A varied landscape in corruption risk

The report assessed the public integrity framework and corruption risk for 41 European countries, European Union (EU), candidate countries (CCEU) and non-aligned countries (EUN- Norway, Iceland, Switzerland, UK).

It finds that the ability of EU Member States in the North-West to control corruption differs widely from that of the South-East Member States; the group of non-EU European states is at the top of good governance, and candidate countries generally lag.

As corruption results from opportunities not being properly mitigated and constraints being insufficient, the 2025 Index for Public Integrity (includes administrative transparency, budget transparency and online services as opportunities, and judicial independence, press freedom and digital citizens as constraints, see www.corruptionrisk.org) was used to plot countries across these two major groups of causes. The exercise resulted in one high-risk group, two moderate-risk groups and a low-risk group. The report details what the opportunities and constraints are in separate sections and how countries perform on each.

EUMS vary largely in controlling corruption between North-West and South-East, with the group of non-EU European states (Norway, Iceland, Switzerland, UK) being on top of good governance and candidate countries on the average lagging, despite notable performance on transparency of some of them (Moldova, North Macedonia and Ukraine (before the war). Poland has fallen near Turkey and Hungary near Bosnia-Hercegovina, all four forming the group of the bottom performers, below the average for candidate countries. Moldova, under Maia Sandu, has risen above Greece, Malta and Romania, all EUMS.  Cyprus has insufficient data on fiscal transparency to feature in the IPI, but its performance on the other indicators shows it to be at the bottom of integrity. Estonia continues to overperform.

As regards the general control of corruption causal framework, European countries can be ranked into four groups (see figure above)

Group A (top left), with high opportunities for corruption and low constraints, features in 2025 Bosnia-Hercegovina, a negative outlier on all counts and Hungary, a significant backslider. This is the highest-risk group, which needs to improve on all components of the IPI. Hungary arrived here at the end of a long involution. Hungary has more than sufficient anticorruption tools (as shown also in EuroPAM) and handles petty corruption very well, so only a political change to allow more independence and the judiciary can trigger its positive evolution. Bosnia’s constitutional division in three states prevents a middle ground, objective constituency for integrity to exercise effective

Group B (top right), with high opportunities and high constraints features Belgium, Ireland and Luxembourg, three countries with good constraints but very high opportunities. These countries need to improve administrative and budget transparency, as well as online services. Better put, they need to improve on real transparency more generally. Luxembourg looks good in many charts, but despite implementing all required international regulations continues to be an offshore paradise for many international corrupt characters and home to many law firms which assist from the creation to the legal defense of money launderers (Baquero et al., 2021). This is a high-risk group.

Group C (bottom left), with low opportunities and low constraints, features the outlier Turkey, which has extremely low constraints but also the largest group of countries, including all candidate countries and most of the new EUMS. Considerable variation exists in this group, which has high transparency but low constraints. Nearly all Southern and Eastern European EUMS belong here, except Czechia, Lithuania and Portugal. Ukraine and North Macedonia have significantly improved over the last ten years (Moldova had its ups and downs and is presently up) to belong here with some new and old EUMS. The risk varies widely within this group, but it remains a high-risk group. These countries all need to enable accountability by increasing constraints. Spain, Greece and Italy have been in the EU for decades and still belong to this risk group. Some countries in Eastern Europe, like Romania, have undergone changes in the last decade, as their petty corruption declined and their public services offer more equal access, less intermediated by bribes than in the past. But their government favoritism remains high – indeed the rule of the same. This shift can be seen to some extent for all EUMS in Eastern Europe, as they develop their dominant corruption shifts from bribing for access, the corruption of poor countries, to market favors corruption, the corruption of developed countries.

Group D (bottom right) is the group of lowest risk. While EUN lead and EUMS follow, two new member states, Estonia and Lithuania have managed to reduce their risk and belong here. Still, this group of well-placed Western and Northern EUMS should be weighed down by their international cross-border bribery, even if their national contexts are sound. The issue is concerning, as President Donald Trump asked for the enforcement of FCPA to cease. There is therefore no group of zero risk, although quadrant 4 presents the lowest risk of national corruption.

