Some people say the street protests in Moldova are by pro-Russian protesters trying to unseat a European-friendly government in a former Soviet republic. But the reality in Europe’s poorest country is more complicated than that. It is a political crisis.   The anti-government camp is demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Pavel Filip’s government and early parliamentary […]

TRANSPARENCY INTERNATIONAL CALLS ON PEOPLE EVERYWHERE TO SPEAK OUT AGAINST CORRUPTION 2015 showed that people working together can succeed in the battle against corruption. Although corruption is still rife globally, more countries improved their scores in the 2015 edition of Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index than declined. Overall, two-thirds of the 168 countries on the […]

Bulgaria came under fire from its major business partners yesterday (25 January) over its failure to strengthen the rule of law, just before the publication of an EU monitoring report expected to be highly critical of the lack of reforms in the Union’s poorest member state. The bilateral chambers of commerce of nine EU countries […]

The Council of Europe called on Romania today to do more to fight corruption in the judiciary. The Council of Europe’s group of experts on corruption, known as GRECO, published today its latest report on Romania, looking at measures to help prevent corruption among MPs, judges and prosecutors. GRECO´s report points out that Romania is still at an early stage […]

Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) have introduced 155 amendments to the draft resolution on Montenegro urging the country to tackle corruption, vote-buying, investigate Prva Bank (First Bank) and the Telekom Affair among other cases, reported Balkan Insight. Parliamentarians Ulrike Lunacek and Terry Reintke called on Montenegro’s government to open investigations and initiate prosecutions of […]

In August, Ion Tiriac, a former professional tennis and hockey player-turned-businessman, summoned reporters to tell them he was shelving plans to donate €2 million ($2.2 million) to build a new ice rink in Bucharest. Tiriac told journalists he had spent more than two years trying to line up the necessary government approvals, but a sweeping […]

Alma Sehovic left behind a 19-year-old daughter when she threw herself from the window of her apartment in the Bosnian city of Tuzla in November last year. She left behind, too, a debilitating battle to expose alleged corrupt practices at the state employment office where she worked. Sehovic, a 49-year-old auditor in this rundown former industrial […]

Bulgaria is among the ten EU member states where at least half of all companies say corruption is a problem for them when doing business, a Eurobarometer survey shows.   In Romania and Greece, the share is 74%, followed by Bulgaria (61%) and Italy (60%). Titled Businesses’ Attitudes Towards Corruption in the EU, the report […]

Political parties in Montenegro have been allocated twice as much state money in the 2016 budget than during the previous election cycle in 2012, despite the fact the country is facing large budget shortfalls. Political parties in Montenegro will receive about 6.56 million euro from the state budget this year – almost twice as much […]

Laura Codruta Kovesi, chief prosecutor of the National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA), has been designated ‘European of the Year’ in 2016 by the Reader’s Digest magazine. She is the second Romanian recognized this way, after Iana Matei, chairman of the Reaching Out Romania foundation, in 2010. According to a release of Tarasgo Romania, owner of the […]