ambassador remarks

Transparency Conference
Roundtable "What is wrong with politics nowadays?"
September 21, 2007

Good morning,
What a great pleasure it is to be with you this morning. I think it is really fantastic to see the following conferences that are occurring this week. This truly has been a “transparency week” in the Czech Republic and I think we’ve made just a tremendous amount of progress in terms of raising awareness of the issue, really beginning what I hope is a sustained dialogue on this issue. I think over the last couple of days we’ve really seen the benefit of different countries working together, understanding different systems, understanding the problems that exist in all democracies, certainly in the USA, here in the Czech Republic and in other countries as well. We’ve got the benefit of the representatives of the European Commission to understand what they are pursuing, I think there have been some very interesting discussions with our colleagues from Slovakia on some of the interesting changes that are happening in that country.

A couple of takeaways that I had from our conference over the last couple of days and some of the following conferences really started with the discussion on what is transparency. I think interestingly in this country, I’m not sure about other countries, but the word “transparency” in Czech doesn’t translate very well and really requires some additional discussion. So what are we really talking about when we’re talking about transparency? We’re talking about predictability, we’re talking about clarity in dealings between society and government, we’re talking about fairness of process, we are talking about openness of process. So I think really understanding what we mean when we talk about transparency is important.

Some of the takeaways that I gained were that it really does require political will to gradually make change in this area; it takes leadership. I think we saw some of that from the representatives of Slovakia again, some of the pretty dramatic changes that have been made there. It takes political courage. There will be forces that resist when someone steps forward and blows the whistle. Like the Congressman’s story, I mean, that was an act of political courage and that had some political consequences for it, but nevertheless, that’s what it takes – it takes that leadership, it takes that will to move a society forward. And one thing, one theme I think we heard over and over again was that there must be consequences for bad behaviour and it must be not ten years from now, but fairly immediate consequences. And there must be the tools; there must be the framework in order to have a more accountable society.

The Congressmen talked about an independent body to enforce, to evaluate the behaviour of certain individuals. In the USA we have other tools – public disclosure of financial assets. I was mentioning at the last seminar that all of our elected officials at the state level, at the local level, certainly at the federal level have some pretty extensive financial disclosure that they have to make to ensure that there are no conflicts of interest. I have as an ambassador extensive public disclosure that I’m required to comply with each and every year. In fact I got an e-mail just this week, coincidentally, asking whether a particular stock that I hold in any way conflicted with my responsibilities here in the Czech Republic. It’s an ongoing process.

Other topics that we didn’t spend too much time on at the conference, but I think they are interesting and worthy of further discussion, are more regulation of lobbing in various countries, regulation of campaign finances, again with an eye towards making sure that there’s transparency, there’s clarity, there’s openness, there’s lack of conflict of interest in all that goes on between government officials and society. Other things we talked about are the very important role of not just government but business, private sector in reaching a more accountable society. And NGOs – we’ve seen the tremendous work that Transparency International is doing; other NGOs – Trust for Civil Society for this particular event, which is really great. I think NGOs have a tremendous role that they can play – really being a mirror on what is going on in our governments. We talked about the role of media yesterday, it was an interesting discussion yesterday afternoon and there was a little lament I guess here in the Czech Republic that there is less investigative journalism than the journalists would like to see. And part of it is driven by the newspaper business and the need to make a profit. It costs money to do investigative journalism, yet it can play a very significant role in being a watchdog in what our governments are doing.

Let me just leave you with one final point. Unfortunately this is a quest where you never ultimately reach the end. All of us like to see a problem, solve it and move onto the next one, but this is something that goes on and will always go on in all democracies. And I think when we’re talking about change, more transparent society, more accountable society, we have to think in terms of increments, small changes, small progress, small victories, because it’s just not something you can pass a law for and the problem’s solved. The problem will never be solved, it’s just making what we have better than it is today. And you do that with all of the different groups working towards that – with the governments, with the private sector, with NGOs, with media working together and working with colleagues from other countries to improve all of our democracies and societies. If we do, the results are great. There’s an economic cost to corruption, to lack of transparency. The extent to which we can all strengthen our institutions of democracy, the better off we’re all going to do on all fronts – economic fronts, safety and security fronts, public trust and democratic institutions.

So I commend all of you in what you’re doing, thank you so much for taking the time. Unfortunately I’m not going to be able to stay too long today, but I did want to step by and say thanks and appreciate your efforts for what has really been I think a great week of raising awareness on this issue in this country.
Thanks so much.