Government favoritism on the rise

While the public integrity national framework captured by IPI recorded little change over the last ten years, with few countries progressing or regressing significantly, government favoritism indicators in EU Member States and candidate countries have increased due to a rise in corruption opportunities after the economic crises in 2008-2009 and the Covid-19 pandemic. This can be observed in both Eu funds procurement (Tender Electronic Daily) and the national budget tenders (Open Tender.eu). Most countries regressed, resulting in a significant increase in government favoritism for Member States as a whole. In Poland, Greece, Slovenia and Romania favoritism characterizes nearly one in two transactions, and countries like Czechia and Bulgaria do not fare much better in OpenTender.eu. Some candidate countries seem to exert better control than some Member States in terms of both the transparency and the integrity of their public procurement, but the gaming of indicators was also detected and illustrated in the report.

Consequences of government favoritism are visible

The negative trend is accompanied by the phenomenon of increasing wealth inequality, with the result of real oligarchies exercising power and influence across Europe. In countries like Cyprus and Malta by the practice of golden passports. Turkey is the new Russia by the percentage of GDP owned by the top 1% and different EU fiscal paradises or jurisdictions liberal with receiving foreign billionaires follow on this list.

Regulation is not the answer to everything corruption

Public accountability regulation (de jure) as captured by the Europam.eu (2020) seems to have limited influence over practices (de facto). The last decade saw a flurry of EU regulations which should have impacted the corruption control of EU and candidate countries. However,  not only has the impact of these reforms been insufficient, but some countries changed domestic regulation to allow them more latitude when being coerced by EU regulation (for instance on procurement) to restrain government favoritism. Low-integrity countries still regulate far more than high-integrity countries. The Europam update in 2025 and enrichment with criminal regulation will allow a reexamination of this issue.

SMART policies against corruption

Some scandals like the collapse of the financial company Wirecard or the FCPA sanctioning of Vimpel (Russian company registered in Netherlands) demonstrate the increasingly visible cross-border character of corruption, which requires cross-border action. The simultaneous use of national (IPI, procurement, oligarchy) and international measures of corruption (FCPA) in this report brought to the fore numerous cases of cross-border corruption: Cyprus climbs in oligarchization due to its golden passport scheme; the German financial market is shaken by the Austrian registered Wirecard created by a Belarus national; ‘clean’ Member States bribe in the emerging markets of new Member States and receive FCPA sanctions from US; and EU funds attract corruption. The cross-border character requires cross-border action, but what actions are implementable, without adding to the already existing ‘dead letters’ ? We suggest just three actions which could have an impact:

1. Unify data and risk indicators: Connecting databases at national level (registers of commerce, land cadasters, financial data) across Member States and candidate countries would allow searches of persons and companies of interest on the model of Follow the Money by Youcontrol across borders. All Member States and candidate countries should publish tenders using the Open Tender risk indicators to allow tracing of corruption risk by country and contracting authority.
2. Disbar the bad guys: Europe is flooded by favorite companies and it would do well with a pan-European disbarment system for companies on the model of the World Bank. While Framework Decision 2003/568/JHA criminalizes both active and passive corruption in the private sector within the EU, creating the possibility that legal persons to be held liable for such offences, the most effective actionable level in corruption is administrative, not criminal. The aim should be to prevent, not punish, the fact. Problematic companies should be barred from the EU and national tenders, breaking with the impunity culture of the past.
3. Act ex ante, not post factum: Europe needs a better culture of public management handling of corruption risk, where the monitoring of risk indicators in public procurement is placed at the relevant level (contracting authority) and the European benchmarks of transparency, integrity and competitiveness are implemented by positive and negative inducements for public procurement executives. High-risk procurement areas such as defense and Ukrainian reconstruction lie ahead, and current anticorruption watchdogs and prosecutors cannot solve such problems post factum and at their current budgets. We need to stop the widespread government favoritism from happening, not to spend taxpayer money to chase a few profiteers after the fact.