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What is the most corrupt country in Europe?

2024-01-30 12:30:17Biznes SHKRUAR NGA REDAKSIA VOX

What is the most corrupt country in Europe?

Corruption in Western Europe and the EU is getting worse, and this is the first time it has gotten worse in more than a decade. Transparency International's latest Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) surveyed 180 countries and territories according to their perceived levels of public sector corruption on a scale from zero (very corrupt) to 100 (very clean).

According to the report, experts and business people find that the least corrupt country in the world is Denmark, followed by Finland and New Zealand in second and third place. Despite placing well in the overall list, several top-ranking democracies, such as Sweden (82), the Netherlands (79), Iceland (72) and the United Kingdom (71), recorded their lowest ever CPI scores annually since it was first realized in 2012.

Anti-corruption efforts have either stalled or declined in over three-quarters of the countries in the region. The best performing countries were Denmark (90), Finland (87) and Norway (84), while the lowest performing countries were Hungary (42), Romania (46) and Bulgaria (45).

Of the 31 countries in this region, only six have significantly improved their score since 2012: the Czech Republic (57), Estonia (76), Greece (49), Latvia (60), Italy (56) and Ireland (77). ). When compared to their scores in the 2015 CPI, Austria (71), Luxembourg (78), Sweden (82) and the United Kingdom (71) have fallen significantly.

Poland (54) has also seen a drop of seven points over the past decade due to "attempts by the former ruling Law and Order (PiS) party to monopolize power at the expense of the public interest," the report said. He also pointed out that Greece (49) scored very low on the 2023 list due to weak judicial independence.

However, even the best-scoring countries have problems curbing corruption in the public sector, according to the report, noting that they "have a poor track record of prosecuting companies that pay bribes to win foreign markets." The report highlights a case in the Netherlands (79), where authorities faced criticism for choosing not to prosecute Shell in a Nigerian oil bribery case, particularly in light of the shocking acquittals in Italy in the same case.

Transparency International also refers to the EU's recently proposed anti-corruption directive, which, if passed, would require member states to "criminalize demand-side foreign bribery". Some EU countries have already criminalized both the supply and demand side of foreign bribery. However, they rarely move against foreign officials.

Some of the most notorious corruption scandals in recent history have involved money laundering through banks in EU countries such as Denmark (90), Germany (78) and Sweden (82). The failure of their governments to properly supervise banks is one of the reasons why a new EU-level anti-money laundering authority is in the works.

While looking primarily at African cross-border corruption cases, the report also found that Switzerland (82), although it scores high on the CPI, is still grappling with its status as a money-laundering hub, where corrupt foreign elites can easily find broker to create and manage companies and trusts for them.

However, some recently proposed legislation aims to extend anti-money laundering obligations to lawyers and other professionals to curb this. There is more to be done for transparency in Ireland (77), where gaining access to beneficial ownership registers is almost entirely hampered by a very complicated system, according to the report.

He says this is also a problem in France (71), as a July 2023 analysis of beneficial ownership data for companies in the country showed that overall, it is impossible to identify the beneficial owners of 61% of all companies that hold real estate there. In fact, Transparency International's analysis found that access to information about the true owners of companies was significantly limited for civil society and journalists across the EU.


Në përputhje me standarded JTI

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