases and hand out fines across all Member States, must be the next step. Corruption is clearly rising across the continent, and the EU must act quickly to stamp it out.

Yerbol Orynbayev is an economist and former Governor of the World Bank on behalf of Kazakhstan. He served as the Deputy Prime Minister of Kazakhstan from 2007-2013 and Aide to the President on economic policy from 2013-2015. He is known for having steered the nation out of the 2008 Financial Crisis.