BERLIN (AP) — Established democracies' efforts against public-sector corruption appear to be flagging, according to a survey released Tuesday that serves as a barometer of perceived corruption worldwide. It raised concern about developments in the United States and the impact elsewhere of U.S. funding cuts.
Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index for 2025 gave top place to Denmark, with 89 points out of 100, followed by Finland and Singapore. At the bottom were South Sudan and Somalia with nine points apiece, followed by Venezuela. The leading trio was unchanged, and the last three only in that South Sudan gained a point to draw level with Somalia.
The group said most countries are failing to keep corruption under control, with 122 out of the 182 nations and territories surveyed scoring less than 50 points. The global average last year was 42, down one point to the lowest in over a decade. Only five countries scored above 80 in the 2025 report, down from 12 a decade ago.
The report lamented that “too often, we are seeing a failure of good governance and accountable leadership.”
It also pointed to “a worrying trend of democracies seeing worsening perceived corruption.”
Among those, it pointed even to high-scoring New Zealand, down two points at 81, and Sweden, unchanged on 80; as well as Canada, the United Kingdom, France and the United States, which scored 75, 70, 66 and 64 points respectively.
The U.S. was down one point from 2024 for its worst showing yet under the methodology Transparency started using for its global ranking in 2012, putting it in 29th place in the first year of President Donald Trump's second term.
“While the data has yet to fully reflect developments in 2025, the use of public office to target and restrict independent voices such as NGOs and journalists, the normalization of conflicted and transactional politics, the politicization of prosecutorial decision making, and actions that undermine judicial independence, among many others, all send a dangerous signal that corrupt practices are acceptable,” the report said.
Transparency International also argued that the U.S. decision "to temporarily freeze and then degrade enforcement of its Foreign Corrupt Practices Act ... sends a dangerous signal that bribery and other corrupt practices are acceptable."
Trump said a year ago, when he froze enforcement of the 1977 law that prohibits people or companies operating in the U.S. from giving money or gifts to foreign officials to win or retain deals in those countries, that “it sounds good on paper but in practicality, it's a disaster.” To its detractors, the act has unfairly hobbled American companies while foreign rivals swoop in.
Separately, Transparency said that "U.S. aid cuts to funding for overseas civil society groups that scrutinize their governments has undermined anti-corruption efforts around the world.” It contended that “political leaders in various countries have also taken this as a cue to further target and restrict independent voices, such as NGOs and journalists.”
The organization measures experts' perception of public-sector corruption around the world according to 13 data sources, including the World Bank, the World Economic Forum and private risk and consulting companies.
Fifty countries' scores have declined significantly since 2012, it said — with Hungary, now on 40 points; Turkey, on 31; and Nicaragua, on 14, among the biggest fallers.
At the same time, it said 31 countries have improved significantly, highlighting Estonia (76 points), the Seychelles (68) and South Korea (63).
Russia remained close to the bottom of the index with an unchanged score of 22, with Transparency International citing "fully centralized, opaque governance that suppresses media, civil society and political opposition."
Nearly four years into Russia's full-scale invasion, Ukraine was up one point at 36 after an energy-sector corruption scandal forced high-level resignations. Transparency said that civil-society mobilization protected key anti-corruption institutions and investigations were increased, though “further reforms are needed to protect defense and reconstruction funds from misuse.”
FILE - A government supporter holds a sign with a message that reads in Spanish: "In unity against corruption", during a rally against corruption, in Caracas, Venezuela, Saturday, March 25, 2023. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix, File)
VERNON, France (AP) — In a tightly controlled manufacturing hangar west of Paris, workers put the finishing touches on an enormous silver-colored engine. In just a few days, a similar machine will help propel the most powerful version of Europe’s Ariane 6 rocket yet, flying for the first time with four boosters.
On Thursday, the Ariane 64 rocket — named after its four boosters — is scheduled to make its maiden launch from the European spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, aiming to deploy 32 satellites for Amazon Leo’s broadband constellation.
The flagship of Europe’s rocket industry is racing in a highly competitive environment against heavy weight players across the world, including the global market leader, Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
At ArianeGroup’s plant in Vernon, engineers design, integrate and test engines for the European heavy-lift launcher. At another site west of Paris, in Les Mureaux, the rocket’s main stage components are being carefully built and assembled.
Associated Press journalists were provided rare access to facilities placed under strict security and confidentiality rules where teams of highly-specialized workers make from space conquest a daily reality.
“It’s a special launch — something new for us on Ariane 6,” ArianeGroup Chief Technical Officer Hervé Gilibert said. This flight marks the debut of the four-booster configuration, making the rocket roughly twice as powerful as the version flown since 2024, he said.
“Don’t be surprised if you see it accelerate much more than Ariane 62, the version we have already launched five times,” Gilibert said. “It delivers significantly more power, allowing much heavier payloads to be sent into space.”
