Organised criminal groups (OCGs) from Serbia and Montenegro play a significant role in the life of crime in the Western Balkans. When the conflict between the Montenegrin clans ‘Škaljari’ and ‘Kavač’ started in 2014, greatly impacting the Serbian criminal underworld, everyone expected a more intensive cooperation between the competent institutions of these two countries. Although the necessary international agreements were already signed, at the beginning a certain level of mistrust between the institutions prevented cooperation. In this sense, we analysed the cooperation between the police forces and the prosecutor’s offices of Serbia and Montenegro in the fight against organised crime (OC). Namely, the fight against OC occupies a high place on the political agenda of state officials of both countries. This is supported by the meetings of their ministers of interior affairs/police directors, which are held at least once a year, while operational meetings of police representatives are organised several times per year. The law enforcement authorities of Montenegro address their Serbian colleagues more frequently in connection with cases related to OC, and in that aspect it is possible to improve the cooperation between the prosecutor’s offices. To conclude, cooperation is continuous, but there are still cases whose solution depends on political will.
Key conclusion is that essential cooperation between the police and the judicial authorities is actually insufficient, as there is a lack of cooperation in the investigation phase in cases of OC, including parallel investigations.
Despite the high corruption levels, observed through SELDI’s 2021 Corruption Monitoring System (CMS), the Western Balkan countries continue to lack a coherent approach to tackling the problem. A number of institutional and legal improvements have been made in the framework of the EU accession (e.g. vetting of the justice system, increased length of sentences, linking the value of bribes and the punishment, defining subtler forms of corruption, regulation of the origin of assets of public officials, adopting conflict of interest legislation and lobbying laws). Still, the newly adopted laws and strategies, and the newly created specialised institutions are yet to bear fruit in decreasing corruption.
The current policy brief further underlines that anti-corruption plans are being implemented in an uncoordinated manner, with responsibilities being split among multiple institutions, and promotes the sharing of good practices among the Western Balkan countries.
Admirim Aliti, Minister of Information Society and Administration, North Macedonia
Belgrade, 8-9 November 2022 – “As WeBER, we have matured as of 2015 in the sense that we realised that as CSOs, we cannot speak without the voice of citizens. We drew a precious lesson from citizens’ consultations. We could be much more persuasive, and a bottom-up pressure could be created in a more effective way only if we manage to empower citizens.” With these words, Milena Lazarevic summed up the aim of the Third Regional WeBER Conference Citizens First: Better administrations through citizen consultations.The Conference held in Belgrade on 8-9 November, the same as the first one in 2018 and the second in 2021, was organised by the European Policy Centre – CEP Belgrade, WeBER Project Coordinator. In two days, the WeBER Conference brought together 51 regional and EU experts and officials and hosted more than 180 guests.
The Conference was launched by the keynote speeches of Milena Lazarevic, WeBER2.0 Team Leader and Programme Director of the European Policy Centre – CEP, Admirim Aliti, Minister of Information Society and Administration of North Macedonia, Maciej Popowski, Acting Director-General for Neighborhood and Enlargement Negotiations (DG NEAR), and Gregor Virant, Head of SIGMA/OECD.
As the conference title implies, the central topic was how to bring public administration closer to the citizens based on their own experience shared within the citizen consultations conducted at the local level across the region while using the EU’s good practice of implementing European Citizen Consultations. Gaetane Ricard-Nihoul, Deputy Head of the Unit of Citizens’ Dialogues in the European Commission, Maike Brakhan, Project Manager at the Missions Publiques, Kalypso Nicolaidis, Professor at the European University Institute and Milena Lazarevic, discussed the outcomesin a panel moderated by Corina Stratulat from European Policy Centre – EPC Brussels.
“We need to develop a vision of a pan-European system of deliberative and participatory democracy. The role of CSOs is to bring the citizens into a more inclusive, common space”, commented Nicolaidis upon Lazarevic’s presentation on experience with citizen consultations. Altogether 25 of them were conducted with the assistance of the WeBER2.0 local grantees.
Later on, Jesper Johnson, Senior Policy Analyst at SIGMA/OECD, presented the SIGMA data portal and policy simulator launched in September 2022. It involves interactive graphs and tools that allow national administrations, civil society and those supporting public governance reforms to simulate which reforms are necessary to improve the performance of public governance in the future.
The first day of the Conference was closed with breakout sessions on each area of public administration reform, where WeBER2.0 researchers presented their findings of the new PAR Monitor by the PAR area. Presentations were followed by a discussion of experts and representatives of public administration from the region.
The second day of the Conference began with two parallel sessions on public administration reform at the local level. In one of these sessions, WeBER2.0 grantees presented reports summarising the outcomes of citizen consultations. The other one, titled Cities and municipalities in Serbia in focus / Public administration reform at the local government level, involved the presentation of the findings of the research conducted by the CEP and its project’s partners in 17 cities and municipalities in Serbia as part of the Public Administration Monitoring for Better Local Governance project. Results were later discussed by representatives of municipalities and project partners, as well as Jana Belcheva Andreevska, Smart City and Digitalization Officer at the Network of Associations of Local Authorities of South-East Europe (NALAS). This panel was moderated by independent journalist and CSO expert Nenad Sebek.
