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Accession Partnerships is that the political conditions that must be satisfied for countries to
enter the EU include fight against corruption.
The political conditions that candidate countries must fulfil to be allowed to access were laid
down at the Copenhagen European Council in 1993. In each area covered by the document,
corruption seems to have major significance. Moreover, the EU-Commission has adopted a
requirement of an anti-corruption framework for all candidates. What is more important, the
EU was a major force behind de-regulation in the NMS. Therefore, the EU accession process
has had a major impact on corruption in candidate states. This can be seen in the Figure 2
where corruption scores of non-EU post communist countries and New Member States are
compared. Note that an increase in control of corruption score pertains to an improvement in
the level of governance.
Figure 2 The “Pull effect” of the EU
0.80
0.60
0.40
0.20
0.00
-0.20
-0.40
-0.60
-0.80
-1.00
1996 1998 2000 2002 2003 2004 2005
non-EU
EUaccess
2004
EUaccess
2006
Source: Own calculation based on Control of Corruption Index by Kaufmann, Kraay and Mastruzzi (2006).
"Governance Matters V: Governance Indicators for 1996-2005". World Bank Policy Research September 2006
In our opinion, the recent accession to the EU required from the NMS to put in place
measures that enforce transparency and competition. In MENA countries, there has been a
tendency for reforms and economic liberalization programs to lag. This underdevelopment of
bureaucratic powers and regulation has created opportunities for rent seeking associated with
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