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"Other EU-wide member state pitfalls include... the tight relationship between the business and political
elite"...
2/3/14, "EU has 'no corruption-free zone'," EurActiv, Brussels, By Nikolaj Nielsen
"Corruption across the EU bloc is costing taxpayers billions, as member
states fail to tackle the problem head on, according to the European
Commission.
The Brussels executive on Monday (3 February) published its first
ever bi-annual anti-corruption report on each of the 28 EU countries,
citing public procurement and obscure political party financing as among
the most pervasive problems.
“We are not doing enough and this is true in all member states,” EU
commissioner for home affairs Cecilia Malmstrom told reporters.
Public procurement contracts, equivalent to one-fifth of the total EU
economy, are said to be the worst affected with up to a quarter of
their value lost to corrupt practices.
Around 32 percent of the companies who tendered public contracts say
they lost the winning bid because of corruption, with construction and
engineering firms the worst affected.
Other EU-wide member state pitfalls include murky political party
financing, the tight relationship between the business and political
elite, and general graft at the local level.
The commission estimates some €120 billion [$162B US] is lost every year,
although Malmstrom said the true figure is likely to be much higher. [1 EUR = 1.35310 USD]
The figure is based on 2009 estimates from studies by a number of
international bodies like the International Chamber of Commerce and the
UN Global Compact, which suggest corruption amounts to 5 percent of GDP
at world level.
For its part, Olaf, the EU anti-fraud office, in a report it commissioned out last year gave a more precise figure.
The Olaf-sponsored report, drafted by jointly by accountancy firm PwC
EU Services and Ecorys with the support of the University of Utrecht,
claimed up to €2.2 billion [$2.9B US] of public and EU funds for public procurement
contracts was lost in eight member states in 2010 alone.
The commission says its new anti-corruption report is necessary to
help pressure member states into action. No sanctions or EU legislative
initiatives specifically tailored to crack down on corruption are
foreseen
.
But the issue has seized most Europeans as a major problem.
An EU-wide barometer survey’s suggest 76 percent of Europeans think
corruption is wide spread and more than half believe it has increased in
the past three years.
Around 75 percent of respondents in Spain, Slovenia, the Czech Republic, Italy, and Portugal think corruption has increased.
At 99 percent, almost everyone of the Greek respondents feel
corruption is widespread, followed by 97 percent in Italy and 95 percent
in Lithuania, Spain, and the Czech Republic.
In comparison, more Nordic countries think corruption is rare. Around
75 percent of Danish respondents say its rare, followed by 64 percent
in Finland and 54 percent in Sweden.
Companies are also affected, with around half saying they need political connections to succeed in their country of business.
Meanwhile, a chapter dedicated to the EU institutions was not published as originally announced. The commission says the chapter was not written because there are no
independent external reviews it could draw on to evaluate its own
institutions.
The commission is set to produce the EU chapter when the next EU-wide report is released in two years time.
The delay comes as pro-transparency campaigners often complain the EU legislative process is conducted behind closed doors." via Free Republic.
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Comment: Sounds exactly like the US.
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