EIC/FIEC Working Group "Ethics"
For a number of years, various international institutions, e.g. the World Bank Group, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the European Union have been focusing a large amount of their attention on issues, such as "Good Governance" and "Capacity-Building" in developing countries, and they are particularly concerned with the phenomenon of corruption. Yet, efforts to curb corruption have intensified not only beyond the borders of the Eruopean Union, but also within the EU Member States and at EU level over the past few years. Furthermore, some civil society organisations have singled out the construction industry as a sector which, according to their perception, is particularly prone to unethical business practices. Against this background, the European construction industry, represented through FIEC and EIC, have identified a need for our sector to respond constructively to the various misconceptions and simplistic policy statements which unjustifiably cast a bad light on the construction sector in general and which neither acknowledge the growing efforts of many construction companies to implement a irreversible process towards the elimination of corruption within the corporate ambit nor the fact that they themselves have been often the victim of extortion and other types of unethical requests.This is why FIEC and EIC decided to draft a policy statement which would present the view of the European construction industry in the political debate. read more...