The results vary depending on the metric being used and whether you’re looking at the European Union or Europe as a whole.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Is Hungary the most corrupt EU country?
00:08MEPs blasted Prime Minister Viktor Orban for turning Hungary into the most corrupt country in the EU
00:14as he presented his priorities for the Hungarian presidency of the EU to the European Parliament.
00:20Let's see what the figures say.
00:21In short, Hungary does consistently rank among the most corrupt European countries according to various scoreboards,
00:30but whether it's the worst country for financial crime depends on the metric being used.
00:35Transparency International's most recent Corruption Perception Index puts Hungary squarely at the bottom of all EU countries.
00:43On a scale of 0 to 100, with 0 being highly corrupt and 100 being clean, Hungary scored 42,
00:49followed by Bulgaria with 45 and Romania with 46.
00:54This metric puts Hungary at 76th place out of 180 countries worldwide.
00:59Transparency International slammed Hungary for over a decade of systemic breach of the rule of law,
01:04which allows corruption to thrive unsanctioned.
01:07When you look at Europe as a whole, Russia is the country with the most financial crime,
01:12according to Transparency International, scoring 26 out of 100 and placing 141st out of 180.
01:19But if we change the ranking system, the results change too.
01:23Eurobarometer's 2024 survey on EU citizens' attitudes towards corruption
01:28found that 68% of Europeans consider corruption widespread in their country.
01:33Among those, Greece was perceived to have the worst dirty money problem,
01:37with 98% of citizens saying corruption was widespread there.
01:41Next came Portugal and Malta, with 96 and 95% respectively.
01:45Hungary actually came in 8th place, but a clear majority of people still consider the country corrupt, 88%.
01:52Stay tuned on Euronews and Euronews.com for the latest updates.