Why stay in a “club” – the EU – where most of the members are corrupt?

In a new report on corruption around the world, 3,459 company board members in 36 countries worldwide, including 20 EU member states, were interviewed.

Around 90% of people in Croatia, which is due to join the EU on 1 July 2013, said “bribery/corrupt practices happen widely in business in this country.” The figure was 96% in Slovenia – which joined the EU in 2004 and which adopted the euro in 2007 – higher even than Kenya, on 94%. Greece and Slovakia came next on 84%, followed by the Czech Republic (73%), Portugal (72%), Hungary (70%), Spain (65%), Romania (61%) and Italy (60%).

Or there is another source of data on corruption – the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index http://www.transparency.org/cpi2012/results This rates 174 countries on their levels of corruption where 1 is the least corrupt country and 174 is the most corrupt.

According to this, Greece (at 94) is as corrupt as the moral cesspit India. Bulgaria (75) and Italy (72) are as corrupt as the  stinkingly rotten Liberia. Romania (66) is as corrupt as that joke of a country Saudi Arabia and the putrid Brazil. Croatia (62=) and Slovakia (62=) are as venal as Ghana. The Czech Republic (54) is as bent as countries like Rwanda and Georgia. And Portugal (33) and Spain (30) are as tainted as Estonia and Botswana.

Thankfully, Denmark, Sweden, Germany, Finland, the Netherlands and the UK are amongst the least corrupt.

But the problem is that the least corrupt EU countries are those which are net contributors (they pay in more than they get out) while the most corrupt countries are net gainers (they take out more than they pay in). When many of the members of the “EU Club” are so institutionally corrupt, it’s hardly surprising that they continually vote to increase EU spending. After all, the more money that we “clean” countries pay in, the more money their rotten politicians, bureaucrats, business bosses and criminals can steal.

(btw I’d much rather people bought a few copies of my latest book GREED UNLIMITED than me having to throw them away as they’re blocking the door into my office at home and my wife keeps asking why I’ve sold so few)