Europeans see corruption in private sector as economic crisis hits

BRUSSELS - Europeans distrust the private sector and perceive the anti-corruption drive by government to be inefficient, while in the new member states bribery is particularly hitting the poor, a corruption survey released by Transparency International shows.

"These results show a public sobered by a financial crisis precipitated by weak regulations and a lack of corporate accountability," said Huguette Labelle, head of the anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International, when releasing the 'Global Corruption Barometer' on Wednesday (3 June).

Half of the 73,000 respondents said they saw the private sector as corrupt, an increase of 8 percentage points over five years ago. The survey was carried out in 69 countries and territories around the world between October 2008 and February 2009.

People in Iceland, Luxembourg, Moldova, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain and Switzerland perceive the private sector as the most corrupt.

The survey also found that 53 percent of Europeans believe bribery is commonly used by the private sector to shape policies and regulations, a phenomenon referred to as state capture.

"Companies must engage meaningfully with the reporting frameworks and anti-corruption codes now available and begin applying these in earnest, reporting clearly and honestly about their efforts, and benchmarking their policies and practices," said Robin Hodess, a researcher with Transparency International.

Meanwhile, government efforts to tackle corruption are largely seen as ineffective by the general public. Fewer than 1 in 10 respondents in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Lithuania and Ukraine considered government anti-corruption efforts to be successful.

With the economic crisis hitting European countries to various degrees, the barometer found that the poorest families continue to be punished by petty bribe demands. Across the board, low-income respondents were more likely to be met with bribe demands than high-income respondents.

In Lithuania, whose economy has shrunk over 12 percent this year, 30 percent of respondents said they had to pay a bribe in the past 12 months. Greece, Romania and the Czech Republic were the EU countries next in line.

Europe's neighbours in the Eastern Partnership ranked even worse – 46 percent of Azeris had to pay bribes in the last year. The bribery figure was 43 percent in Armenia, followed by 28 percent of respondents in Moldova, 21 percent in Ukraine and 13 percent in Belarus. In Russia, 31 percent of respondents admitted having to have paid a bribe.

Across all the countries surveyed, policemen were most likely to be bribed, with almost a quarter of people who had contact with the police in the previous year reporting that they had to pay a bribe. People in contact with the judiciary or registry and permit offices were also likely to have paid bribes: 16 and 13 percent respectively.

Fifteen percent of those interacting with land services said they had to pay a bribe while nine percent of those in contact with the health and education services claimed to have had to pay sweetner.

Political parties are perceived as being the most corrupt sector in Europe. On a scale of 1 to 5, where 1 is the least and 5 the most corrupt, parties scored 3.7 in Europe.

Parties scored high on corruption in Greece (4.4), Romania (4.3), Lithuania and Portugal (4.0). Romanians also ranked the Parliament very high on the corruption barometer (4.3).

In Bulgaria, the most corrupt sector was perceived to be the judiciary, with a score of 4.5, while Poles thought public servants were the most corrupt, with a score of 3.8.