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Corruption in eastern EuropeTalking of virtue, counting the spoons

May 22nd 2008 | BRATISLAVA, BUCHAREST, SOFIA

AND WARSAW

From The Economistprint edition

Now that they're in the club, new EU members are failing

to deliver on the promises they made to fight

corruption

FOR corrupt officials in central and eastern Europe, life

has seldom been better. Joining the European Union has

produced temptingly large puddles of public money to steal.

And the region's anti-corruption outfits are proving toothless,

sidelined or simply embattled.

The biggest problems are in Romania and Bulgaria, theEU's two newest members, whose apparent inability (or

disinclination) to deal with high-level corruption has led to

increasingly acerbic public warnings from Brussels. But other

countries have done badly too. Before accession, governments

were under close scrutiny. Now the fight against corruption is

not a priority, comments Drago Kos, president of GRECO, an

anti-corruption outfit affiliated to the Council of Europe, a

human-rights organisation. The Europeanisation of political

elites was largely taken for granted, says Alina Mungiu-

Pippidi, a Berlin-based Romanian academic.Even in Sloveniaonce seen as a paragon of good

governmentlawmakers are trying to close down the

commission for the prevention of corruption, run by Mr Kos,

arguing that it is expensive and unnecessary. The real reasons

may be disdain for all public watchdogs (where staff salaries

have been cut by a third) and the commission's repeated attacks

on the government's anti-corruption credentials. The mooted

shutdown has attracted outside protests, including one from theOECD, a Paris-based club of rich countries.

In Latvia, the head of the anti-corruption agency, which

had been investigating the financing of the former governing

party, narrowly fended off a bid to unseat him. In Slovakia, the

justice minister called the special anti-corruption court, whichhas highly paid, security-vetted judges, a fascist institution.

His party, a junior member of the ruling coalition, is trying to

have it deemed unconstitutional. Another minister wantsbribing foreigners to become a legitimate part of public

spending.

But the most spectacular cases are still in the Balkans.

Barely three months after it joined the EU in 2007, the

Romanian government fired Monica Macovei, a doughty

justice minister who had attacked corruption head-on. Her

successor tried to fire the anti-corruption prosecutor for

investigating his political sponsors. The incumbent is a former

lawyer for Russia's Gazprom. Procedural snags have held up

all high-level corruption cases. Investigation of formerministers now requires parliamentary approval, sending every

case back to square one. Although Romania comes out lowest

in the EU in the rankings by Transparency International, a

lobby group, the government seems determined to attack its

critics rather than corruption.

Bulgaria, similarly, prefers talk to action. Multiple new

anti-corruption agencies are poorly co-ordinated or have never

got going. No case of high-level official corruption has led to asuccessful conviction, just as not one of more than 120

gangland shootings since 2001 has been cleared up. EU

officials (and most Bulgarians) believe that organised crime

reaches the highest levels of government. The forceresignation of the interior minister, Rumen Petkov, in Apri

has made little difference. Brussels is considering cuttin

billions of euros in aid and withdrawing recognition o

Bulgarian court decisions.

Gimmicky special agencies cannot make up for a justic

system filled with crooked, timid or inexperienced judges an

prosecutors. Indeed, in badly run countries, a powerful ant

corruption agency can aggravate the problem: special powe

and privileges can be abused for venal reasons or to sett

political scores. This happened in Poland, where the zealousleaze-hunters of the Law and Justice Party squandered the

election win in 2005. Although most Poles seem to believe th

wealth is a sign of past lawbreaking, they disliked even mor

the heavy-handed, selective and publicity-hungry doings of th

new anti-corruption agency. The new government downgrade

it, and is trying instead to cut back the bureaucracy.

That may be a more promising approach. Corruptio

crackdowns work only if the public administration is simplifieto the point where bribe-taking becomes either unnecessary o

highly conspicuous. That has been the secret of success i

Estonia, probably the cleanest country in the region. But mo

east European countries have yet to reform their bureaucracie

creating lots of opportunities for peddlers of lucrative shocuts.

As its economic competitiveness erodes, eastern Europ

can ill afford bad government. Voters are generaldisillusioned with post-communist politics. Yet from the Balt

to the Balkans, even politicians facing the most startlin

accusations of corruption seem not to suffer at the polls. A b

like Italy, really.