February 3, (SeeNews) - Slovenia's political will to fight graft seems to have weakened in recent years amid loss of confidence in the integrity of high-ranking officials, the European Commission said on Monday.
Slovenia should apply more stringent penalties to elected and appointed officials for breaches of asset declarations and conflicts of interests as well as introduce measures to make elected officials more accountable to the people, the European Commission said in a press release upon the issue of its latest EU Anti-Corruption Report.
The Commission noted that Slovenia has legal resources and anti-corruption bodies to fight financial crime but it should make further efforts to protect their operational independence.
The Commission also noted that Slovenia should safeguard the operational independence and resources of anti-corruption bodies and prosecution services specialised in combating financial crime.
The report also recommended strengthening anti-graft monitoring in state-controlled companies, privatisation, public procurement and party funding.
Corruption is a serious concern among Slovenians as 91% of the people consider it widespread in the country, 15% above the EU average of 76%, according to surveys presented in the report. However, personally only 3.0% of the Slovenians claim to have been asked or expected to pay a bribe, while the EU average is 4.0%.