"Romania is less corrupt than the general perception"

In an interview for Deutsche Welle, quoted by EurActiv.ro, Miklos Marschall, the regional manager for Eastern Europe and Asia within Transparency International, talks about the Corruption Perception Index that placed Romania in the top of corruption in the EU-27.

The Transparency International’s Index on corruption, published at the beginning of the week, placed Romania on the 84th position, with a 3.1 score.

One day before the accession to the European Union of the first ten-countries wave, on May 1, 2004, Miklos Marschall said that the Union hasn’t got the means nor the strategies to fight corruption in the new member states. Did anything change?

“I think a lot of things changed. EU’s position is more rigorous, and this is obvious now, when it comes to Romania and Bulgaria. In every country report, the European Union mentioned the corruption as a potential accession impediment”, said Marschall.

Still, Marschall believes that Romania is less corrupt than it is perceived, because the Index doesn’t take into account the reforms that took place in the analyzed countries.

“To say that the Transparency International Index is a bit behind the current trends is absolutely fair. But this is the result of our conscious actions. We don’t want to overrate a series of very recent changes.
Taking into account the past two years and knowing quite well the entire region, I dare to claim that the situation of corruption in Romania is a bit better that shown in the perception index. I think there was significant progress”, added Marschall.

HotNews.ro, Nov 10, 2006