Malta has inched up to 60th place in the 2025 corruption perception index, a gain of five places from the previous edition.
Despite the improvement, Malta is still among the worst performers in Western Europe, with only Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia ranking below it.
Transparency International, the anti-corruption NGO behind the index, noted Malta together with Spain as being among the biggest decliners since 2012.
Countries are ranked on a scale from zero (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean).
Malta achieved a score of 49/100 in 2025, up from 46/100 the previous year, but notably down from its score of 60/100 in 2015 and a ranking of 34th.
Its ranking in the latest report places it behind Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Botswana.
The European Union average is 62/100, with Denmark (89) topping the regional and global list as the least corrupt and Hungary (40) and Bulgaria (40) perceived as the most corrupt EU countries.
Despite ranking as the world’s least corrupt region, progress against corruption in Western Europe and the EU has stalled over the past decade, Transparency International said.
Thirteen countries in Western European and the EU have seen significant declines and only seven made improvements, underscoring a widening gap between anti-corruption standards, enforcement and the integrity of those in power.
Failures
“As Europeans confront overlapping challenges, the demand for decisive leadership and robust, independent institutions has never been clearer. Instead, persistent failures of leadership and accountability are undermining integrity and accelerating the loss of public confidence in government,” Transparency International said.
Although not mentioned in the report, Robert Abela’s government has been under fire for abolishing ministerial asset declarations, a key component for preventing and detecting corruption.
The commissioner for standards in public life wrote to the prime minister in January to express his concern, saying, in effect, ministers would no longer declare their income and neither would they declare financial investments and bank accounts held by their spouses.
“This was a setback for transparency in public life and it sent a very negative message,” the standards commissioner said.
Ministers, instead, will fill out a less detailed form, which remains a requirement for all members of parliament.
Since its inception in 1995, Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index has become the leading global indicator of public sector corruption.
The index scores 182 countries and territories around the world based on perceptions of public sector corruption, using data from 13 external sources, including the World Bank, the World Economic Forum, private risk and consulting companies, think tanks and others.
The scores reflect the views of experts and businesspeople, not the public.