OECD calls off antibribery mission to Hungary in unprecedented move

Paris-based organisation cites government’s failure to act on its previous recommendations, some more than a decade old.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has cancelled a mission to Hungary to discuss antibribery measures, it says, citing the government’s failure to act on its previous recommendations.

There was no immediate response from the Hungarian government on Tuesday after what the OECD said in a statement was the first time such a high-level mission has been called off.

Scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday, the meeting was scrapped over what the OECD described as the inability of Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s government to secure sufficient representation of ministers and senior officials for the event.

“The high-level mission decided on by the Working Group on Bribery in December 2023 was meant to address the Government of Hungary’s failure to make tangible progress in addressing long-standing recommendations,” the OECD said in a statement on Tuesday.

These related to what the OECD described as the Hungarian government’s lack of understanding of foreign bribery risk exposure, the absence of a strategy for detecting and investigating foreign bribery cases and the lack of legal clarity in relation to corporate responsibility for foreign bribery.

The OECD said some of its recommendations date back more than a decade.

“The Working Group also remains seriously concerned about Hungary’s low level of foreign bribery enforcement,” it said.

The OECD said it will implement additional measures for the Hungarian government to re-engage at an appropriate level and introduce a draft plan of proposed steps to address the shortcomings its working group has identified.

The European Union and the United States have long warned of alarming levels of politically linked corruption in Hungary and expressed worries over the state of its democracy and rule of law. Brussels has suspended billions in EU funding in a bid to push Orban to remedy these problems.

Protests erupted in Hungary in March after a recording was released by former government insider-turned-critic Peter Magyar, who claimed it proved top officials are corrupt.

The protesters demanded the resignation of Orban and his chief prosecutor.

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Al Jazeera and news agencies