site.btaBulgaria Ranks 75th in Transparency International Corruption Perception Index 2016

Bulgaria Ranks 75th in Transparency International Corruption Perception Index 2016

Berlin, January 25 (BTA) - Bulgaria ranks 75th, last of all 28 EU countries, in the Transparency International Corruption Perception Index 2016. The ranking was published Wednesday on the Berlin-based international NGO site.

Bulgaria shares the 75th ranking with another country in the region, Turkey, as well as with Kuwait and Tunisia.

In the previous ranking Bulgaria was 69th of a total of 168 states and again last in the EU.

Bulgaria's results of 41 points (the maximum 100 points mean perception of no corruption) remains unchanged.

EU countries outranking Bulgaria in 2016 include Greece (69th), Italy (60th) and Romania (57th). Hungary is 57th, Croatia - 55th and Slovakia - 54th.

Frontranking countries from the region are led by Slovenia (31st), Cyprus (47th), Serbia (72nd), Albania and Bosnia ranking 83rd with other countries, and Macedonia 90th. Kosovo ranks last as 95th.

Russia and Ukraine are 131st with Kazakhstan, Iran and Nepal.

Denmark is 1st (by 90 points), followed by New Zealand (also 90 points) and Finland (89 points). The top ten is completed by Sweden, Switzerland, Norway, Singapore, Canada and Germany.

The other end of the ranking features Somalia as last (176th with 10 points), South Sudan (175th with 11 points) and North Korea (174th with 12 points). Syria is 173rd and Libya, Sudan and Yemen share the 170th position. Afghanistan is 169th, Guinea-Bissau is 168th and Iraq and Venezuela share the 166th rank.

A summary of the publication by the NGO underscores that no country gets close to a perfect score in the Corruption Perceptions Index 2016. Over two-thirds of the 176 countries and territories in this year's index fall below the midpoint of the scale of 0 (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean). The global average score is a paltry 43, indicating endemic corruption in a country's public sector. Top-scoring countries are far outnumbered by countries where citizens face the tangible impact of corruption on a daily basis.

Transparency International draws attention to the fact that corruption affairs do not bypass EU countries. In Denmark, which is first in the index, 20 MPs (11 per cent of the 179 member Parliament) did not declare their outside activities or financial interests in their asset declarations.

The interplay of corruption and inequality also feeds populism. When traditional politicians fail to tackle corruption, people grow cynical. Increasingly, people are turning to populist leaders who promise to break the cycle of corruption and privilege. Yet this is likely to exacerbate - rather than resolve - the tensions that fed the populist surge in the first place, the organization said.