The Diplomat in Spain

Corruption is one of the main concerns of the Spanish people.

Tamara Fariñas. Madrid

Spain is among 20 of the 41 member states of the OECD analyzed by International Transparency that have failed to fulfil their obligations in the fight against transnational bribery, according to the last report of the organization. 

There are some signs of improvement, however, 20.4% of the countries analyzed are making “minimum efforts or no effort at all to guarantee that their companies do not spread corruption all over the world”, despite of the fact that 16 years have passed since the OECD Convention to combat bribery came into force. A less encouraging number is that of countries actively investigating and judging companies that bribe: only four —the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom and Switzerland—, according to the report Exporting corruption by International Transparency published in August.

In particular, International Transparency criticizes that, in Spain, protection for accusers is still very weak and that there is “lack of public understanding of the crime of transnational bribery”. Both our country and the other 19 countries that do not make it through the organization’s filter are not investigating nor judging cases “due to the lack of political will” and to the lack of resources.

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The lack of political will and resources, causes for the lack of investigations

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Of all of them, twelve of those who have ratified the Convention at some point, among them some “established democracies”, which hinders the work of Justice is “the political influence or the risk”. In view of these regrettable figures, José Ugaz, president of Transparency, urges the OECD to “guarantee specific consequences faced with such a meagre performance”, since “the violation of the obligations of International Law to fight transnational corruption cannot be tolerated”. This is the eleventh occasion on which International Transparency elaborates this report.

According to the last barometer of the Centre for Sociological Research (CIS in its Spanish acronym), the concern about corruption and tax fraud is still high, so much so that for most of the Spanish people this is the second problem of the country, only behind unemployment. Corruption is followed, although from a distance, by other economic problems.