The launcher, its engines and avionics are built across Europe as 13 nations, members of the European Space Agency, agreed to cooperate and finance the Ariane 6 program.
“We are working with more than 600 subcontractors,” Gilibert said. “Everything comes together at two main sites — Bremen in Germany for the upper stage, and Les Mureaux in France for the lower, or main stage of the launcher.”
Ahead of Thursday’s launch, all components have crossed the Atlantic to French Guiana for final assembly. The rocket stands about 62 meters (203 feet) tall, roughly the height of a 20-story building.
“We check everything until the very last minute, and then we fly,” Gilibert said.
Once airborne, the mission will last about one hour and 50 minutes — nearly a full orbit around Earth — before the satellites are deployed in pairs from the top of the rocket. Amazon Leo’s constellation is intended to compete with SpaceX’s thousands of Starlink satellites.
The Vulcain 2.1 engine built at Vernon ignites first at liftoff.
“For a few seconds, we verify that it is functioning properly,” said Emmanuel Viallon, director of the Vernon site. “Once we are fully confident it will operate correctly for the eight minutes that follow, we ignite the solid boosters and the rocket lifts off.”
The four boosters help propel the rocket at launch, consuming 142,000 kilograms (313,056 pounds) of solid propellant in just over two minutes until they burn out.
Ariane 6, through both its launcher and engines, was designed to halve operating costs compared with its predecessor, Viallon said. Ariane 5 was last launched in 2023, concluding a program that began in the late 1970s to give Europe independent access to space.
Engines produced in Vernon are tested on site under near-real launch conditions. Deep in the surrounding forest, reinforced structures hold the engines in place as they fire at full power, while test teams operate from underground control rooms.
Laurence, the engine firing test director at Vernon, said the full testing cycle takes two to three weeks, before the engines return to the assembly facility for final adjustments. Laurence’s last name was not disclosed for security reasons.
For the team, each launch “is always a joy, it’s always very intense,” she said. “When an engine arrives here, those are really important moments for the team. And then, seeing that the launch goes well ... that brings a great deal of gratitude.”
At Les Mureaux facility, engineers have started preparing rocket components for upcoming missions. Huge white cylinders lie horizontally to form the rocket’s main stage that is 5.4 meters (17.7 feet) wide including tanks for supercooled hydrogen and oxygen that will feed the Vulcain engine.
Caroline Arnoux, business unit director at ArianeGroup, said seven to eight launches are planned this year.
“We have a very strong order book, equivalent to about 30 launches,” Arnoux said. “Roughly one-third are institutional missions and two-thirds commercial. And our commercial customers are all waiting for the Ariane 64 version, which will be extremely important in the coming years.”
Ariane 64 "is an additional level of performance," Hermann Ludwig Moeller, director of the European Space Policy Institute, said. “In itself, this is an important step in the whole program, hoping to demonstrate that this configuration works as reliably as Ariane 6 has been working so far.”
The rocket’s institutional missions last year included launches of a French military reconnaissance satellite, a weather satellite, and EU-sponsored Earth-observation radar and navigation satellites.
Moeller argued there can hardly be any comparison with SpaceX, which dominates the sector with its reusable rocket model.
SpaceX “builds the rockets, builds the satellites and also sells the service” while Europe operates under a different industrial setup with separate companies responsible for launchers, satellite manufacturing and satellite operations, he said.
For Ariane 6, a key challenge will be diversifying its European customer base, which could involve a system of European preference for government missions and further development of commercial markets across the continent, Moeller argued.
Independent access to space remains the core objective of the program to “allow Europe to meet its own needs,” stressed Arnaud Demay, the Ariane 6 project manager.
ArianeGroup is also preparing for the future, working "on key technology bricks ... to enable the reuse of certain launcher components. Ideally, we would like to be able to reuse an entire stage, including the engines that powered its liftoff,” Demay said.
Demay confided he almost always cries with emotion at seeing the rocket lifting off.
“We do it so rarely, and it's so majestic when it takes off: that little touch of magic inevitably overwhelms me with emotion every time,” he said.
Nicolas Garriga contributed to this report.
A Vulcain 2.1 engine that powers the Ariane 64 rocket is seen at the ArianeGroup's plant in Vernon, west of Paris, Wednesday, Feb. 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)
A partial view of assembly line of the Ariane 64 rocket, in Les Mureaux, west of Paris, Wednesday, Feb. 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)
A partial view of assembly line of the Ariane 64 rocket, in Les Mureaux, west of Paris, Wednesday, Feb. 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)
ArianeGroup Chief Technical Officer Hervé Gilibert talks to the Associated Press, in Paris, Wednesday, Feb. 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)
A mechanic works on the Vulcain 2.1 engine that powers the Ariane 64 rocket, at the ArianeGroup's plant in Vernon, west of Paris, Wednesday, Feb. 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)
