Albania retains partly free status as corruption perception slightly improves
Story Highlights
- Albania climbs 22 positions in the Corruption Perceptions Index 2015 rankings, however remains behind other countries in the region
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TIRANA, Jan.27- Freedom House, the watchdog that monitors the extent of freedom in the world, listed Albania as a partly free country in its latest report released this week. Albania received a freedom rating of 3 on a scale from 1 to 7 where 1 represents the most free and 7 the least free. Consequently, its status as a partly free country remained unchanged compared to the previous year.
Other Western Balkans countries fell under the same category including Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro and Bosnia Herzegovina, whereas Serbia was listed as a free country. The report which assessed 195 countries shows that 89 (46 percent) were free, 55 (28 percent) partly free, and 51 (26 percent) not free, with global freedom registering an overall drop for the tenth consecutive year. Meanwhile, Albania achieved some progress last year in terms of corruption perception levels according to Transparency International.
The Berlin-based organization also released on Wednesday its Corruption Perceptions Index 2015, which measures the perceived levels of public sector corruption worldwide. Albania jumped 22 spots to 88th in the world with a score of 36 out of a possible 100. The previous year Albania had scored 33 and was ranked 110th out of 175 countries. Despite a better ranking in the corruption index, Albania was still lagging behind other countries in the region. Compared to other EU aspirants in the region, only Kosovo fared worse being ranked 103rd out of 168 countries.
In the Balkans, Montenegro was the country with the highest ranking 61st, followed by Macedonia 66th, Serbia 71st and Bosnia Herzegovina 76th. The report states that corruption remains a huge challenge across the region, while it also mentions that although there is plenty of anti-corruption legislation failure to implement and enforce is allowing the corrupt to operate with impunity. Denmark topped the list with a score of 91 for a second consecutive year as the country perceived as the least corrupt, while North Korea and Somalia were the most corrupted countries with a low score of 8.
