European Commission Report on Corruption in EU Member States

The European Commission released the first EU-wide Anti-Corruption Report yesterday, February 3, 2014. Along with these, the results of Eurobarometer 2014 came out,  these correspond to those of the Global Corruption Barometer released last year by Transparency International. According to both of instruments, about 65%, i.e. 2 out of 3 Romanians, believe that corruption in Romania has increased in recent years, compared with 56% as is the EU average.

Looking at the segment on the Corruption Report concerning Romania, we consider that it contains a series of factual data, most of them collected from the public reports of the institutions concerned, which for a true impact assessment should have been weighted with information and data published by independent agencies and organizations. This deficiency of the report sometimes leads to inconsistencies, or even to erroneous understandings on how the system works. Another aspect that must be highlighted is the inclusion of an assessment of corruption in the health system in the Report, without any mention of the education system, and it is equally affected by corruption.

Beyond that, the Report contains a number of valid findings on the lack of political will to fight corruption, same also in other EU countries, although the Eurobarometer results show that corruption is a priority issue for European citizens. Equally relevant are the conclusions regarding the allocation of public resources in Romania, especially at local level, as well as about the public procurement system that is affected by the legislative instability and the lack of capacity of contracting and controlling authorities to ensure real transparent competition and monitoring the execution of contracts. For Romania, solving these issues would add credibility and would have a positive impact on foreign investment and the overall business environment.

TI-Romania accounts that the way in which the Report was built does not provide enough consistency with the real situation in the country, nor does it add value to other assessments to which Romania has been subjected, the factual data on which most of it is based is not sufficient and substantial to provide a coherent and projected radiograph for the future. Directly in this aspect, we assess that the recommendations included at the end of the Report, although correct on the merits, are not relevant enough to improve the fight against corruption in Romania.

The analysis of the recommendations made for all Member States results in the lack of a correlated approach in the research carried out and the lack of a common analysis structure. Some of the advice made for some states are perfectly valid for others, but in the absence of tackling  the issue in the country report, no recommendations could be formulated for this, which limits the possibility of capitalize the conclusions by adopting measures that are general applicable  at EU level. In this direction, we only mention some of the recommendations addressed to other states, which would have been perfectly valid for Romania as well: controlling the funding of political parties, preventing corruption affecting the private sector, immunity and reduced prescription periods, access to public interest information, Information on actual beneficiaries of company shares, etc.

Given that this Report is the first exercise of its kind, we believe that for future editions, it is necessary to establish a unitary approach aimed at a better understanding of the national context and the nuances that the collected data have in the local context, based on a more consistent methodology. At the same time, TI-Romania recommends that the subsequent editions contain recommendations with a higher degree of direct applicability, which can support interventions with impact at the level of the member states, and expresses its confidence that both the present and the future recommendations will be exploited within some Concerted policies at European Union level in order to effectively ensure sustainable development, reduce disparities between the different regions and create an area of ​​freedom, security and justice.