Report highlights difficulties in EU fight against corruption

Corruption believed to be widespread across EU

A report on member states’ efforts to combat corruption, published by the European Commission this week, underscores the difficulties and paradoxes of fighting graft. The report was released on Monday (3 February), together with two opinion polls conducted by Eurobarometer suggesting three-quarters of respondents believe that corruption is widespread in their country. More than half – 56% – say it has worsened over the past three years.

Cecilia Malmström, the European commissioner for home affairs, described corruption in the European Union as “breathtaking” and the price of not acting as “simply too high”. The report puts a figure on the cost of corruption in the member states: at least €120 billion every year. Putting a figure on the cost of corruption is imperative if you want to have a political impact and it was this headline figure that was taken up by most media in reporting on the study (including European voice.com). But, as the report concedes in a footnote, this figure is “based on estimates by specialised institutions and bodies”, without giving any specifics about the methodology applied.

A study prepared by consultancy firms PwC and Ecorys on behalf of the Commission and published last June is on firmer ground. It calculated at €1.4bn-€2.2.bn the direct cost of corruption in public procurement in five sectors in eight member states. That is still a wide range, but it is sufficiently specific to be a credible approximation.

Other figures in the report unveiled on Monday point to the difficulties of pinning down corruption. One-third of companies polled by Eurobarometer claimed that corruption had prevented them from winning public contracts.

But there are no means of ascertaining whether the accusations are true or are self-serving rumours put out by companies that failed to get government business.

First-hand experience

Another area where unverifiable figures are endemic is corruption perception. In the worst-affected countries – such as Croatia, the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Romania, and Greece – the number of people with first-hand experience of corruption – those who had been asked or expected to pay a bribe in the preceding 12 months – ranged from 6% to 29%.

But in ten member states, including Greece, Italy and Spain, 90% or more of respondents believe corruption to be widespread. In Greece, the figure is 99% and in Italy 97%.

Even in the UK, where fewer than 1% of respondents said they had been asked for a bribe in the preceding year, a huge 64% said they believed that corruption was pervasive in the UK.

None of this is reason not to take seriously the report’s many findings on each of the 28 member states, produced by a network of independent national correspondents. Nor is it reason to dismiss Malmström’s call for the member states to get tough on corruption.

“We are simply not doing enough,” she said. “That is true for all member states. Existing laws and policies are not enforced enough and a firm political commitment to root out corruption still seems to be missing.”

This suggests that the report’s significance is primarily political; there is no expectation that the Commission is planning any new legislation at this point.

“We hope that the process we are starting today will spur the political will and the necessary commitment at all levels to address corruption more effectively across Europe,” Malmström said.

Figures taken from a 2013 Eurobarometer report quoted extensively in the new report.

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