Unless you happen to be American or Asian, there is no such thing as a 'typical' European. The reality is much more complex… and richer. But it does take time and experience to be fully aware of this reality. Its complexity comes out in practical matters like the comparative statistics for average payment terms in business transactions which vary enormously from North to South - Finnish companies have to wait three times as long if they export to Italy, for example. To some extent you see the same factor at work in the statistics for the shadow economies of Western Europe.

Some sense can be made of criminality - and of the problems facing Europe today - by considering the basic orientations of people. The first is the issue of what can be called Rules or Relationships?. Some cultures - Russia, Bulgaria and Greece, for example - are much more motivated by their loyalty to a friend than they are by 'abstract' rules and regulations. Others, in particular the Nordic and Anglo-Saxon cultures, are the opposite. Clearly this has an impact on people's attitudes towards those breaking the rules - whether by helping a friend in court, cheating financially, or indulging in what some people call 'clientelism'.

Edward Hall, an American sociologist, identified the relationship-oriented cultures - what he called the 'High Context Cultures' - with two characteristics in particular: the ability to operate more or less intuitively on 'stored knowledge' and a tendency to do things in a 'non-sequential' way. In contrast, the 'Low Context Cultures' tend to apply direct knowledge (for example by briefing themselves before meetings) and deal with issues in a predetermined and sequential way. The further southwards and eastwards we go across Europe, the more we move from Low Context to High Context cultures.

The second issue, in the context of cultural attitudes to fraud and corruption, is Transparency or Concealment?.  Again, the people of north-western Europe - the Nordics and the Anglo-Saxons - are fervent believers in transparency at all costs. This became apparent when Finland and Sweden joined the Union in 1995, the Finns in particular helping to introduce something like a 'cultural revolution' to the European Commission. Their preference for talking and tackling openly things that people further south would prefer to leave unsaid has caused a great deal of unrest in many circles.

The third issue is what can be called Conformity or Challenge?. Some cultures regard getting around the rules as a 'David and Goliath' scenario, where the individual cheater or defrauder is David and the authorities - and, by extension, the European Commission - are Goliath. Such people tend to admire the offender, either for what they perceive as his ingenuity or his courage. This attitude inevitably tends to encourage the spirit of clientelismo dear to the Italians, mirrored in the enchufe of the Spanish and the rousfeti of the Greeks.

This is not generally regarded as a problem in a well organised society like that of the Dutch, though even they and the Nordics have their 'inner circles': it's easier to great 'clubs' in small countries! Yet, perhaps prompted by their natural sense of frugality, even the Dutch can be tricky (without breaking the law) or, like some Dutch traffic policemen, responsive to bribes from speeding motorists (when they're definitely breaking it!).
 
Specialists - spokespeople, journalists and others - exposed to frequent dealing with the people from other cultures have no difficulty in observing these 'national' cultural differences at work. It is important to be aware of them without letting them become stereotypes!