Romania

Romania has been a constant achiever over the past ten years on all IPI components, despite its citizens complaining in the Eurobarometer of being the most corruption affected Europeans in their daily lives. Its good ranking is due to some administrative simplification reforms and increase in transparency. Its regulatory quality still needs serious improvement and its e-government still has a long way to go, despite some progress. While the size of rents was constantly reduced due to privatizations, and the percentage of bribes declined significantly in the Eurobarometer, public procurement remains fairly particularistic, legislation is deeply shaped by private lobbies and an industry of fake credentials in education has become institutionalized. If judicial independence has progressed little in ten years despite ending the culture of impunity (with prime ministers, ministers and generals imprisoned for corruption in massive numbers), it is because the stress on anticorruption and its political instrumentalization strained the judicial independence instead of helping it.