Transparency International: Bulgaria, Greece, Romania most corrupt EU states

18/11/2009

A new survey finds room for improvement in many Balkan countries.

(Nine O'clock, Kathimerini, Reuters - 18/11/09; Transparency International, Reuters, RFE/RL, IPS, Euobserver, Deutsche Welle, Romanian Times, HotNews.ro, Sofia Echo, Dnevnik.bg, Makfax, B92, Hurriyet - 17/11/09)

Greece needs to take "immediate and sustained efforts" to tackle corruption, Transparency International said. [File]

Athens must take quick action to deal with graft, Transparency International (TI) said as it released a new survey Tuesday (November 17th). It ranked Greece as the EU's most corrupt member, along with Bulgaria and Romania.

The three nations, joined by EU candidate Macedonia, share 71st place in the Berlin-based international watchdog's annual Corruption Perception Index (CPI), covering 180 countries and territories. Each of the four received a score of 3.8 points on a scale of zero (highly corrupt) to 10 (low levels of graft).

Macedonia and Bulgaria, which was singled out as the most corrupt country within the EU last year, have both improved their marks by 0.2 points over the past 12 months. By contrast, Greece has lost 0.9 points of its grade of 4.7 in 2008, when it was ranked 57th in the world. Experts blame "systemic weaknesses" that the country has failed to address.

"Greece's poor score shows that joining the EU does not automatically translate into a reduction in corruption," TI said. "Immediate and sustained efforts are required to ensure the country lives up to acceptable levels of transparency and accountability."

This year, Romania again scored 3.8, but moved down one spot to 71st on the global table. The Bucharest-based English language daily Nine o'Cclock quoted Victor Alistar, head of TI's Romania branch, as noting that 2009 marks the first time in the last seven years that Bucharest has failed to show any progress in fighting corruption.

"This stagnation is the result of the lack of strategic co-ordination regarding legal and institutional measures, which led to an excessive vulnerability of all integrity pillars and damaged the credibility of reform and of Romania in general," Alistar said.

Based on 13 different expert and business surveys, the CPI measures the perceived levels of public sector corruption in a given country or territory. Only 49 of the 180 nations included this year scored a 5.0 or higher, down from 52 last year. TI warned that high levels of corruption in some countries could lead to a slow-down in international efforts to help them address the impact of the global economic crisis.

"At a time when massive stimulus packages, fast-track disbursements of public funds and attempts to secure peace are being implemented around the world, it is essential to identify where corruption blocks good governance and accountability, in order to break its corrosive cycle," TI Chair Huguette Labelle said in Berlin on Tuesday.

With 9.4 points, New Zealand scored highest in this year's CPI, followed by Denmark at 9.3 and Singapore and Sweden, which were given a 9.2 each. Switzerland was 5th with 9.0.

Scoring 1.1, Somalia was placed at the bottom of the scales as the most corrupt country in the world, followed by Afghanistan at 1.3, Myanmar at 1.4, and Sudan and Iraq tying at 1.5.

Scoring 6.6 points this year, up from 6.4 in the 2008 CPI and 5.6 the previous year, Cyprus was in 27th place, along with Estonia and Slovenia. The Mediterranean island stood out again as the least corrupt among the Southeast European (SEE) countries.

Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), however, slipped further in the scale and remained the most corrupt country in the region. On the basis of its score of 3.2 this year, down from 3.0 in 2008, BiH shares 99th place with the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Madagascar, Senegal, Tonga and Zambia.

"Bosnia and Herzegovina has entered a period of dangerous uncertainty, and corruption has become a dominant problem that endangers implementation of overall reforms in the country," Emir Djikic, president of the Board of Directors of TI-BiH said on Tuesday. "It is essential to implement necessary anti-corruption laws as soon as possible."

Montenegro made the most progress among other SEE countries, improving its score by 0.5 point year on year. At 3.9, the country is ranked 69th in the world this year, up from 85th in 2008.

With a minimal increase of just 0.1 point, Serbia scored 3.5 this year, to take the 83rd place in the global scale.

Albania and EU candidates Croatia and Turkey all slipped in the rankings. Turkey's score of 4.4, down from 4.6 last year, placed it 61st in the world this year, along with Cuba, ahead of Croatia, which shared the 66th position with Georgia and Kuwait, tying at 4.1. Albania lost 0.2 from its 3.4 score last year to drop ten places to the 95th in the 2009 CPI.

The findings on Greece coincide with a special report published in July by the Greek general inspector of public administration, which concluded that the public sector is riddled with corruption. Most acutely affected are the urban planning offices, state hospitals and town halls.

While the EU has a special monitoring mechanism in place for Bulgaria and Romania, it does not have one to leverage Greece's poor performance in tackling corruption and speeding up lengthy trials.

An EU priorities proposal known as the Stockholm Programme asks the EU Commission to establish a similar auditing system for all member states and to develop a "comprehensive anti-corruption policy". The programme would need approval at the EU summit next month, but Greece -- the largest recipient of EU funds in 2008 -- is reportedly opposed to it.