Speaker of Parliament Boris Kollár holds a press briefing on June 23, 2020, in Bratislava, explaining his plagiarism. (source: TASR)
Slovakia ranks among the five countries with highest corruption perception in the EU, according to the most cited international index for measuring corruption perception.
Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index placed Slovakia as 60th worldwide, ahead of only Croatia, Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania in the EU. This is the first time since the implementation of Slovakia’s 2004 anti-corruption laws that the country is trailing behind Greece in this field.
This presents an overall decrease by one point since 2019, and a worsening of 6 points since the electoral year of 2016. This worsening score is indicative of ex-PM Peter Pelegrini’s (then Smer, now Hlas) policies, Transparency International Slovakia (TIS) commented.
The Matovič government, elected on an anti-corruption ticket, has made it its goal to improve Slovakia’s position on the index by 20 places.
“The first year of Igor Matovič’s rule and fight against corruption can be perceived as successful,” TIS wrote.
While some things have improved and corruption-related charges have been pressed against several former high-ranking officials, the plagiarism scandals of the PM and other government members and some suspicions of cronyism indicate the government continues to lag in its transparency and anti-corruption efforts.
