Greece is most corrupt in EU
Greece holds the unenviable position of the most corrupt EU member state, according to a survey by the Transparency International watchdog released yesterday. According to the survey’s results, presented by former New Democracy MP and one-time deputy foreign minister Virginia Tsouderou, Greece is in joint 50th place, together with South Korea and Costa Rica, among the 133 countries surveyed. On a corruption scale of 0-10, with 10 indicating a country perfectly free of corruption, Greece, with 4.3 points, fails to get a passing grade. The second most corrupt EU member state, Italy, is in 36th place with 5.3 points. Greece has hardly progressed recently, since it was given 4.2 points in both 2001 and 2002. The survey is a compilation of various country studies by 19 international and private organizations, such as the World Bank, the Economist and PricewaterhouseCoopers. To this are added the estimates of businessmen, academics and risk analysts. At least Greece appears less corrupt than all its neighbors and five of the 10 incoming EU members. Four of the new members – Cyprus, Estonia, Slovenia and Hungary – scored higher while Malta was not included on the list. The worrying thing for the EU is that the most populous new country, Poland, is also considered the most corrupt. Top of the list is Finland (9.7) and bottom was Bangladesh (1.3).
