'Breathtaking' corruption across EU; When the concept of power is in flux; The banker who said no to big bonus

1 'Breathtaking' corruption across EU (BBC) The extent of corruption in Europe is "breathtaking" and it costs the EU economy at least 120bn euros annually, the European Commission says. EU Home Affairs Commissioner Cecilia Malmstroem has presented a full report on the problem. She said the true cost of corruption was "probably much higher" than 120bn. Three-quarters of Europeans surveyed for the Commission study said that corruption was widespread, and more than half said the level had increased. 

"The extent of the problem in Europe is breathtaking, although Sweden is among the countries with the least problems," Ms Malmstroem wrote in Sweden's Goeteborgs-Posten daily. The cost to the EU economy is equivalent to the bloc's annual budget. In the UK only five people out of 1,115 - less than 1% - said they had been expected to pay a bribe. It was "the best result in all Europe", the report said. But 64% of British respondents said they believed corruption to be widespread in the UK, while the EU average was 74% on that question. 

In Croatia, the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Romania and Greece, between 6% and 29% of respondents said they had been asked for a bribe, or had been expected to pay one, in the past 12 months. There were also high levels of bribery in Poland (15%), Slovakia (14%) and Hungary (13%), where the most prevalent instances were in healthcare. Ms Malmstroem said corruption was eroding trust in democracy and draining resources from the legal economy.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-26014387

2 When the concept of power is in flux (Maleeha Lodhi in Khaleej Times) Wilton Park was the venue last month of a lively exchange of views among policy makers and experts at a conference convened to debate the future of power and consider long-term global trends, challenges and opportunities. Some of the key points made during the discussion are worth summarising as they indicate the global trends and drivers that might affect the nature of power and global power relationships in the near future:

The concept of power is in flux at a time of extraordinary change in the world; Despite the emergence of diverse new actors, the state will remain the main actor in the international system; The sources of power may be stable but the environment in which power is exercised has been changing in fundamental ways: Countries will need to develop an intricate blend of hard and soft power to be effective; Economic power has become the critical vehicle by which countries insert and assert themselves in the international system, but ‘hard power’ too is needed to guarantee state security; Countries that do not innovate don’t have much of a future.

Discussion of many of these assertions helped to clarify how power is changing in a fast-moving world, the opportunities opened by globalisation and the vulnerabilities being created by the uncertainties of our age. Broadly speaking, three major trends were identified among those seen to be shaping the present era: (a) Shift in global economic power from the West to Asia (b) Progressive technological evolution and (c) Shift in power from the state to the individual.

Other than the growing dispersal of power in the global arena, other systemic trends emphasised were demographic change, water stress, resource competition and the widening gap between people’s expectations and the capacity of governments to meet them. In today’s competitive environment, institutions and states that are not agile were condemned to becoming ‘dinasours’.

One speaker identified the long term forces shaping the global future as: (1) The limits of capitalism and the fact that globalisation doesn’t always work for everyone; (2) leaders are increasingly ineffective because traditional levers of power do not work in an environment marked by power diffusion and rise of new actors and (3) shortcomings of the present systems of governance to live up to current challenges and manage tomorrow’s world.

http://khaleejtimes.com/kt-article-display-1.asp?xfile=data/opinion/2014/February/opinion_February6.xml&section=opinion

3 The banker who said no to big bonus (Sydney Morning Herald) Barclays' chief executive, Antony Jenkins, has said he would forgo a bonus for 2013 in light of the bank's continued restructuring costs and litigation expenses. “When combined with the substantial rights issue we completed in the autumn, I have concluded that it would not be right, in the circumstances, for me to accept a bonus for 2013, and I have therefore respectfully declined the one offered to me by the board,” Mr. Jenkins said in a statement.

Mr. Jenkins will still receive a base salary of £1.1 million. He could have received a bonus as high as £2.75 million. He also declined to accept a bonus in 2012. Mr. Jenkins took the top job in 2012 as the bank was reeling from participation by its employees in a scheme to manipulate the London interbank offered rate, or Libor. Barclays and four other financial institutions combined to pay more than $3 billion to regulators in the US and Britain over the rate-rigging scandal.

Barclays announced last year that it planned to eliminate at least 3,700 jobs, including 1,800 in its corporate and investment banking businesses. It is preparing to cut another 400 jobs in the investment bank, according to a person familiar with the matter. Barclays employs about 140,000 people worldwide.

http://www.smh.com.au/business/banking-and-finance/barclays-bank-chief-turns-down-annual-bonus-20140204-31xvh.html