Fight against corruption at a near standstill in future EU countries

PRAGUE, Oct 7 (AFP) - Widespread corruption in the European Union's members-in-waiting shows no sign of declining and is getting rapidly worse in Poland, a report published by Transparency International (TI) on Thursday has found.

TI's annual graft index paints a grim picture of most of the 10 countries set to join the EU in May.

BizVantage – Serious & personalized business, investment and technology intelligence for a serious advantage.
Try the free, no-hassle 6 month trial!

Only Cyprus, Estonia and Slovenia managed to score a decent 5.5 points or more on a scale of one to 10, where 10 signifies a total absence of corruption.

It puts these countries roughly on a par with France and Spain, and a little ahead of Italy and Greece, which respectively scored 5.3 and 4.3 points.

TI gave no rating for Malta, the smallest state set to join the EU next year.

Four future EU members scored less than four points, namely the Czech Republic (3.9), Lithuania (3.8), Slovakia (3.7) and Poland (3.6)

"Corruption has simply continued to increase in Poland since 1996," said Julia Pitera, the head of TI's department for Poland. "In that year Poland still scored 5.6 but last year it was down to 4.0."

The marks handed down by TI after a survey involving businessmen, universities and risk analysts, merely reflect what has become an everyday reality for eastern Europeans.

In order to get a driving licence, win a court case or be assured of receiving decent care at a local hospital, bribes have become the order of the day.

It helps to secure the favour of judges, custom officials, policemen and badly-paid health care workers in places like Slovakia where doctors earn only 500 euros (590 dollars) a month.

In the Czech Republic a serious traffic offense can be forgotten for the sum of 100 euros.

At the offices of the immigration police in Prague, the intermediaries who help Russians and Ukranians get their visas hardly bother to hide the bank notes they have slipped into passports to facilitate the process.

"In the Czech Republic corruption is more widespread in the public sector than in the private sector," said Adriana Krnacova, the head of TI's Czech section.

In most of eastern Europe, politicians have amassed small fortunes by skimming commissions off privatisation deals or the stock markets.

Most of them have never been brought to justice.

Asked how he managed to build a house for seven million euros, former nationalist Slovak prime minister Vladimir Meciar who was an ordinary worker until the collapse of the communist regime in 1989, simply replied that a friend had lent him the money.

The European Commission has tirelessly called on the future members of the EU to root out corruption. In each one of its reports on enlargement, it has singled out graft as one of the major obstacles.

Efforts have been made to deal with the problem, but progress has been patchy.

The candidate countries have adopted new legislation to enable them to step up the fight against corruption, but the law is not always applied.

TI's Krnacova praised Estonia, Hungary and Slovenia as the exceptions who were making a strong effort.

"They take the fight against corruption seriously and do not just pay lip service to it," she said.

Hungary was ranked the 40th least corrupt country among 133 nations surveyed for the study, while Slovenia and Estonia respectively came in at positions 29 and 33.

bur-jlt/ef/gk

World-corruption-EU-enlarge