YOU: Kosovo took a step back in fight against corruption

The new assessment causes Kosovo to rank 76th in the world from a total of 182 countries and territories, or three positions below 2024.

According to TI, a state's score shows the level of corruption perceived in the public sector by zero (which means that one country is extremely corrupt) to 100 (a country clean from corruption), while the ranking of a state in the index shows its relative position compared to other countries.

Kosovo received the best mark in 2024 (44 points), taking 73rd place in the world. That was after marking a slight breakthrough in fighting corruption compared to 2023, when it was estimated at 41 points.

Kosovo has been included in this Corruption Perceptions Index since 2012. Since then, the country's worst rating had been in 2013, 2014, and 2015, when for three consecutive years it was estimated at 33 points.

For 2025, from countries in the region, Montenegro has been best estimated at 46 points (at the same time last time), North Macedonia at 40 (just as last time), Albania to 39 (marked the deterioration of 42 points as high as it did in last index), Bosnia and Herzegovina with 34 (marked decline, since last time it had 33 points), and Serbia with 33 (marked decline since last time it had 35 points).

In the play for Eastern Europe and Central Asia, the organisation said the index shows that weak institutions and impasses in democracy are promoting corruption and narrowing the space for civil society.

Focusing on power, influence on the judiciary and pressure on civil society are driving back democracy and weakening control mechanisms by reducing public supervision, the organisation said.

“throughout the Western Balkans, lack of transparency in decision-making for major investment projects is a common weakness”, said in the report.

“Examination of rules for transparency and disrepute competencies is exposing public funds to the risk of corruption, and at the same time undermining public confidence”, increased in the part of the Western Balkans.

The report cites Bosnia and Herzegovina and Albania on environmental issues.

TI said the lack of competitive procedures has led to the uncontrolled use of natural resources in Bosnia” and has led to “risks of environmental degradation in the case of the island of Saban in Albania”, as well as “has enabled Serbia's Government to sign a secret agreement with a foreign investor and illegally cancel the protection of a cultural monument to replace it with a luxury hotel”.

As for Saban, Albania at the end of 2024 granted strategic investor status to American President Donald Trump's groom company, Jared Kouchner, to build a tourist resort on the island of Saban in the vicinity of Vlora.

The status of the strategic investor, Kouchner's company, has been granted for the 10-year period.

His investment plans in Albania had faced opposition in this country, especially from environmentalists who had said that damage could be caused in protected coastal areas, especially the Gervenec area.

Meanwhile, regarding the removal of cultural monument protection in Serbia, which mentions TI, this is about the former Yugoslav Army General Staff building where Kouchner was planning to build a hotel.

But in mid-December last year, it was reported that Kouchner has withdrawn from this investment.

TI also said that in some Western Balkan countries, the judiciary's poor response is assessed as one of the main obstacles to the successful fight against corruption, “As judges and prosecutors are becoming more and more subject to attacks by governments”.

In this regard, the organisation mentions Serbia, where it says that following investigations into alleged abuses by members of the Government, the Prosecutor for Organised Crime in Serbia “is facing increased pressure, including deignive campaigns led by the Government, obstructing police co-operation, and legal changes weakening its ability to investigate organised crime and high-level corruption”.

Speaking to Serbia, the organisation said this state is part of among the countries that are poorly assessed in the index and where in 2025 there has been an increase in protests from the new generation, as young people in these countries, “proposed to demand accountability from their governments”.

In the past year, Serbia faced major protests, through which citizens sought responsibility for the deaths of some from the collapse of a concrete shelter at a railway station and then expanded their demands, demanding new elections.

Meanwhile, in the case of Bosnia, Transparency International said the political impact on appointments to the judicial system “is so deeply rooted that numerous efforts to regulate it effectively have failed, despite the fact that it constitutes a serious obstacle to the country's integration into the European Union”.

In the published report, TI said the global average Corruption Perception Index has suffered decline in more than a decade, to only 42 out of 100.

“The huge majority of states have failed to keep corruption under control: 122 out of 182 states have been estimated below 50 points in the” index, Transparecy International said.

In addition, the number of states estimated at over 80 points has dropped from 12 to 12 a decade ago to only five this year.

“in particular, a disturbing trend of corruption deterioration in democracy from the United States (64), Canada (75), and New Zealand (81), to parts of Europe, such as the United Kingdom (70), France (66) and Sweden (80)”, was said by this international organisation.

According to this year's index, Denmark, Finland and Singapore were at its top, as were last year. At the bottom of the list, the worst listed are Venezuela, Somalia and Sudan.

Transparency International says that the data used to compile the index covers these forms of corruption in the public sector: bribery, misuse of public funds, use of public functions by officials for personal gain without the consequences, the ability of governments to curb corruption in the public sector, excessive bureaucracy that could increase opportunities for public sector corruption, political appointments in civil service, laws that enable public officials not to declare wealth or potential conflicts of interest, legal protection for persons reporting bribery and corruption cases, the capture of state and access to public affairs and government activities.

Meanwhile, this index does not cover citizens' perception of corruption or their experience with this phenomenon, tax fraud, illegal funding flows, people who can help carry out corrupt actions, money laundering, corruption in the private sector, and economies and informal markets.