Transparency International has just released the results of its annual comparison study on corruption, held in 176 countries worldwide.
Finland and Denmark have gone back to the first position in the list of the least corrupt countries, sharing first place with New Zealand. Sweden is ranked number 4, Norway is ranked No. 7 and Iceland at No. 11.
Among the major European countries, France ranks 22, Spain 30, Germany 13, The United Kingdom 17 and Italy 72. At the tail of the European Union goes Greece which is ranked 94th, worsening their situation compared to last year.
The world’s most corrupt countries, according to this study, would be Afghanistan, North Korea and Somalia. In the tail of the comparison are also Sudan, Burma, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Iraq.
United States is ranked 19th in the comparison, whereas China ranks No. 80 and Russia No. 133.
The comparison study of Transparency International measures perceived corruption in the public sector based on the score which has been obtained by combining the evaluation results of different study centers together with various opinion polls. Transparency International uses as sources, along with international organizations, also information from private consulting firms.
In the source list appear entities such as the World Bank, the World Economic Forum poll , Freedom House Organisation, the Bertelsmann Foundation, the African Development Bank and the Research Institute of the magazine The Economist, called Economist Intelligence Unit .
Transparency International considers its list specifically as a measure of perceived corruption, because real corruption is actually difficult to measure. “Corruption is a case of illegal actions committed in secrecy and come to light only through scandals, investigations and criminal prosecutions,” says a statement from the organization.
The list can therefore be influenced by the effectiveness of the work of the media and the judiciary in each country, in terms of the information that is available on cases of corruption.
The European Commission has recently evaluated the research methods of Transparency International and although the Commission has proposed a number of improvements to be considered in the study, it considers that Transparency International is the organization that performs best lists on corruption, and these are more complete and reliable than individual indicators, that the organization uses as its sources.
