4 December 2012, by Christian Humborg, Transparency International Deutschland.

Germany’s snail-paced progress towards ratification of the UNCAC received a new impetus with a letter signed last August 2012 by more than 30 German CEOs, including 26 of the DAX 30 companies. The signatories pressed German members of Parliament to tighten the law on bribery of parliamentarians, this being the main obstacle to Germany’s ratification of UNCAC. Now, prominent politicians of the ruling factions are questioning the current inaction of the German Parliament -the Bundestag-. Ruprecht Polenz, Chairman of its powerful Foreign Affairs Committee, has urged his coalition government to ratify the Convention. The President of the German Parliament, Norbert Lammert, took an extraordinary step untypical for his position, by developing a position paper to lay out how Germany can fulfil the UNCAC requirements. Neither the letter of German CEOs nor Lammert’s position paper have been made public.

Another call for UNCAC ratification was released in September 2012, involving civil society organisations such as Transparency International Deutschland and Germanwatch, national business associations and big trade unions like the DGB (German Trade Union Alliance) and ver.di.

In its 2012 Leaders Declaration, the G20 countries committed, once again, to ratifying and implementing the UNCAC as soon as possible. The three remaining G20 countries that have not yet ratified the UNCAC are Germany, Japan, and Saudi Arabia.