Transparency International: Corruption fuels eurozone crisis (therefore “more Europe”?!?)

EurActiv ^ | 07 June 2012 | Kathrin Haimerl, Robert Bosch Stiftung EU Journalism Fellow at EurActiv.com

[Olog-hai]

Gaps in governance and corruption undermine Europe’s financial and economic stability and have contributed to the eurozone crisis, a report presented yesterday (6 June) by Transparency International suggested.

The anti-corruption NGO said there is a strong correlation between fiscal deficits and corruption in crisis-hit countries such as Greece, Portugal and Spain. But countries considered the "cleanest of the clean" have also deficits in their anti-corruption framework.

Links between corruption and the financial and fiscal crisis should no longer be ignored, Transparency International (TI) said. Greece, Portugal and Spain were underscored as countries where "inefficiency, malpractice and corruption are neither sufficiently controlled nor sanctioned."

The transparency watchdog investigates in its report, titled Money, Politics, Power—Corruption risks in Europe, more than 300 national institutions across 25 states. "There is a huge variation across Europe", Cobus de Swardt, managing director of Transparency International said. "But no country comes out of the report performing well in all areas." …

[Olog-hai]

This is a BS report if it starts with the following statement (and it does):

“Fighting corruption needs to come from the top and that is where Europe fails the test.”

— Cobus de Swardt, Managing Director of Transparency International

So IOW, this is calling for more centralization to “solve” the problem of corruption.

[Cementjungle]

The obvious answer to big corrupt government is of course even bigger and more corrupt government.

[Olog-hai]

You bet. Meanwhile, this is the same central government whose corruption, Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukovsky noted, comes from the top.