In the special Eurobarometer survey on corruption published on Wednesday 13 July 2022 by the European Commission, the National Transparency Authority is recognised as the specialised anti-corruption institution that citizens and businesses trust to report corruption cases, improving the country's score by 13 points since 2019, recording the highest increase of all EU countries, which demonstrates the necessity of the institution but also the important work it has done in the last 3 years.
Greece performs better than in 2019 in terms of citizens' perception of how widespread the phenomenon of bribery and corruption but also the abuse of power for personal gain is in the areas of courts, banks and financial institutions (5 points of improvement), social security and welfare institutions (4 points of improvement) and private companies (2 points of improvement). At the opposite end of the spectrum is the health care system (10 points worse). A marginal improvement compared to 2019 also appears in the perception of citizens that the only way to succeed in business is to have political connections (4 points of improvement overall).
The issue of corruption continues to be one of the most important problems for European citizens, but with several differences between Member States, with the median trend remaining at the same level or increasing, while the majority of those living in Greece still consider corruption to be an extremely widespread problem. The report highlights areas where our country needs to intensify its efforts, which are already recorded in international assessments and have been taken into account for the design of the National Anti-Corruption Strategic Plan (NACAP) for the period 2022-2025.
The pandemic over the last 2.5 years has undoubtedly played an extremely negative factor in citizens' perception of corruption across the EU, which makes it more urgent than ever to rally the whole society in the fight against corruption. This is also the direction of the recently adopted by the Council of Ministers National Anti-Corruption Action Plan (NACAP PLAN) 2022-2025, which contains a holistic approach structured on 3 pillars: inspections and audits, prevention and awareness-raising, and information of society.