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HUNGARY MOVES UP TWO SPOTS IN TRANSPARENCY INTERNATIONAL RANKING

 

Hungary is in 64th place in Transparency International’s 2018 Corruption Perceptions Index ranking, moving up two spots from a year earlier, the Berlin-based organisation said in its annual report. Hungary’s score on the index — 0 to 100, with 0 being the most corrupt — was 46, up from 45 a year earlier. With this result, however, Hungary was among the worst performing European member states with Bulgaria losing one point to 42 and Greece losing three points to 45. Transparency International said that the less democratic a country, the more serious corruption is reported from it. In the case of Hungary and Turkey, it also saw a link between corruption and autocracy. As it did last year, Transparency International said that Hungary’s figure “reflects a … rapidly shrinking space for civil society and independent media”.
Commenting on the report, MEP Benedek Jávor of the opposition Párbeszéd party attributed Hungary’s long-term fall in the ranking to Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s measures designed to “put his cronies in good positions and curb the work of anti-corruption bodies”.