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Transparency International: Ukraine is the most corruption-plagued country in Europe

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09.12.2013

Annual report on corruption in the world was recently made public in Berlin – home to headquarters of Transparency International that annually develops its Corruption Perceptions Index. The CPI uses a scale from 0 to 100 and a country is considered relatively free from corruption if its scores are higher than 50.

 
Except the Baltic states, only Georgia has passed this threshold among all post-Soviet countries. As Svetlana Savitskaya, Project coordinator for the CIS notes:
 
"First of all, it is about the lack of political will. The governments undertake some showcase endeavours. The reforms that they agree on are of a very declarative nature. They lack institutions and mechanisms to fulfill the necessary reforms. The governments undertake international obligations and accede to treaties, but do not care at all about real achievements and genuine reforms".
 
According to authors of the Index, Ukraine has the poorest performance in terms of corruption prevalence.
 
"Corruption in Ukraine is rampant. The citizens were expecting that by putting signature under the Association with the European Union the government would turn its face towards Europe and would adhere to European values of transparency and accountability. Therefore it is quite easy to understand what is going on in Ukraine now. The citizens are just expressing their concerns and discontent with the governmental decision", Svetlana Savitskaya adds.
 
Like in 2012, this year Ukraine is ranked 144th in Corruption Perceptions Index. In 2013 it has got 25 points (compared to 26 in 2012). This is the worst rank among all European countries.