TI recommends that:

• Clear commitment to mainstreaming anti-corruption, i.e. incorporation of rigorous anti-corruption measures into all reform processes.
• Concrete anti-corruption standards, including indicators and benchmarks, for candidate countries.
• The EU to strive for equal and fair treatment of candidate countries, and seeks to avoid generating competition between states.
• Greater emphasis on measurable implementation, not just adoption, of anti-corruption standards.
• Transparent and rigorous monitoring by independent bodies, including civil society, of progress towards accession AND of the Accession process itself.
• Use of a broad definition of corruption, which encompasses notions of state capture, embedded networks of power, trading in influence, etc, thus going beyond a focus on bribery.
• Greater transparency in the management of EU funds to help prevent corruption.
• Avoidance of double standards: the EU’s own new anti-corruption measures to be implemented in Member States.