Europeans believe that corruption is widespread in their country and Croatians are at the top of that list with a majority of the respondents saying they have personally experienced corruption, according to the results of the latest special Eurobarometer on corruption.

The opinion poll, released on Thursday and conducted between December 6 and 19, 2019 on 27,498 respondents in 28 EU member states, shows that most of the residents in 24 countries believe that corruption is widespread in their country and consider that it exists in the national public institutions (70%) and among political parties and politicians (53%).

Over nine in ten respondents share this opinion in Croatia (97%), Greece and Cyprus (both 95%), Spain and Portugal (both 94%) and Lithuania (92%).

On the other hand, a minority hold that view in Finland (22%), Denmark (35%), Sweden (40%) and the Netherlands (47%).

Corruption tolerance level comes from a compilation of residents’ responses to three questions related to which services are acceptable to be provided to state sector workers in exchange for favourable results.

A total of 71% of the respondents believe corruption is widespread in their countries, which is 3% more than in 2017, but it is also less than in 2013 when 76% of the respondents thought corruption was widespread in their homeland.

The percentage in Croatia went up from 94% in 2013 to 97% in 2019.

in the past 12 months, 5% of the respondents have personally experienced or witnessed an instance of corruption. Most of them are from Croatia (15%), Austria (14%) and Hungary (12%). At the other end of the spectrum are Denmark and Finland with only 2%.