Eleven years after agreeing to join a United Nations push against corruption, Germany is moving forward with ratifying the measure and ending its claim as one of the last major economies to do so.

Germany’s Bundestag, the lower house of parliament, last week approved legislation to ratify the United Nations Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC). Now the Bundesrat or upper house also must approve the legislation, which Deutsche Welle reported would likely take place at its next meeting this month.

The UN convention, which Germany signed in 2003, requires countries to boost transparency, establish anti-corruption bodies, adopt measures to prevent corruption in the public and private sectors, criminalize a number of offenses, increase international cooperation, and implement asset recovery processes.

Anti-corruption nonprofit group Transparency International Germany said the delay in ratifying the convention was due to parliamentarians’ reluctance to change rules relating to bribery of members of parliament, TI Germany said in a statement. The convention requires members of parliament to be considered public officials for purposes of anti-corruption laws. And in February, the Bundestag approved measures imposing five-year jail sentences for parliamentarians found guilty of committing bribery, Deutsche Welle reported.

“It was high time for Germany to ratify the UN Convention, but we are glad that this important step has finally been taken,” Edda Müller, chair of Transparency International Germany, said in a statement. “We now expect the German government to use its position to make sure that the process for reviewing whether governments meet their anti-corruption commitments (is) robust.”

With 172 countries already having adopted the convention, Germany, New Zealand, and Japan remained the last major holdouts to implement the anti-corruption pact. TI Germany said those countries were “sending the wrong message” about their willingness to take on corruption. The watchdog noted that in the last four years, Germany completed 11 major investigations into allegations of a company bribing a foreign government while Japan and New Zealand completed none.

In 2012, a group of 30 German CEOs called on the government to ratify the convention, warning that the delay was harming the country’s reputation with partners abroad.

TI Germany further called on the government to back the changes to anti-money laundering rules approved by EU lawmakers this spring. Those AML proposals include a requirement that Member States create public registries listing the beneficial owners of companies. The package also calls for greater vigilance by bankers, accountants, and others for warning flags of possible money laundering. The final version of the Fourth Anti-Money Laundering Directive is expected to be completed by the end of the year.

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