The Czech Republic lacks a long-term, actively enforced strategy to combat corruption, and politicians have little interest in the effectiveness of anti-corruption legislation, according to Ondrej Kopecny, the head of the Czech branch of Transparency International. In an interview with CTK, Kopecny, a political scientist by training, argued that politicians in the Czech Republic pass laws mainly to enable the drawing of EU funds or meet the requirements of international organisations. The country is still waiting for a political leader who would take the fight against corruption seriously, Kopecny said. To date, it has only seen a number of “false anti-corruption prophets” like ex-minister Vit Barta and ex-PM Andrej Babis. Transparency International has been monitoring the situation in the Czech Republic for 25 years.

Kopecny said that politicians like to talk about the fight against corruption during election campaigns, but there is always a “sobering up” period that follows. The Czech Republic is struggling with missing or poor-quality anti-corruption rules and a lack of political integrity. The country is currently ranked 41st out of 180 countries assessed in the Corruption Perception Index, with a score of 56 out of 100 points, while the average for EU member states is 64 points.

Kopecny argues that in the Czech Republic, corruption has become much more sophisticated than in the past. It involves money laundering, the use of tax havens, conflicts of interest in high politics, or the privatisation of public interests. “In the Czech Republic, we tend to underestimate the impact of this sophisticated type of corruption and therefore do not put enough emphasis on tackling it,” Kopecny said.

Transparency International lobbies officials and politicians for improved legislation and other systemic changes and has representatives on the Government Council for Coordination of the Fight against Corruption. The group is self-funded and does not accept funding from political parties or movements, but receives money from non-profit grants and competitive subsidy programmes. It also has hundreds of individual public supporters and dozens of corporate donors, and covers part of its costs through paid consultancy for the public and private sectors on whistleblowing, conflicts of interest, and public procurement. Kopecny said that TI CR’s budget was approximately CZK 16 million in 2022.

Article by Prague Forum