The poll shows that
Corrupt elite in Brussels – majority believes EU bureaucracy is surrounded by corruption
Sixty-eight percent of Hungarians consider the Brussels political elite corrupt, and those surveyed consider corruption to be the biggest problem related to the leadership of the European Union in Brussels, according to a June survey by Századvég. The survey mapped the attitudes of the population towards the activities of the Brussels elite.
The political leadership in Brussels can be bribed
that more than two-thirds (68 percent) of Hungarians consider the activities of the Brussels elite to be corrupt overall:
35 percent of respondents consider Brussels leaders and EU bureaucracy to be highly corrupt, while 33 percent consider them rather corrupt.
The results of the survey cannot be separated from the fact that
Brussels has been rocked by an unprecedented corruption scandal recently.
In December 2022, Belgian authorities uncovered a corruption network linked to the European Parliament, seizing €1.5 million in cash. Qatar and Morocco are suspected of trying to pay large sums of money in bribes to Belgian MEP Marc Tarabella, Italian MEP Andrea Cozzolino, and Greek MEP Eva Kaili in order to influence EU decision-making. In addition, a total of 53 Members of the European Parliament violated the body’s code of conduct by failing to report the trips they received as gifts, including from Qatar, by the deadline. Among others, Romanian MEP Cristian-Silviu Bușoi, who was president of the Qatari-European Friendship Association from 2019 to 2021, was more than a thousand days late with his statement.
Brussels corruption in the first place
The research also included the question of what Hungarians think is currently the biggest problem with the leadership of the European Union in Brussels. In light of what has been mentioned earlier, it is less surprising that
corruption came first, which clearly stands out among the problems examined. Accordingly, 24 percent of those expressing their opinion consider corruption to be the most pressing problem in relation to Brussels,
followed by weak advocacy and inertia (13 percent), external influence and disregard for EU interest (11 percent). Ten percent of those expressing their opinion consider cumbersome, slow decision-making to be the biggest problem of the European Union.
Methodology
CATI method, n=1000, among the Hungarian adult population, data collection: June 2023