Europe’s corruption challenge goes beyond an East–West divide

Corruption is often discussed as a problem concentrated beyond Western Europe, particularly in Eastern Europe, fragile democracies or developing countries.

While research has long challenged this view, it continues to influence public debate and, at times, policy decisions — including discussions around support for Ukraine.

“In the academic and scholarly debate, the assumption that corruption is exclusive to Eastern European or developing countries is long gone,” Mihály Fazekas, the director of the Government Transparency Institute and a professor at the Central European University, told Euronews.

As Ukraine continues to seek sustained financial and military backing from its European partners, concerns about corruption are frequently raised in political discussions in several EU member states.

In Hungary, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó has cited corruption concerns when arguing against continued EU funding for Ukraine, calling for support to be halted following reports of misuse.

He has previously accused Kyiv of operating a “war mafia” that diverts Western funds.

Such arguments sit within a broader debate about how corruption is understood and compared across Europe.

While academic research increasingly views corruption as a systemic risk present across advanced and emerging economies alike, political narratives in parts of Western Europe have often framed it as limited or exceptional.

High-profile corruption cases continue to emerge in countries such as France, Germany and the UK, but they are frequently treated as isolated incidents rather than symptoms of deeper structural vulnerabilities.

Public opinion, however, appears more sceptical of a sharp East–West divide.

“If you look at surveys, for example, on whether people think corruption is a problem, there's a widespread perception that people believe it is [just as common] in places like France or the UK," Fazekas explained.

"Much less so in Denmark and Sweden, but in many of the core, developed EU member states, corruption is a significant concern across the population,” he continued.

In Western Europe, corruption is increasingly associated with issues such as political financing, lobbying, procurement practices and regulatory capture, rather than the more visible forms of bribery often associated with Eastern Europe.

A 2024 Eurobarometer survey conducted by the European Commission found that while 61% of Europeans consider corruption unacceptable, 68% believe it is widespread in their own country. Around 27% said they felt personally affected by corruption in their daily lives.

“Part of the perceptions gap is that these day-to-day, very visible forms of corruption are very much absent in Western European countries and still present in many Eastern European countries. However, when it comes to corruption in public procurement or corruption in regulations and lawmaking, [it] is not absent at all from Western Europe," Fazekas said.

"Maybe the magnitude is smaller, but these informal networks are also present in Western Europe," he continued.

These differences in visibility matter. Petty corruption — such as small bribes for everyday services — is immediately recognisable and widely condemned.

More complex forms of influence, including opaque lobbying or revolving-door appointments, are harder to detect and scrutinise, even when the financial stakes may be higher.

“There are a couple of common threads in the corruption in Eastern Europe, and one is the weaknesses in the checks and balances between different state institutions, like the bureaucracy checking politicians and the judiciary checking bureaucrats," Fazekas explained.

In several post-communist countries, the transition from highly centralised governance to dispersed institutional authority weakened oversight mechanisms. Informal networks that span formal institutional boundaries have remained influential.

"They can override the formal independence of institutions or the formal independence of a bidding firm from the buyer," he continued.

“Informal networks are the major reason for corruption in Eastern Europe."

Similar networks exist in Western Europe, although they tend to operate through more formalised channels, such as law firms, consultancies and political finance structures.

Research group Corporate Europe Observatory has estimated that at least 62 corporations and trade associations spend a combined €343 millionn annually on EU lobbying, a figure that has increased by roughly a third since 2020.

The group notes that the true total is likely higher, as the figure only includes organisations declaring annual spending above €1 million.

Fazekas said one of the key distinctions remains the prevalence of low-level bribery.

“The one major difference is that low-level corruption, petty corruption or bribery, as some call it, is far less common in Western European countries. While in many Eastern European countries you still have bribery involved in accessing healthcare services or when dealing with the police or some other day-to-day state citizen interactions, that's far less widespread in Western Europe,” he said.

"This distinction helps explain the persistent perception gap. Everyday bribery is visible, humiliating and easy to condemn. Its relative absence in Western Europe has allowed governments to present themselves as largely 'clean', even as high-level corruption attracts less sustained scrutiny," Fazekas continued.

These differing perceptions have become particularly sensitive in the context of Ukraine, where demands for stringent anti-corruption safeguards accompany financial and military assistance.

Critics note that such expectations are sometimes voiced by governments still grappling with their own governance challenges.

Recent investigations and court cases across Europe have also highlighted how corruption allegations are interpreted differently depending on context.

Former EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini was recently arrested as part of a corruption and procurement fraud probe linked to alleged irregularities in an EU-funded diplomatic training programme.

In France, National Rally politician Marine Le Pen was convicted on 31 March 2025 of embezzling EU parliamentary funds.

The sentence included four years in prison and a five-year ban from public office. Her supporters have described the case as politically motivated “lawfare”, while Le Pen has appealed the verdict.

An appeal hearing is scheduled for early 2026, though the ban on her standing in the 2027 presidential election remains in place for now.

Treating corruption primarily as a problem of “elsewhere” may simplify political debate, but it risks obscuring a more complex reality.

Across Europe, the scale and forms of corruption vary, but so too does the willingness of governments to confront it through enforcement rather than rhetoric.

"Wherever you go around in the world, you will see top politicians, top bureaucrats talking about fighting corruption... [yet] considering that corruption is an implicitly hidden phenomenon and hidden behaviour, it's not always obvious who is just talking about fighting corruption, who is serious about it. The one, major challenge here is really seeing concrete actions as opposed to just rhetoric," Fazekas concluded.