Corruption: Romania, EU’s “Rotten Apple”

As an International Monetary Fund (IMF) mission arrives in Bucharest to analyze the current situation and prospects for the Romanian economy, anti-corruption NGO Transparency International (TI) has condemned Romania. It called the country “the last spoke in the chariot” of the European Union in terms of policies aimed at curbing the growth of corruption. According to a recent TI analysis, Romania “remains among the European Union countries with the worst performance in implementing anti-corruption measures, scoring only 46 points out of a hundred, and finds itself next to Bulgaria, which scored 45 points.”

The NGO regularly publishes the so-called Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI). It reflects how independent international and local experts, as well as business leaders, perceive the corruption situation in the public sector in 180 countries. The ranking is done by assigning scores from 0 (“extremely corrupt”) to 100 (“absolutely not corrupt”). According to Transparency International methodology, scores below 50 are “unacceptably low.”

In the case of the European Union, TI experts concluded that efforts to combat rampant corruption are “stagnant or even declining” in most member states: “The EU average has remained constant over the last five years and has stopped at 64 points.” That is, with a score of 46 points out of a possible 100, Romania (in the EU since 2007) remains among those who make little or no effort to fight corruption, while the Romanian system has significant deficiencies unacceptable for a rule-of-law state.