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EU Commission: Corruption Across EU Costs €120 Billion
cold fjord writes with news that the EU has completed its first report on corruption in member states, and the results aren't looking too good. From the article: "'The extent of corruption in Europe is 'breathtaking' and it costs the EU economy at least 120bn euros (£99bn) annually, the European Commission says. EU Home Affairs Commissioner Cecilia Malmstroem has presented a full report on the problem. She said the true cost of corruption was 'probably much higher' than € 120bn. Three-quarters of Europeans surveyed for the Commission study said that corruption was widespread, and more than half said the level had increased. 'The extent of the problem in Europe is breathtaking, although Sweden is among the countries with the least problems,' Ms Malmstroem wrote in Sweden's Goeteborgs-Posten daily. The cost to the EU economy is equivalent to the bloc's annual budget. For the report the Commission studied corruption in all 28 EU member states. The Commission says it is the first time it has done such a survey. "
...which is why those hardcore libertarians running Sweden are counted "among the countries with the least problems," right?
If that's the cost of bringing those nations up to Western European or even Scandinavian standards then what's the problem?
No one's under any illusion that expansion means bringing countries into the EU with problems, in fact, that's kind of the point. The goal is to sort them out and hence make Europe ever stronger.
I live in Western Europe, I always have, and I'm happy to pay that cost. It's nice to know we're living on an ever more secure and ever more prosperous continent. Far better than the alternative of having constant repeats of Yugoslavia on our borders over and over and over which cost far more again in terms of military effort to contain or defuse the problem, far higher cost in terms of lives, and far higher cost in terms of ever more desperate people emigrating West trying to escape the war not able to bring anything with them, not even an education, because even their schools had been bombed.
BTW, in socialist countries, welfare is a kind of bribe, it keeps the poor masses living on those welfare payment in line, making sure they keep voting for the political parties who keep promising them the best short-term deal.
Because Denmark, Finland, Luxembourg and Sweden are well known for their "poor masses".
Watch this Heartland Institute video