A lack of genuine political will to eliminate corruption has allowed the problem to develop in institutions such as the judiciary and legislature in many countries, an international conference on good governance, which is being held in Dublin, has heard.
Speaking at the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) conference, Reinhard Priebe, director for internal security in the European Commission’s home affairs division, said the level of success in tackling corruption across the EU remained rather unsatisfactory, in spite of numerous policies and initiatives.
He said a study conducted for the commission estimated the economic costs of corruption in the EU at some €120 billion annually, which added up to 1 per cent of EU gross domestic product.
Mr Priebe said public procurement remained one of the most vulnerable areas with some 20 per cent of the value of public contracts being lost to corruption.
“A genuine political will to eradicate corruption is often missing,” he said. “Many countries are struggling with deeply rooted corruption capturing the very core of their institutions from legislature to executive and judiciary and imposing a way of living and shadow economies widely tolerated and difficult to discard.”
Mr Priebe said the current challenges arising due to the finacial crisis had created an urgent need to call for reinforced guarantees for the “integrity and transparency” of public expenditure.
He was speaking at the OSCE Economic and Environmental Forum at Dublin Castle. Ireland is this year chairing the OSCE, a regional security body comprising 56 states, including all EU countries, Russia, the US and Canada.
The organisation deals with security issues, including arms control, preventive diplomacy, confidence and security-building measures, human rights, election monitoring, and economic and environmental security.
Goran Svilanovic, a co-ordinator of OSCE economic and environmental activities, told the conference that measures helping to “prevent and counter corruption in both the public and private sectors should be vigorously encouraged”.
“By promoting a culture that upholds values of transparency, accountability and integrity, we aim at achieving an ethical public administration that enjoys the trust of the people,” he said.
In his address to the conference, Minister of State for Small Business John Perry said that poor governance had “the potential to destabilise a state both economically and politically”.
“Corruption imposes costs on an economy,” he said. “These are costs which neither states nor citizens should have to pay. Nor indeed, in the current economic climate, can they afford to pay them. Where corruption becomes endemic, it erodes the legitimacy of the government and can become a destabilising force.”
