Public Integrity, Economic Freedom and Governance Performance. A Comparative Study for the EU Member States and Acceding Countries

The studies concerning the impact of corruption on the effectiveness of governance are numerous, valorising profound approaches, based on criteria and standards related to good governance, organizational behaviour. The concepts and mechanisms specific for econometrics and statistics provide the quantitative support for qualitative analyses, substantiating public policies, in view to assure effectiveness in performance measurement. For EU Member States and acceding countries, the level of development and social organization determines specific ethical behaviours. In this context, the current paper aims a comparative economic and social evaluation of the correlations between corruption, performance and economic freedom in the states mentioned, following the various significant stages of the EU enlargement. The working hypotheses turn into consideration the following issues: - Corruption holds national specific character and the statistic, econometric or sociologic analyses reveal that it is stable during time. - The climate of economic freedom and the intensity of corruption influence powerfully the economic performance. - The EU membership, “seniority” in EU, regional context determine different attitudes and perceptions on the corruption phenomena. - For the newer EU states or the acceding countries, the strategies of integrity have mimetic character and the National Integrity Systems have structured powerful connections aimed at determining an action focused on public integrity. In the analyses achieved, the EU is approached globally, at least from statistic point of view, and the conclusions aim situations specific to the groups of states that have been or will be the beneficiaries of the EU enlargement. The quantitative analyses use both own results of the researches carried out by the authors and public results of World Bank or Heritage Foundation, as well as results of authorities responsible for national statistics. The paper uses the theoretical framework described by authors in other papers with similar topic. For the current paper, the distinction consists in the correlation of the analyses with the stages of the EU enlargement.