Fighting Corruption | Nikos Passas | TEDxAcademy

Nikos Passas talks about fighting corruption at a 2015 TEDx event in Athens, Greece.

Nikos Passas is a professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the Northeastern University, editor-in-chief of the international journal ‘Crime, Law and Social Change’ and Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Law School of the University of Queensland.
He has published more than 160 articles, book chapters, reports and books in 13 languages. He has served as chair of the Am. Soc. of Criminology International Division and is ASC’ s liaison to the United Nations. He also served on the Board of Directors of the International Society of Criminology.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx

I'm a lawyer and criminologist.

I've been studying economic crime
and corruption around the world.

It's particularly painful
to look into Greece,

even though I've been away for 35 years.

Now, the conventional story
about the Greek Crisis and the debt

is that it's due to domestic corruption,
tax evasion

and a Greek mentality
of not working too hard

and just taking care of one's self.

Clientelism,

and therefore, don't expect much
to change any time soon.

Well, yes, corruption exists in Greece

but not just inside Greece.

The way I see the story
is rather different

and you have to look at a number
of other things as well.

You have to look
at how the debt was created,

who contributed to that,

how the debt was hidden from public view,

what kind of solutions were applied

and what contributed to those,

if there were solutions at all.

Was actually Greece bailed out,

οr somebody else?

And as we go through this,

some ideas will come to mind
and what can be done about that,

because there is hope

and we must pursue the change.

It is feasible and we have
to defeat deafeatism

and I will show you why and how.

Now, starting with corruption in Greece.

Corruption is the misuse of private
or public power and authority

for personal gain.

And we have a lot of things
people are familiar with:

"Fakellakia", the little envelopes
that you give someone

in order to get things done
a little faster.

Speed money
to get treatment at the hospital,

get clearance for customs faster.

This is the sort of thing
that is widespread

and normalized in the sense that
people do it without thinking

that there's much wrong about it,

especially if the doctor's,
or other salaries

are not at real living standards.

Then we have other forms of corruption,
quite serious:

Bribery from domestic
and foreign companies

bribing domestic politicians,

we have oligarchic controls over industry,

sports, media,
political finance and so on.

We do have tax evasion,

we do have problematic privatizations,

we even fix soccer matches.

So generalized but so easy
to discover things are that,

Lake Kopais was drained in the mid 50's

and in 2010 there still existed an agency

with a number of people employed,

advertising for new employees every year,

with a president
who had a permanent driver.

That was in 2010, so,
the general picture here

is that we have a problem
of overgrown administration,

clientelism, overregulation, inefficiency.

The oligarchic controls.

And that leads to this widespread
culture of tolerance,

especially when corruption solves
practical problems in everyday life.

All this leads to shortfalls in revenue

and a trust deficit, both in government
and business.

But is this enough?

Does that explain the crisis?

As you will see, that is not the case.

The overspending Greeks
were not doing more,

they were doing actually less
than other Eurozone members.

There was only one area
where we did overspend,

that was military.

We created 40 billion Euro

between '95 and 2009,

among other things,
buying submarines from Germany.

Well, we didn't need submarines,

Greece was already underwater.

(Laughter)

Look at how the debt grew from 1981

to the time that the bubble burst.

And this was driven not by domestic banks,

which did have a lot of debt
at the beginning,

but gradually, it was foreign banks,

especially French and German banks,
that got in the game,

and it was a supply driven growth of debt

from the mid '90s to the 2010's.

And then, Greece could not meet
the criteria of the Euro

and therefore they had to make it up,

they had to "cook" the books,

and they got assistance
from an American financial institution

that applied rules that Eurostat
actually approved.

It was legal!

These are the practices that are
according to the letter of the law,

but when you look at the consequences,
they're worse than crime.

These are the lawful but awful practices
that I refer to.

And then, the crisis was recognized,
and we had the IMF

and we had the European institutions
coming to apply their cure,

even though the IMF knew full well,
from the beginning,

that the debt in Greece
was not sustainable.

They went trough
violating their own rules,

because they cannot participate
in something that's unsustainable,

and applied the austerity measures

which led to massive unemployment,

cuts in public services,
health and so on.

Capital left Greece,

no foreign investment came in,

poverty and inequality grew,

depression, drug use, suicides,
all went up.

Look at just the facts.

This is the government spending,

how it goes down.

This is the unemployment that goes up
to above 25%.

Especially among those under 25,
it goes beyond 60%.

All economic classes see their income
drop substancially.

Poverty skyrockets.

Those at risk,
especially those children under six,

and young people under eighteen,
are at risk of poverty.

49% of them.

Inequality goes up,

health expenditures go down,

HIV rates move up,

suicide rises

and look at what the economy does:

it tanks 25% down.

Who wins out of this?

Of course then, people
start looking for jobs in Australia,

Europe and the United States.

But who actually
got something out of that?

The Euro we saved for a while,

the banks were bailed out,

and a German study found
that the German treasury

benefited from the Greek crisis
by 100 billion Euro,

because their borrowing costs
went very low as well.

So, if Greece defaulted completely,

Germany would only lose
90 Euro out of that,

which means that they would be better off
by at least 10 billion Euro.

Now, is this the bailout of Greece?

Really?

And a German minister said,

"Some states apparently believe
they bare no responsiblity

and are under no obligation

to participate in the joint response
to the current great challenge".

But he was not referring
to the Greek crisis,

it was the migration crisis,

about which, EU rules
got a little flexible,

because of hundred of thousands
of refugees.

