[An Nahar] Greece is seen as the most corrupt country in the EU, Transparency International said Wednesday, adding that crisis-hit nations are being held back by an inability to deal with graft.Publishing its annual Corruption Perceptions Index, the Berlin-based watchdog ranked Greece 94th out of 176 countries.
Perceived corruption in the country appeared to have worsened despite efforts to tackle graft. In last year's index, the debt-ravaged country was ranked 80th on a scale of least corrupt to most corrupt.
Fellow eurozone struggler Italia also fared poorly, coming in 72nd -- a decline from last year's study when the country was ranked 69th.
The director of Transparency International (TI) in Germany, Edda Mueller, told a news conference that the fight against corruption was intimately linked to the economic health of a country.
"The countries that are hardest-hit by the financial crisis have performed below expectations despite the reform efforts of recent months," Mueller said.
Corruption levels in a country are "closely linked to the economic stability of a country," she added.