This two-year project (2014-2016) was centred on a new monitoring platform - the “European Corruption Observatory” – and brought together journalists and anti-corruption campaigners from across the EU to encourage pan-European tracking of corruption-related news and fostered awareness of corruption trends amongst the media, civil society and policy makers. The project was coordinated by Transparency International Liaison Office to the European Union.
The main objectives of the project were to increase transnational knowledge of corruption cases in the EU and to make this information more accessible to and better structured for professionals investigating corruption or working on anti-corruption policy. In partnership with Journalismfund, a pilot cross-border reporting network was also created.
The project resulted in greater awareness among journalists of the cross-border nature of corruption and the tools available to investigate it. The plan was there will be greater cross-border collaboration between journalists on corruption cases. The Observatory wanted to be an established source for policy-makers, journalists and others on corruption news. The idea was to feed into European-wide journalism covering fraud and corruption, and inform EU-level and national policy-makers about the scope of corruption in Europe.