Two following sessions held on the second day of the Conference were dedicated to the citizens’ personal experiences and individual stories related to public administration. In the beginning, the video recorded by local grantees (soon available online) introduced the personal stories of the citizens via short interviews. It was later reflected by panellists Tiina Randma Liiv, Professor at the Tallinn University of Technology and Maja Handjiska-Trendafilova, Director at the Regional School of Public Administration – ReSPA later.
“We should distinguish between the role of citizens versus customers. Citizens have a much broader role. They are not only customers but also service owners; that’s why they are both policy takers and policymakers”, highlighted Liiv. Handjiska-Trendafilova agreed, “Citizens should self-identify with the role of the co-creator of policies, not only with the service-user role!”
The debate was followed by introducing the study, which analysed more than 6,000 citizens’ experiences across the Western Balkans gathered through the platform citizens.par-monitor.org, as well as street actions. After Sava Mitrović, Junior Researcher (CEP) and Dragana Jaćimović, Project Associate, Institute Alternative in Podgorica, presented the analysis outcome, Florian Hauser from DG NEAR and Simonida Kacarska, Director of the European Policy Institute – EPI discussed the citizens’ (dis)satisfaction with service delivery and recommendations. Nenad Sebek also moderated these panels.
Kacarska pointed out the problem with the hierarchy structure of public administration in which the citizens are only viewed as consumers. According to her words, it creates a very unpleasant environment when utilising public services. Hauser also highlighted the problem with “crazy legislation” concerning several aspects of public services across the Western Balkans. “People in Western Balkans complain about the humiliation they feel when dealing with public service. It shouldn’t work this way; public administration is here to help them solve the problem together”, said Hauser.
Nicola Bertolini, Head of Cooperation at the EU Delegation in Belgrade, and Milena Lazarevic delivered the Conference’s closing remarks. “After 15 years in the region, I have learned that we need somebody to pick up on citizens who seem not to be mobilized, shaken or involved enough. Citizens first is a very appealing title since we must put citizens at the forefront and channel their voices and desires better. You will have our support in the process,” highlighted Bertolini during his closing speech.
The second day of the conference began with parallel sessions in which public administration reform at the local level was discussed. In one of the sessions, WeBER2.0 grantees presented the results and reports of citizen consultations. In the second parallel session, Cities and municipalities in Serbia in focus / Public administration reform at the local government level, the findings of the research conducted by the CEP in 17 cities and municipalities in Serbia as part of the Public Administration Monitoring for Better Local Governance project were presented and then discussed by representatives of municipalities, project partners, as well as Jana Belcheva Andreevska, Smart City and Digitalization Officer at the Network of Associations of Local Authorities of South-East Europe (NALAS). This panel was moderated by independent journalist and CSO expert Nenad Sebek.
Tiina Randma Liiv, Maja Handjiska-Trendafilova, Nenad Sebek
In two subsequent sessions on the second day, the Conference focused on the personal experiences and stories of the citizens themselves – firstly in the presentations of regional video with stories recorded by local grantees (which will soon be available online), discussed by Tiina Randma Liiv, Professor at the Tallinn University of Technology and Maja Handjiska-Trendafilova, Director at the Regional School of Public Administration – ReSPA. After that, the analysis of more than 5,000 experiences of citizens from the entire Western Balkans collected through the platforms citizens.par-monitor.org, as well as street actions, was presented by Sava Mitrović, Researcher (CEP) and Dragana Jaćimović, Project Associate, Alternative Institute, Montenegro. Citizens’ (dis)satisfaction with service delivery and recommendations were discussed by Florian Hauser from DG NEAR and
Simonida Kacarska, Director of the European Policy Institute – EPI. Nenad Sebek also moderated these panels.
“We should distinguish between the role of citizens versus customers. Citizens have a much broader role. They are not only customers but also the
Nicola Bertolini
owners of the services; that’s why they are policy takers and policymakers. We should distinguish between the role of citizens versus customers. Citizens have a much broader role. They are not only customers but also owners of the services; that’s why they are not only policy takers but also policymakers.”, highlighted Liiv. Handjiska-Trendafilova agrees: “Citizens should self-identify with the role of the co-creator of policies, not only with the service-user role!”
Kacarska pointed out that the problem is that “there is a hierarchy structure of public administration in which the citizens are only viewed as consumers, and that creates an unpleasant environment for them actually to use the public services”, while Hauser talked about the problem with “crazy legislations” in many aspects of public services across the Western Balkans. “People in Western Balkans complain about the humiliation they feel when dealing with public service. It shouldn’t work this way; public administration is here to help them solve their problem together”, said Hauser.
