THE PHENOMENON OF CORRUPTION IN THE EUROPEAN UNION

Corruption threatens the rule of law and the people's trust in the most important public institutions, it threatens political stability and social peace. Corruption lies at the core of organized crime, it spreads inequality, reduces trust in public institutions, undermines the principles of democracy and affects state fragility. Corruption is also the opposite of democracy, which represents freedom, equality, and the rule of law. Corruption affects the citizens’ political and economic behaviour as well as elections and the investors’ investment decisions. Corruption hinders the use of objective democratic criteria, which causes permanent damage in every society. The key cornerstones of preventing corruption are to establish monitoring mechanisms and to strengthen the cooperation within civil society by raising public awareness of corruption as well as by developing and pursuing anti-corruption policies. Still, in the European Union an effective mechanism has yet to be established, which would allow a coherent monitoring of the situation and the assessment of the progress of anti-corruption policies