Corruption cost the European economy $ 160 billion a year -

The European Commission in Brussels published a report Monday, about corruption in the EU, she said, that corruption is still a challenge for Europe and affects all Member States, and cost the European economy 120 billion euros a year ($ 160 billion), according to the report,
 that the Member States have taken a lot of initiatives in recent years, but the results are not equal and should do more to prevent corruption and punish those who stand behind him. The report is the first of its kind to be issued by the executive body of the European Union, which included attempts to fight corruption in the Member States report shows that the nature and level of corruption and the effectiveness of measures taken to combat it, vary from one country to another within the unified bloc at the same time the report shows that corruption deserves more attention to confront it in all the Member States and the opinion poll, conducted by the European Office specialist in this «Eurobarometer» regard, that 76 percent of Europeans believe that corruption is widespread and more than half of the respondents 56 per cent, believe that the level of corruption in their country has increased over the years the last three, said only 8 percent of Europeans that they had seen cases of corruption in the past year, said Cecilia Malmstrom commissioner for internal affairs, that corruption undermines citizens' confidence in democratic institutions and the rule of law, it also hurt the European economy and deprives states of tax revenues that are in the most needed «The report includes what must be done to tackle corruption,
and that it looks forward to working with Member States to follow up on this matter.» According to media reports, the European Commission asked Germany to tighten rules give politicians the former positions in economic circles, noting that the Commission has criticized in its report on corruption, the lack of rules to avoid conflicts of interest. She had raised criticism in Germany recently because of reports of take over and the former Minister of the Chancellery Affairs, Ronald bufala, a position in the German railway company (Deutsche Bahn). It should be noted that it may not be a European Commissioner to take a position in the economic circles before the passage of 18 months on leaving office in the Commission. UNHCR also criticized the lack of protection in its campaign finance enough of corporate influence. The report dealt with the reference to the effects of corruption and some corruption-related trends In terms of control mechanisms noted the report to the use of preventive policies, such as the ethical rules and take measures to increase awareness and ease of access to information of public interest, and pointed out that there are significant differences between Member States on the prevention of corruption has contributed to do some effective policies, strong results of others and carried out preventive policies varying ways and the results were also limited the statement pointed to internal control mechanisms and said that the internal controls over
procedures within the public authorities in the Member States is weak and uncoordinated this is in addition to the conflict of interest rules are different in all EU countries and verification mechanisms are often inadequate and rarely applied sanctions against violations against these rules report dealt with the rules of criminal law who has made corruption a crime and in line with Council of Europe standards and legislation of the United Nations and the European Union, the fight against corruption in the national laws are handled in ways degrees at the same time, the law enforcement and prosecution of cases involving corruption vary widely in the EU countries and can be seen impressive results in other states are successful prosecutions against corruption are rare and investigations take a long time to report and hinted that mass corruption crimes statistics are considered missing in most of the EU countries, making it difficult to make a comparison or evaluation of the procedural rules, including rules concerning the lifting of the immunity of politicians which are hampering the issues related to corruption in some Member States. With regard to the political dimension of file corruption, the report said that integrity in politics remains an important issue for many Member States that have adopted stronger rules on the funding of political parties file but significant ways palaces remain rarely found in the European Union deterrent penalties against illegal financing and the most prone areas the risk of corruption in the European Union, the report notes that high-risk at the regional and local levels,