But there was no flexibility
in applying EU rules

to the millions of Greeks
who were suffering under those.

So, I submit to you,

when the law produces results,

that bring about such misery,

these laws must change.

Insisting on applying the same rules,

the same projects, the same progress

that actually bring about
the opposite results from those stated,

amounts to regulatory fundamentalism.

Not among the core values
of the European project.

So, we have toxic loans,
toxic medicine, toxic mining,

toxic diesel cars, toxic media comments,

toxic political and business cultures.

So, we need some detoxification
all around.

We need to rethink, inside
and outside Greece.

While we do this,
we need to take a look at context.

What's wrong with this car?

Too many people on a badly maintained car.

A very good rule, traffic rule,
says you can't do that.

It's bad for safety, it's bad for the car,
but consider this:

These people are coming from the village
where there are no jobs,

no public transportation,

no means to buy another way
of getting from home to work

and bring some food to the table.

Not giving them a ticket,

not impounding the car,

is not because a traffic warden
is on the take,

it is because he understands.

He sympathizes.

In the same way,
you can't fight corruption

on an empty stomach.

You can't fight corruption when salaries
are below real living standards

and people are looking left and right
for solutions.

You need to prioritize,

you need to find what you do first,
what you do second,

and you need to start fixing the economy
at the same time.

Greece is not alone
in trying to fight corruption,

but all around the world, we are failing.

And there are signs about this everywhere.

People are going after
political opponents

instead of equally applying
the law to everyone.

High officials enjoy impunity

and we go after middle
and low level officials.

All kinds of metrics we use
are disappointing.

We have more bureaucracy,
more complexity in law,

more formalism over substance
and the real goals,

why we have the rules
and the processes in place,

and we even have new motives,

opportunities and incentives
to engage in corruption.

These are World Bank institutes,

metrics of governance
for the entire world.

And you can look at corruption
at the bottom right.

If you are looking at the POD's
of a patient,

that patient is dead.

Why?

No real political will,
no looking into the causes,

society at large is not participating,

you have solutions from the top,
or from outside the country.

One size fits all, therefore,
"solutions", too much law,

no strategic approach,

what we do first, what we do second,

and who has what role about these things.

We just fragment the way
in which we fight corruption

to multiple agencies,
they get in the way of each other,

and educational institutions
don't do enough

to promote a culture of integrity
and capacity in societies,

to actually have the skills
that it takes to make things different.

So, we're drilling holes in the water,
we waste resources,

everything we do is unsustainable,

and changes, wherever they are attempted,
and they are, in many many places,

they lose momentum,
credibility and legitimacy.

Here, in Greece, there is the chance,
the opportunity, right now,

to set an example of how to do things
differently and well.

But there are challenges.

And there are needs.

Greece is in the intensive care, indeed.

Long-term thinking is actually a luxury,

especially as government
is being micro-managed right now.

But we need to tackle
the humanitarian crisis.

We need to have an accurate diagnosis
of the problem, inclusive diagnosis,

which means that not just the government,
all political parties,

privet sector, civil society, media,
academics,

need to participate
in what is the problem

and what are the possible solutions.

And we need the best brains
to make the country healthy again.

You don't want to be operated
by a first-year student.

By established doctors, right?

We need some good plans
and advocacy

in the face of both regulatory
fundamentalism from outside

and resistances that we will
certainly have inside Greece.

But even though we have
a plentiful world,

Greece cannot enjoy it,
and is boosted into isolation

and blamed also from the outside.

This isolation and vulnerability
is captured well in a film,

in a scene of a film,

"Taksidi sta Cythera", a trip to Cythera,
of Aggelopoulos.

Let's take a look at it.

(Song from the soundtrack
of "Voyage to Cythera")

(Applause)

Let us not abandon Greece
and the vulnerable in the mist.

We can do better than that.

And the steps to build momentum
and credibility are right in front of you.

We need genuine political will at the top,

government and government agencies.

We need, all together, to come up
with priorities and solutions,

just as the patient going to intesive care

needs the ambulance, the ambulance driver,

the nurses, the doctors, the surgeons,
the anesthesiologist.

All of us have a different role to play,
to take care of the patient.

It is a collective action.

A challenge on how we bring
competition, transparecy

and some accountability in this place.

Some long term planning.

Small successes that lead to the next step

and where we want to be
in 5, 10, 20 years.

Simpler laws, stronger institutions
and open government.

There are already good programs in Greece,

such as "DIAVGEIA" and "ELLAK"

and I invite you to support them.

Coordinated fight against corruption

and research institutions
to build the capacity and the culture

of integrity we need.

We need accountability.

Those who actually are on the deck,
they need to be sanctioned,

but we also have to look at the positive:

Where do we have the good examples,
like the ones I mentioned?

We need to create those islands of integrity.

We monitor what we do,

we change the strategy as we go,

and yes, the one thing that people
cannot take from Greece, is hope.

Hope is there.

There are practical answers and solutions
in many countries.

Those islands of integrity you find
from Romania to Colombia,

from Indonesia to the Philippines,

from Nigeria to Venezuela.

So, together we can get
from the full catastrophe

to a rebirth of the Greek spirit.

We need solidarity, sustainable reforms,

trust in government and business,

economic growth and good governance.

Eunomia is the word.

Eunomia is a Greek word.

Let's practice it in its birthplace.

Thank you.

(Applause)