BRUSSELS — EU legislators struck a deal on the first bloc-wide law to combat corruption after several concessions were made to give countries more leeway in its enforcement.

The bill, agreed Tuesday evening, harmonizes definitions of offenses, minimum penalties and preventative measures across EU countries. The deal on the law, which was under negotiation for over two years, came the same day Brussels was rocked by one of the biggest corruption scandals to hit an EU institution in decades.

The final text of the law is watered down from the European Commission’s initial proposal, put forward in May 2023, and from the European Parliament’s ambitions. It includes much-reduced minimum penalties, many optional clauses, and wording that leaves ample room for countries to forge their own interpretations.

“The Council didn’t want this bill,” the Parliament’s lead negotiator, Raquel García Hermida-van der Walle, told POLITICO. “They have been fighting every inch of terrain” as “they just don’t like to have to harmonize or set minimum standards on the field of criminal law.”

One of the bill’s biggest sticking points was the obligation for EU counties to recognize and punish “abuse of office” offenses by public officials, which Italy blocked, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni having abolished the crime in 2024. Germany and the Netherlands also objected to the measure.

Negotiators found a compromise by loosening the wording of the text, deleting the explicit mention of “abuse of office” crimes and instead requiring EU countries to codify as offenses “at least certain serious violations of the law in the performance of or failure to perform an act by a public official in the exercise of his functions.”

García said that despite the opposition, the Parliament managed to include wide corruption-prevention requirements for countries. Capitals now have two years to implement it and a further year to present their national anti-corruption plans to the Commission.

“I am happy that we have a deal and that we have something on the table to build on,” García said.

Greens MEP Daniel Freund said the bill is a win because now “there will be a legal [basis] for the Commission to be a pain in the ass for whoever does not follow the rules,” while national courts will be able to ask the EU’s top court for advice on corruption matters. 

Chloé Ridel, a Socialist lawmaker working on the file, said the law also includes specific definitions for many corruption offenses that all EU countries now will share, such as “bribery in the public and private sector, misappropriation in the public and private sector, trading and influence, enrichment from corruption offenses, of obstruction of justice, concealment, and incitement.”

Center-right European People’s Party negotiator David Casa highlighted that the common definitions will facilitate cross-border cooperation and praised the new reporting requirements for EU countries to the Commission as helping Brussels improve monitoring of how member countries tackle corruption.

Not enough

However, critics said the bill isn’t sufficiently far-reaching.

“Despite the efforts by the Parliament, any agreement will be a far cry from what the EU needs to battle corruption in 27 Member States,” said Transparency International EU chief Nick Aïossa ahead of the deal, criticizing countries for lobbying to water it down.

Right-wing European Conservatives and Reformists MEP Mariusz Kamiński highlighted that countries were not required to establish independent anti-corruption authorities.

“How can we push Ukrainians to keep their anti-corruption office independent if we do not require the same inside the EU? There is no strict requirement for such a body to be specialized, and no requirement for it to be independent,” Kamiński said.

In July the Commission scolded the Ukrainian government after it moved to place two of its key anti-corruption bodies under the direct supervision of the general prosecutor, a political appointee of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Raquel García called the bill a first step toward regulating corruption in the EU, and said future steps will include an ethics body for EU public officials, which the right-wing majority in the Parliament has stalled since the new mandate began last year.

The Commission is set to propose a new anti-corruption strategy in early 2026.