Spotlight: Sino-Greek cooperation against corruption benefits both sides: Greek experts

Acknowledging corruption as a key factor obstructing debt-laden Greece's efforts to restore growth, Athens has declared a war to root out graft seeking evidence against suspects within the country and abroad.

This follows close on the heels of Chinese President Xi Jinping making an anti-graft campaign one of the top priorities of his presidency. Since last year in particular, China has put the emphasis on international collaboration to hunt economic fugitives and corrupt officials who have fled abroad, and to repatriate suspects and ill-gotten gains.

Panagiotis Nikoloudis, Greece's first ever Minister of State for Combating Corruption, took office in January this year after the general elections. He reiterated the Leftist government's resolve to address the corruption challenge in conversation with Xinhua during a recent press briefing.

The minister noted that despite progress steps made in tracing tax dodgers for example, Greece still faced major administrative obstacles, starting from the tax collection mechanism.

An investigation conducted by several authorities unveiled 7 billion euros (7.63 billion U.S. dollars) in undeclared and untaxed funds in bank accounts in Greece and abroad during the period 2011-2014. It was estimated that the state should collect about 2.5 billion euros in taxes. So far there have been no satisfactory results.

But how does Greece prevent economic crime suspects from leaving the country in the first place to avoid a cross-border hunt and how does it handle extradition requests?

Greek Police explained to Xinhua that judicial authorities hold the first and last word on the prohibition of exit from the country as well as on repatriation requests.

"The Greek Police, within the framework of its powers, carry out all the necessary steps to arrest and bring perpetrators and suspects of criminal acts before justice, which is competent to decide on their repatriation or not," Greek Police said in a written reply to Xinhua. Such steps include detention during passport controls at exit points.

Concerning Sino-Greek cooperation, the Greek Police noted that Greece was "in constant cooperation with Chinese authorities with a view to combating crime" on the basis of two agreements ratified by the Greek state in 1995 and 2011.

Speaking to Xinhua, Nicolas Kanellopoulos, former secretary general of the Greek Ministry of Justice, Transparency and Human Rights (2011-2015) and current president of the Institute for Justice and Growth of the European Public Law Organization, stressed that the extradition process of foreign suspects of economic crimes in Greece was short compared to the international average.

Delays occur if a wanted person submits an application for asylum, if he/she seeks the annulment of the decision or in the case that he/she must first serve a sentence imposed in Greece for another offense.

An economic fugitive was returned to China from Greece on April 9 this year as a new campaign to capture fugitives overseas continues, according to China's Ministry of Public Security. It's the first time Chinese police have seen an economic suspect returned from Greece since the launch of "Fox Hunt 2015" on April 1, the ministry said.

China has no extradition treaty with Greece, therefore this successful individual extradition case set a good example for future international law enforcement cooperation with European countries, said an official with the ministry.

According to official statistics, during the last seven years Greek authorities have asked judicial assistance from Chinese authorities twice, in cases related to cyber crime. Both Greece and China have ratified and are bound by the 2003 UN Convention on the fight against corruption, he noted.

For Kanellopoulos, engaging major players of the world economic environment such as China in the war against corruption represents an important step and radical changes to the international status quo.

"I find extremely timely and of course necessary the decision of Chinese authorities to step up their cooperation with the international community and our country to deal with transnational and cross-border corruption cases of major complexity," said Kanellopoulos, who in late 2014 exchanged views on corruption with a delegation of Chinese senior judges visiting Athens.

The exchange of information, assistance and cooperation between states in providing data and freezing bank accounts are the most important tools in the detection of the path of money laundering and the recovery of misused funds, he underlined.

Above all in any case there should be political will to implement the law, Angelos Tsigkris, a law professor who has also served as former general secretary of the Greek Ministry of Justice, told Xinhua.

Political systems in Greece and across the world must respond to society's demand to combat corruption and strengthen transparency.

"We have seen that even the best modern legislative framework cannot be efficient, when there is still lack of political willingness to implement it. This is the biggest challenge in all cases," Tsigkris said, stressing that the battle against corruption on all fields is a daily struggle. Endit