Along with Greece, the Slovak Republic has been listed as the third most corrupt country in the European Union, according to a survey carried out by American company Ernst & Young. The most corrupt country is currently Croatia, sitting in line to become the newest EU member as of July 1, with the next in line for corruption being Slovenia which recorded higher corruption in other areas. The details collected for the survey came from members of boards of directors at 3,459 individual companies across 36 countries worldwide, with 20 of those being members of the EU.
The questions asked focused on unethical behaviour in business, such as offering bribes in order to win business deals and the deliberate over-assessments of the financial situations of companies. Croatian respondents claimed that corruption and kickbacks are part of everyday business life in their country. This particular indicator proved even worse in Slovenia, where this survey box was ticked by 96 percent of the institutions contacted. Corruption was found to be common practice in 84 percent of cases in Greece and Slovakia. Other high-ranking places on the corruption list were the Czech Republic at 73 percent, Portugal at 72 percent, Hungary at 70 percent, Spain at 65 percent, Romania at 61 percent, and Italy at 60 percent. Within the European Union, the least corrupt countries found are in Scandinavia, where corruption in Finland and Sweden stands at just 12 percent. Slovenia’s position on the list is noteworthy due to the fact that they now indicate a rate of corruption higher than Kenya, where corruption is reported at 94 percent. The three-largest EU economies ended up in the middle, with corruption reported at 27 percent in France, 30 percent in Germany and 37 percent in Great Britain.
Gavin Shoebridge
