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Corruption and Fraud also affect Europe

By Kiwiev (Own work) [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons

No one can ignore that corruption affects both developed and developing countries. However, it is rather surprising to see that in the EU - which is clearly a sophisticated organisation- corruption, fraud and economic crime have gained a higher profile over the past few years. A lot of fingers can be pointed in a lot of directions but they should mainly be pointed at excessive bureaucracy, inconsistent legislation and of course the enlargement of the EU to include new member states with a high crime and delinquency rate. Indeed, as from 2014, the European Commission painted a bleak picture of the situation in the EU area by stressing that the extent of corruption was breathtaking and cost the economy € 120 billion annually. Bulgaria, Romania and Italy were particularly targeted due notably to the presence of many organized criminal groups.The new costs of corruption announced in 2016 were estimated at € 990 billion a year that is more than 8 times higher than previous figures! The report (Rand) ranked the Eastern European countries in the bottom half in terms of corruption rating and not surprisingly highlighted that Netherlands, Sweden, Finland, Denmark and luxembourg were the least corrupt countries in the EU. What's even more interesting are the serious concerns about "new" types of frauds, such as VAT fraud which is estimated to cost member states over € 60 billion per year. The European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) which investigates fraud against the EU budget and corruption within the European institutions performed effectively in the recent period. However, the fight against corruption is a responsibility that must be first and foremost assumed by the 28 member states themselves. And it is precisely at state level that this fight against corruption must be enhanced.

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