The powerful smell of corruption

Today´s Anti-Corruption Summit brought together a few political leaders and some NGOs. 

David Cameron, the convener of the meeting, says the gathering has been a success. I would not go that far. He might have obtained some domestic gains out of it, I would not dispute that. However, I would also add the summit was simply one more step towards a more transparent international order. 

But we are still far away from the goal. It would be a serious mistake to try to fool ourselves about this. Many countries are led by extremely corrupt political elites. Those elites might have paid some attention to the final communiqué of today´s meeting. They will keep a close eye on the implementation of the conclusions. But they know they have many alternatives besides London. Including in other parts of Europe, of course.