Persson, Anna; Worth, Mark; Fazekas, Mihaly; Adam, Isabelle; and Jeney, Petra (2026) Mitigating High-Risk Corruption in EU Member States. Publications Office of the European Union: Luxembourg.
The European Union’s new Anti-Corruption Package, adopted on 3 May 2023, is a major initiative aimed at combating corruption in its many manifestations. This action comes at a time when the knowledge, skills and experience needed to fight corruption successfully have reached a level of maturity capable of delivering meaningful, visible results. It also coincides with a time when citizens across the continent continue to have high expectations that corruption in their workplace, their community, and their country will be reduced. The EU’s initiative is propelled by the motivation to meet this moment.
This study outlines existing and prospective solutions within EU Member States that could potentially be scaled up to the EU level. A number of these solutions have made real differences in improving integrity and contributing to the prevention, detection, and sanctioning of corrupt activities, while others exhibit significant potential. These solutions represent not just a potential template for real-life impact, but also a kind of collective action that unites ideas into a new vision for reform.
This study focuses on six high-risk areas of corruption profiled in a 2024 report prepared for the European Commission (Persson, Worth, & Jeney, 2024):1 namely, public procurement, healthcare, construction and infrastructure, the financial sector, defence and security, and sports. Building upon the findings presented in the 2024 report, this follow-up study maps corruption-mitigating measures of potential relevance for each of these high-risk areas in EU Member States. The present study moreover presents in-depth case studies of notably impactful or promising measures for each of the six high-risk areas, and also provides an analysis of the potential of these measures to enhance current or future EU-level policies.
All of the solutions presented have either led to successes in practice, have shown promise, or exhibit qualities that could lead to positive results.
Read the full report here.