No surprises here.

Ernst & Young, a global consulting firm, earlier this year conducted a research of corruption levels in the Middle East, Africa, India and Europe, reports Index.hr on June 21, 2017.

The extensive research was conducted by interviews with 4,100 top managers in companies, in as many as 41 countries in the regions mentioned above.

According to the results, as far as Southeast Europe is concerned, Croatia is at the very top by corruption levels. As a country where taking a bribe is a common practice in the business world, Croatia is placed at the “excellent” fifth position among all the surveyed countries.

The devastating fact is that nearly 80 percent of Croatian managers consider the problem of corruption as being very widespread. More precisely, 79 percent of surveyed managers stated that bribes and corruption were often present in the Croatian business world. With this result, Croatia is ranked at the fifth position among all the EMEA countries. That makes Croatia the most corrupt country in Southeast Europe, followed by Slovenia (74 percent) and Bulgaria (68 percent). Slovenia is ranked at the 11th position, while Bulgaria is 14th.

High ethical standards as a common practice in the business world were quoted by almost half of all the managers in Bulgaria, while in Croatia less than a third of their colleagues said they had they frequently experienced high ethical standards.

According to the survey results, the highest share of people ready to report corruption to government authorities is in Slovenia and Bulgaria, which are positioned 13th and 14th among all the countries.

Romania is ranked 12th on a list of countries that believe that government-run services can positively influence the practices in the business world, at least when it comes to corruption. The state is followed by Bulgaria, with Serbia, Croatia and Slovenia far behind.

Regarding the awareness of telephone lines for whistleblowers where corruption can be reported, Croatia is next to last, at the 40th position.

Managers were also asked whether laws had a positive impact on ethical standards of doing business in their companies. Twenty percent of them responded affirmatively, which put Croatia in the 21st position.