Corruption may cost the EU €120 billion a year

YEREVAN, MARCH 6, ARMENPRESS: An estimated €120 billion is lost to corruption each year throughout the 27 member states, the EU commissioner for home affairs Cecilia Malmstrom has said.

“In public procurement, studies suggest that up to 20 to 25 percent of the public contracts’ value may be lost to corruption,” said Malmstrom on Tuesday at an anti-corruption seminar in Göteborg, Sweden.

As reports Armenpress, The Berlin-based Transparency International (TI) noted in a report out in the 2012 that the worst offenders in public procurement cases are Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Italy, Romania and Slovakia.

Public procurement contracts in the EU have an estimated worth of around 15 percent of the EU’s total GDP. But EU legislation designed to ensure good governance on the contracts are often flouted, says TI. In some cases, the complexities of the laws and administrative burdens provide an additional incentive to find loopholes.

TI says corruption-fighting practices in the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia have all weakened since EU accession.