EU Home Affairs Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom has issued a report highlighting the problems of corruption across the EU. The report focuses not on the EU government but on life and society in its member countries.
According to Chris Morris of the BBC in Belgium, “Originally, the report was also supposed to have included a chapter assessing corruption within EU institutions as well as within member states. But that idea was dropped.”
As it is the report that was issued was delayed by nine months due to its controversial nature and the some internal complaints that this stepped on ground where the EU shouldn’t tread. In reality this just shows that people in the seats of power feared being linked and exposed.
Of the countries that lead the way in rates of corruption it’s no surprise that four of the top seven were leaders in the Eurozone crisis (Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Spain) whilst the other three were formerly communist (Croatia, Romania, Slovakia).
Ms. Malmstrom said of her 41-page report: “In some member states vulnerability to corruption in public procurement processes is the main problem. In others the main problems are related to political party financing – it’s not transparent enough. Widespread corruption of the local authorities is another example. We also show that many health care patients have to pay under the table to receive proper care. It takes much more than a report to eradicate corruption. But as we are finding our way out of the economic crisis, (on) this too we cannot afford to drag our feet. We hope that this will start a very constructive process that will spur the political will and the necessary commitments at all levels to address corruption; because the price of not acting is simply too high.”
Malmstrom is idealistic but maybe a little naïve. There is no doubt what she has identified genuine problems that need to be addressed. But she fails to identify that it is government bureaucracy itself that leads to many of these problems and that the answers lie not in an EU government solution but in reducing the scope and power of bureaucrats.
According to the European Commission of which Malmstrom is a part the extent of corruption in Europe is "breathtaking" and it costs the EU economy at least 120 billion euros annually. Ironically that is the same as the EU’s annual budget, a correlation that would be worth looking at throughout government.
Writing in Sweden's Goeteborgs-Posten daily Ms Malmstroem said "The extent of the problem in Europe is breathtaking, although Sweden is among the countries with the least problems." Swedes themselves though in the survey rate their country average or above in some of the categories.
In Central and Eastern European countries, those with mostly communist histories, the number of people who reported they had been asked for a bribe ranges from 6% to 29%. More alarmingly for proponents of socialized medicine this is the area (as Malmstrom alluded to) where corruption is most prevalent.
Malmstrom added "The political commitment to really root out corruption seems to be missing." Maybe she doesn’t understand that the corruption is a result of the political system which secretly has no intention of ending a charade from which it personally benefits.
Furthermore, the report didn’t have the courage to speculate that corruption within the EU Government could be related to the overall problem and had that part of the survey been allowed to be done, the Commission may have been armed with more substantive solutions.
The Study blows up perceptions of idealistic European living embraced by the American Left. The dreamy idea that government provision under a continental tent will tend to all the needs of the masses needs to be replaced by the true concept that top down regulation breeds a governmental system that seeks to protect itself first.
That happens at all levels of government and in all areas. Privatized healthcare also is not immune from that but it’s largely reflected in market rates with buyers having options. Once the government takes over there is only one provider and you pay their price or go without.
Against the rest of the world the EU still stacks up well along with North America. What works well is transparency in all public institutions which Northern European countries seem to be better at. The peoples of European countries must work hard to create and maintain these systems – that which the American founders also intended to create. The said founders recognized that government, without hard limits, causes more problems than it solves.
