The Group of States against Corruption was established by the Council of Europe in 1999 in order to monitor its member states’ anti-corruption measures. Currently, GRECO comprises 46 member states (mainly European states, including Russia, and the United States of America). The Secretariat of the organization is based in Strasbourg. The most important objective of GRECO is to help the fight against corruption, through a process based on “mutual evaluation and peer pressure”, taking into account the undertakings of the member states.

During what is known as the evaluation procedure, evaluation teams, which include experts from the member states, draft a report about a country’s anti-corruption measures, with the help of on-site visits and other evaluation methods. The plenary session of GRECO discusses the report, then makes a decision about it, which may contain recommendations for the country under scrutiny to improve its legislation and legal practice. The member state reports on the actions it has taken to implement the recommendations within a specified time (compliance report). GRECO can adopt the compliance report, or, in case the recommendations are not implemented adequately, it can partly or totally reject the report.

GRECO works in “evaluation rounds”. Every evaluation round covers a previously specified theme.