While many countries in Eastern Europe are moving forward on tackling corruption, Bosnia and Herzegovina declined eight points in Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index (CPI) since 2012.

Bosnia and Herzegovina once again fell behind in this year's CPI and ranks by far the lowest in the region and the third worst in Europe overall when it comes to the state of corruption in the country.

The only two countries with a worse result are Russia and Ukraine.

With a score of 34 on a scale of 0 to 100, BiH is among the countries where the state of corruption is worsening the most. BiH records the worst trend of all regional countries. This is best illustrated by the example of Kosovo, which from 2012 to 2022 advanced from a score of 34 to 41 index points, while in the same ten years, BiH fell from 45 to 34 points.

In the key findings for the region of Eastern Europe and Central Asia, it is stated that the countries of the Western Balkans are lagging behind in tackling organized crime due to the deterioration of the rule of law and the state of the judiciary.

According to Transparency International, BiH is at a historical low, and ethnic divisions are hindering the democratic institutions needed to fight corruption, which was especially evident in the state Prosecutor's Office.

“Numerous corruption scandals, resignations and the very method of selecting the chief prosecutor have seriously called into question the integrity of the Prosecutor's Office”, TI BiH said.

The organisation pointed out that a number of important organized crime and corruption cases, including those involving top officials, have not been processed by the judiciary for years.

It also noted that the General Elections in 2022 were accompanied by a series of scandals involving the theft of votes and misuse of public resources and that the problem was not solved even by the imposition of amendments to the Election Law by the High Representative of the international community in the country, “whose actions only further deepened the political crisis”.