February the 14th, 2026 – Corruption is a long standing, well-known issue in this country. Few realise however just how expensive it really is. Corruption actually costs Croatia a staggering 8.5 billion euros annually.
As Poslovni Dnevnik/Edita Vlahovic Zuvela writes, Transparency International’s (TI) Corruption Perceptions Index for 2025 has once again confirmed what has been felt in Croatia for a long time. This is that the fight against corruption is neither a theory nor an abstract policy, but a living reality that shapes overall levels of trust in institutions, the quality of public policies and the entire domestic economic climate.
The global framework shows that trust in governance processes is systematically eroding in many countries around the world. The global average in 2025 fell to a worrying 42 points, and as many as two-thirds of a total of 182 countries scored below 50 points on a scale from 0 to 100. This means high perceived corruption and poor transparency of the public sector as a whole, TI announced.
croatia’s corruption problem sees it lag embarrassingly behind other eu countries
In such a global context, Croatia found itself in 63rd place with a damning 47 points, a result that has not changed significantly for years and which places it among countries with a moderately high perceived level of corruption. Compared to much richer and more institutionally strong countries in the world, such as Denmark (89 points), Finland (88) and Singapore (84), Croatia lags very significantly behind, which is not merely another statistical fact, but an alarm about the general state of democratic and governance culture in the country.
Seen through the prism of the EU, the situation for Croatia today looks very demanding: the average for EU members is around 62 points, which means that Croatia is lagging behind by as much as 15 to 17 points.
According to the latest analysis carried out by the European Parliament on the costs of corruption in the EU (from 2018), corruption costs Croatia approximately 8.5 billion euros annually. This is about 13.5% of Croatia’s GDP. This figure was more than 2.5 times higher than the total annual health budget, or enough to pay the average annual Croatian salary for around a million people, according to the analysis.
The EC estimates that corruption costs the European Union between 179 and 990 billion euros per year, which amounts to up to 6% of its GDP. This deeply alarming figure prompted the Commission to adopt an anti-corruption package back in May 2023, which included, among other things, a new Directive on combating corruption through criminal law.
croatia’s prerequisite for eu membership has fallen flat
The European Parliament and the Council reached an agreement late last year on the extensive and profound changes proposed by the Commission. When the Directive is finally adopted, national legislation will have to criminalise bribery in the public and private sectors, embezzlement and misuse of funds, trading in influence, obstruction of justice, illicit enrichment related to corruption, and abuse of office.
Davorka Budimir, President of Transparency International Croatia, recalls that a prerequisite for Croatia’s EU membership was the adoption of a legislative framework to combat corruption. Given the fact that corruption alone is costing Croatia 8.5 billion euros annually, it has clearly fallen flat on its face.
“Back in 2015, after we passed a set of anti-corruption laws as a condition of membership and established a series of independent bodies to fight corruption, Croatia was no longer perceived as a corrupt country. The corruption perception index that year saw it reach over 50 points. In the meantime, the powers of these bodies have been significantly narrowed, for example the Commission for Deciding on Conflicts of Interest, the activity of which is now reduced only to reviewing the asset declarations of officials,” revealed Budimir, outlining why Croatia is unfortunately considered a more corrupt country today than it was a decade ago.
croatia’s “anti-corruption regulations” are not being implemented
“Anti-corruption regulations are simply not being implemented. The bottom line is that people have poorer qualities of life in highly corrupt countries,” Budimir stated, emphasising that the formal presence of anti-corruption strategies does not at all guarantee their effective implementation. Lengthy procedures for exposing and punishing, insufficient protection for whistle-blowers, the perception of political influence on judicial institutions, and the feeling that corruption remains unpunished only deepen distrust in the system, TI Croatia concluded.
