About: corruption Archives

The fight against corruption, so highly supported by Brussels, has become a witch-hunt with prosecutors, judges, the secret services and the president all protecting their business interests, writes Norica Nicolai.

Despite a wave of similar grassroots anti-government protests elsewhere, particularly in the US, the roots of the present wave of protests in Romania lie in the political and economic failures of the country’s post-communist transition, writes Bogdan Enache.

In Romania, politicians were preparing to legalise political corruption, and elsewhere the misuse of EU funds makes headlines every day. Sandor Lederer asks why has the Commission decided not to release an in-depth anti-corruption report.

Croatia’s drawn out energy dispute with Hungary has possibly dampened its hopes of acting as an energy hub for the EU, as Brussels looks to bring in more gas from the east. The newest bloc member has a lot of work to do to repair rifts, writes Mehmet Öğütçü.

Industry comments on the EU monitoring reports on Bulgaria and Romania were unequivocal: graft represents a reputational risk, writes Nick Kochan.

Current debate rarely attributes the rise of populism in European politics to the perceived prevalence of corruption. Yet public opinion often shows that citizens believe their representatives to be corrupt, write Laurence Cockcroft and Anne-Christine Wegener.

In signing four projects with Ukrainian officials in Brussels today, EIB will have fulfilled its €3 billion obligation to Ukraine. Instead of providing general aid, the EIB supports very specific projects, writes Vazil Hudák.

SRI, Romania’s domestic intelligence service, is evolving into what many regard as the Securitate Version 2.0, a reference to Nicolae Ceaușescu’s feared security service, writes Nick Kochan.

Romania’s parliamentary election campaign pits the nation’s political elite against what could be described as the EU’s bureaucratic elite, embodied by incumbent Prime Minister Dacian Cioloş, writes Doug Henderson.

This week, the European Court of Auditors will report on how the EU spends taxpayer money. For once, the worst offending member states will be named and shamed, with Hungary set to top the list. This should just be the starting point, insist Bart Staes and Benedek Javor.

It is crucial that the EU continues to help Ukraine fight its 'culture of corruption' in its struggle to establish democracy and integration into the West, writes Mark Demesmaeker on its 25th independence day anniversary.

Giovanni Kessler, the director-general of the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF), is alleged to have wrongly listened in on telephone conversations as part of a previous OLAF investigation. Helen Xanthaki argues that the case should inspire the EU to reassess the structure of OLAF.

Old tricks die hard in the European Union’s ‘rogue state’, but the West must acknowledge its hand in fuelling the political decline in Hungary, writes Juan Garcia. 

Ukraine today is very different from what it was two years ago, before the Revolution of Dignity, not only because of the illegal occupation of the Crimea, and parts of the Donbass, writes Kálmán Mizsei.

The European Union must do more to tackle endemic corruption and the lack of media pluralism in Central and Eastern Europe, writes Juan Garcia.

If Montenegro is to continue along the path to EU accession, more reform effort is needed from its government, writes Andrey Petrushinin.

Financially unsustainable and legally grey Romanian media have started to crumble, together with their corresponding tycoons, write Manuela Preoteasa and Andrei Schwartz.

Despite the high appraisal of the new anti-corruption legislation of Ukraine by international organizations, an in-depth legal analysis shows that it is in fact unconstitutional, write Victor Solovyov and Roman Rukomeda.

Romanians decided two years ago not to host Europe's largest gold mine. Now the Canadian mining company behind the project is seeking massive compensation from Bucharest, in a case that foreshadows what TTIP could bring, writes Claudia Ciobanu.

The EU must support Ukraine’s efforts at political and economic reform and help the country on its way to prosperity, argue David Lidington and Konrad Pawlik. 

Some members of the Bucharest elite had overt connections with the Kremlin. For the US and the EU, a stable Romania immune to Russian political influence is a priority, writes Stratfor.

Anne Brasseur spells out exactly what Sepp Blatter or his successor must do to “lance the boil” and clean up football’s world governing body.

The EU's reaction to the latest political crisis in Macedonia crisis has been very slow, and gives the impression that the EU seems out of touch with reality on the ground, writes Erwan Fouéré.

There are many similarities between the Romanian Prime Minister and the new Turkish President, write Demir Murat Seyrek and Sabina-Maria Ciofu.