The list, ranking 159 countries on a so-called 'CPI scale of ten', (with 10 being the best score) shows little change from last year’s list, with Finland still in pole position amongst the EU 25 - it comes in second in the whole world, following Iceland, which scores 9.7 on the CPI scale.

All the Nordic countries have performed well, with Denmark and Sweden just behind Finland in the EU. The Nordic countries are believed to have influenced some of the new member states, notably Estonia which shows an increase from 6.0 to 6.4. But also Slovakia and France have shown improvements.

Candidate state Turkey however, with a CPI score of 3.5, shares the 65th position in the world, together with amongst others, Ghana and Peru. Croatia shares the 66th position with Burkina Faso, Egypt, Lesotho, Saudi Arabia - and EU member state Poland.

EU policy officer Rune Rasmussen from the Transparency International office in Brussels, says that the candidate states in general are performing better, despite low scores.

This shows, he indicates, that the anti-corruption safeguard clauses written into the accession demands are making them review their country's corruption situation - something which cannot be said about several of the 'old' member states.

"During the accession period, any signs of wide-spread corruption can reverse the process, but as soon as it is over, the external pressure is gone", he says, pointing at not only Poland’s poor scores year after year, but also Greece, which sits in 47th position, and Italy holed in at 40th position in the world.

The EU's anti-corruption policy was brought up-to-date in a Communication on Corruption first published in May 2003.

The Communication calls for, among other measures, the detection and punishment of all acts of corruption and the establishment of transparent and accountable public administration standards.

Austria, which will hold the EU Presidency during the first half of 2006, has indicated that corruption will be one of its policy priorities in the Justice and Home Affairs area.

Austria holds a strong moral card in dealing with anti-corruption, according to Transparency International, with an increase of 0.3, from 8.4 to 8.7, on the anti-corruption scale since last year.