Introduction; 1. Corruption: concept, importance and international response; 2. The scope of EU legal powers and development of the policy in the area of anti-corruption; 3. The EU strategy against corruption within the Member States; 4. Conditionality in the EU accession process; 5. The EU's evaluation of corruption in the Central and Eastern European candidate countries; 6. The EU anti-corruption strategy towards the Central and Eastern European candidate countries: achievement or missed opportunity?; 7. The impact of the 2004 enlargement on the EU anti-corruption policy; Conclusion.