Corruption is a problem in Greece. Transparency International stated in 2012 that corruption had played a major role in causing the Greek financial crisis (although the crisis itself was triggered by the global financial crisis of 2007-2008, and Greece's economy had fared well for most of the period up to the aforementioned crisis ). Tax evasion was described by Greek politicians as "a national sport"—with up to €30 billion per year going uncollected, according to a 2012 estimate. A 2016 estimate indicated that between €11 billion and €16 billion per annum were not collectable. Other significant amounts were uncollected due to VAT (sales tax) fraud and smuggling. In 2016, the OECD, Greece and the European Commission launched a project to increase integrity and reduce corruption in Greece through technical empowerment of the Greek authorities for the implementation of Greece's National Anti-Corruption Action Plan (NACAP).
Political corruption is also acknowledged as a significant problem by many observers.
The government's anti-corruption efforts have not been evaluated as effective, according to several sources, which has been attributed to poor enforcement of anti-corruption legislation and the ineffectiveness of anti-corruption agencies. Anti-corruption agencies have been hindered by excessive political influence and continuous replacement of staff. Recent involvement of high-ranking public officials in corruption cases has been reported in the media.
Alleged origin of Greek corruption
Commentators both within and outside Greece have attributed this flaw in Greek culture to a mismanagement of Ottoman Greece by the Ottoman Empire. In Ottoman-occupied Greece tax resistance became a form of patriotism, and sometimes a condition for survival, while the corruption was widespread among the officials of the empire, especially during its later centuries. Property and commercial tax systems were left in shambles.
Greece became independent in 1830, but the corruption in modern Greece and the resistance to pay taxes to the Ottoman Empire is connected also by the fact that part of the ethnic Greek officials of the empire (kodjabashis) kept their positions after Greek independence and established the way the Greek state was run. Immediately after independence, Greeks were subjected to a heavy tax burden caused by the debt accumulated during the independence war, which was combined with the poverty and devastation caused by the war. Tax evasion was, however, a larger problem among the high-ranking officials, who were accustomed to being unchecked by the Ottomans and sought to preserve that status in the Greek state.
Extent of Greek tax evasion and corruption
Before the crisis, Greece was one of EU's worst performers according to Transparency International's Corruption Perception Index (see table);
By 2022, Greece scored 52 on a scale from 0 ("highly corrupt") to 100 ("very clean"). This is a different scoring system than the one used in 2008, so the 2008 and 2022 scores are not directly comparable. When ranked by score, Greece ranked 51st among the 180 countries in the global Index, where the country ranked first is perceived to have the most honest public sector. For comparison, the best 2022 score was 90 (ranked 1), the worst score was 12 (ranked 180) and the average score was 43.
Data for 2012 indicated that the Greek "shadow economy" or "underground economy", from which little or no tax was collected, was a full 24.3% of GDP - compared with 28.6% for Estonia, 26.5% for Latvia, 21.6% for Italy, 17.1% for Belgium, 14.7% for Sweden, 13.7% for Finland, and 13.5% for Germany (the situation had improved for Greece, along with most EU countries, by 2017). For Greece, where the percentage of self-employed was more than double the EU average in 2013, a well known pattern is followed, where tax evasion is correlated with the percentage of working population that is self-employed.
Several successive Greek governments had in the past attempted to improve the situation. A rapid increase in government revenues through implementing a more effective tax collecting system has been recommended. Implementing the proper reforms, is however estimated to be a slow process, requiring at least two legislative periods before they start to work.