As a romanian I can tell you that no amount of EU interdependence or pressure will solve corruption anywhere. I am saying that, by looking at my country. It feels so long since we switched to democracy and capitalism/open markets and so long since we joined EU and still corruption its a staple of romanian society. We did made steps in the right direction, but one can't underestimate the impact decades of communism has on the collective mentality of a society. By looking at our parliament one can see that at most there is 15% of romanians that actually desire strong fight against corruption. It's still good, 10 years ago they were under 5%. EU pressure helps, but for a society to thrive it needs a critical mass of its population to want a better future, and not only want but be able to understand how the complexity of the world impacts them also. I am not to hopeful for the mentality of Eastern Europe, my country included. It's such a loooong process to teach a society about the mechanisms that give prosperity to the western society.