Kosovo has been rated 43 points in the Corruption Perceptions Index for 2025 of the international organization, Transparency International (TI), marking a decrease of one point compared to the previous year.
The new assessment places Kosovo 76th in the world out of a total of 182 countries and territories, or three positions lower than in 2024.
According to TI, a country's score indicates the level of perceived corruption in the public sector from zero (meaning that a country is extremely corrupt) to 100 (a country free from corruption), while a country's ranking in the index indicates its relative position compared to other countries.
Kosovo received the best rating in 2024 (44 points), ranking 73rd in the world. This marked a slight progress in fighting corruption compared to 2023, when it was rated with 41 points.
Kosovo has been included in this Corruption Perceptions Index since 2012. Since then, the country's worst rating was in 2013, 2014 and 2015, when it was rated 33 points for three consecutive years.
For 2025, among the countries in the region, Montenegro was rated best with 46 points (same as last time), North Macedonia with 40 (same as last time), Albania with 39 (marked a deterioration from 42 points in the previous index), Bosnia and Herzegovina with 34 (marked a decline, since last time it had 33 points) and Serbia with 33 (marked a decline since last time it had 35 points).
In the section on Eastern Europe and Central Asia, the organization said the index shows that weak institutions and democratic setbacks are fueling corruption and narrowing the space for civil society.
The concentration of power, influence on the judiciary and pressure on civil society are driving a rollback of democracy and weakening control mechanisms by reducing public oversight, the organization said.
"Across the Western Balkans, the lack of transparency in decision-making for major investment projects is a common weakness," the report said.
"The suspension of transparency rules and discretionary powers is exposing public funds to the risk of corruption and at the same time damaging public trust," it added in the section on the Western Balkans.
The report mentions Bosnia and Herzegovina and Albania regarding environmental issues.
TI said the lack of competitive procedures has led to “uncontrolled exploitation of natural resources in Bosnia” and led to “risk of environmental degradation in the case of the island of Sazan in Albania”, as well as “enabling the Serbian government to sign a secret agreement with a foreign investor and illegally cancel the protection of a cultural monument to replace it with a luxury hotel”.
Regarding Sazan, Albania at the end of 2024 granted strategic investor status to the company of US President Donald Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, to build a tourist resort on the island of Sazan near Vlora.
Kushner's company has been granted strategic investor status for a 10-year period.
His investment plans in Albania had faced opposition in that country, especially from environmentalists who said that damage could be caused to protected coastal areas, especially the Zvërnec area.
Meanwhile, regarding the removal of protection for the cultural monument in Serbia, which TI mentions, it concerns the former building of the General Staff of the Yugoslav Army, where Kushner had planned to build a hotel.
But, in mid-December last year, it was reported that Kushner had withdrawn from this investment.
TI also said that in some Western Balkan countries, the weak response of the judiciary is considered one of the main obstacles to the successful fight against corruption, "while judges and prosecutors are increasingly becoming the target of attacks by governments."
In this regard, the organization mentions Serbia, stating that following investigations into alleged abuses by members of the Government, the Serbian Organized Crime Prosecutor's Office "is facing increasing pressure, including government-led smear campaigns, obstruction of cooperation with the police, and legal changes that weaken its ability to investigate organized crime and high-level corruption."
Speaking about Serbia, the organization said that this country is among the countries that scored poorly in the index and where in 2025 there was an increase in protests by the younger generation, as young people in these countries "protested to demand accountability from their governments."
Last year, Serbia faced major protests, through which citizens demanded responsibility for the deaths of several people from the collapse of a concrete shelter at a railway station, and then their demands expanded, calling for new elections.
Meanwhile, in the case of Bosnia, Transparency International said that political influence over appointments in the judicial system "is so deeply entrenched that numerous attempts to effectively regulate it have failed, despite the fact that it constitutes a serious obstacle to the country's integration into the European Union."
In the published report, TI said that the global average Corruption Perceptions Index has declined in more than a decade, to just 42 out of 100.
"The vast majority of countries have failed to keep corruption under control: 122 out of 182 countries are rated below 50 points on the index," said Transparency International.
Also, the number of countries rated above 80 points has dropped from 12 a decade ago to just five this year.
"In particular, there is a worrying trend of worsening corruption in democracies – from the United States (64), Canada (75) and New Zealand (81), to parts of Europe, such as the United Kingdom (70), France (66) and Sweden (80)," the international organization said.
According to this year's index, Denmark, Finland and Singapore are at the top, as they were last year. Meanwhile, at the bottom of the list, Venezuela, Somalia and Sudan are ranked worst.
Transparency International says that the data used to compile the index covers these forms of corruption in the public sector: bribery, misuse of public funds, use of public office by officials for personal gain without facing consequences, the ability of governments to curb corruption in the public sector, excessive bureaucracy that can increase opportunities for corruption in the public sector, political appointments in the civil service, laws that allow public officials not to declare assets or potential conflicts of interest, legal protection for persons who report cases of bribery and corruption, state capture, and access to information on public affairs and government activities.
However, this index does not cover citizens' perceptions of corruption or their experience with this phenomenon, tax fraud, illicit financial flows, persons who may assist in committing corrupt acts, money laundering, corruption in the private sector, and informal economies and markets./REL
