July 4 (SeeNews) - Systemic corruption in the countries in Southeast Europe region remains a problem with many of the countries exhibiting at least some characteristics of state capture, Bulgaria's Center for the Study of Democracy (CSD) said on Monday.
"It is, however encouraging that most people from the region see corruption as a problem and still recognize the need for EU support, despite the delay in EU enlargement," CSD said citing a recent report by the Southeast Europe Leadership for Development and Integrity (SELDI), an anti-corruption coalition of civil society organisations in the region coordinated by CSD.
The report warns that political corruption has replaced petty bribery both as the dominant concern of national and international reformists and as the cause of most social and economic damage.
An earlier emphasis on harmonising national legislation with international standards has been replaced by a focus on its enforcement, according to the think-tank.
"The past year in particular has vividly exposed governance vulnerabilities in Southeast Europe and how they threaten to undermine the region’s European perspective," it commented, adding that the migration crisis, the economic stagnation, and the Russia-EU geopolitical stand-off have shown the need to reinvigorate the European Union’s engagement with the region.
"A critical part of this engagement remains the need to reduce corruption and state-capture vulnerabilities in Southeast Europe, especially in the energy sector," CSD said.
This view was shared by Bulgarian President Rossen Plevneliev. Speaking at a conference organised by CSD and cited by local media Novinite.com Plevneliev said that the conspiracy between foreign interests and criminal schemes of Bulgarian business circles is most visible in the energy sector.
Corruption pressure in SEE, however, edged down to 25.9% from 27.1% a year earlier, CSD said.
Albania shows the highest corruption levels with an increase of more than 4 percentage points in corruption pressure since 2014 to 50% in 2016 as every second citizen reports being asked for a bribe and every third gave one.
Bulgaria, Montenegro and Serbia, which were among the countries with highest corruption results from the 2014 survey, have shown some progress in curbing corruption as their results stood at 24%, 22% and 23%, respectively.
Macedonia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, which had some positive results in 2014, have lost ground in their battle against corruption this year showing an increase to 30% and 33%. Corruption pressure in Kosovo has also increased to 27%.
At the same time even in the most stable and corruption-free country in the region Croatia 12% of the citizens were asked for a bribe during the past year.