Nicola Bertolini, Head of Cooperation at the EU Delegation in Belgrade and Milena Lazarevic gave the conference’s closing remarks. Bertolini said that “democracies in the Western Balkans are still developing”, and there are still a lot of challenges. “Citizens need to be first, and we need to channel their voices better. Civil society should be very responsible – it needs to fulfil its role of representativeness. You will have our support in the process,” said Bertolini.
WeBER 2.0 project – Western Balkan Civil Society Empowerment for a Reformed Public Administration – is dedicated to strengthening participatory democracy through greater involvement of civil society in policy development and implementation of public administration reform in the Western Balkans. WeBER in Montenegro is lead by Institute Alternative and at regional level it consists of partners from Think for Europe Network, with the support of European Policy Centre (EPC) from Brussels.
Civil society organizations have become critical protagonists in the fight against organized crime and corruption. However, less than 1% out of all 100,000 registered CSOs in the Western Balkans deal with these topics. The current policy brief highlights the challenges that CSOs’ engaged in anti-corruption face, such as pressure from governments, dismissive attitude towards their policy recommendations, and even concerns for their experts’ safety. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has also affected CSOs’ financial viability since donors are revising their budgets toward new geopolitical areas and topics.
The analysis also notes that the Western Balkans represent one of the most vulnerable regions in Europe to foreign malign influence. Foreign authoritarian states, primarily Russia and China, have intensified their sharp power influence in derailing faith in liberal democracy and presenting authoritarianism as a more viable political alternative. This has been particularly evident in the process of capturing Balkan media. Kremlin has been able to gain a foothold in the Balkan media space, intimidating journalistic independence and disseminating its preferred narratives.
The European Commission has repeatedly noted the existence of state capture risks in the Western Balkans, “including links with organised crime and corruption at all levels of government and administration, as well as a strong entanglement of public and private interests”. State capture can generally be described as the institutionalisation of corrupt relations, leading to the virtual privatisation of governance. Instead of public goods, the state capture process delivers private goods systematically and permanently to captors (or privatisers) of government functions. Process-wise, state capture is the abuse of good governance rules (which includes abuse of power) in the process of drafting, adoption and enforcement of the rules themselves (including the laws) in favor of a small number of captors at the expense of society and business at large.
In 2020, SELDI piloted a comprehensive methodology for monitoring and exposing state capture vulnerabilities in the Western Balkans – the State Capture Assessment Diagnostics (SCAD) tool. The SCAD data suggests that the main challenge for the countries in the region remains in the form of state capture enablers, such as media control, corruption in the judiciary, lack of integrity of public organisations, lack of impartiality and inadequate anti-corruption procedures. Across the Western Balkans, the score for state capture enablers spans from 39 to 45 out of 100 (full state capture).
The data also reveals that although none of the countries is close to full state capture, i.e. authoritarian rule, they exhibit critical impairments in democratic and economic checks and balances. Key economic sectors such as energy, pharmaceuticals, telecommunications and construction show signs of monopolisation pressure potentially associated with state capture. The European Commission will need to pay particular attention to safeguarding competition in these sectors when implementing its economic and investment plan for the region, which aims to boost the economies while improving their competitiveness.
Gender mainstreaming of public policies is not at a satisfactory level in Montenegro, the institutional framework in this area is still flawed, and the increased legislative initiative of MPs is accompanied neither by elaborate procedures for public participation nor by a gender analysis of laws.
Our Nikoleta Pavićević pointed out the aforementioned today when she took part, on behalf of the Institute Alternative (IA), at the session of the Gender Equality Committee in the Parliament of Montenegro. At the session, experts in collaboration with the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) presented the questionnaires for examining gender mainstreaming of legislative acts along with examples of ex-post analysis of selected laws.
“Even when we have a gender mainstreamed, or partially gender mainstreamed law, it is most often the product of the transposition of European directives into our legislation. Rarely, or almost never, is a gender mainstreamed law the product of gender analysis of working groups formed by ministries to draft laws,” noted Pavićević. She added that the Department for Gender Equality Affairs still functions with four employees and that they do not have the capacity to oversee the quality of laws.
The absence of targeted, participatory, and inclusive public discussions and consultations also contributes to the weak incorporation of the gender perspective into laws and strategies. Ministries do not act proactively but fulfil what is the legal minimum – the publishing of calls for participation on the webpage of a ministry and eUprava and in one newspaper that is not particularly read. Additionally, it is concerning that out of 69 valid strategies in Montenegro, only 29 were publicly discussed, while none of the 18 ministries has published a list of acts for public discussion for 2022 – stated Pavićević at the Committee session.
Nikoleta pointed out that the process of drafting legislative solutions by MPs is even less transparent and even less inclusive compared to the process of adopting laws by the Government. “This is especially important considering that the IA analysis showed there is an increased legislative initiative of MPs this year – MPs submitted as much as 40% of the total number of laws in the Parliamentary procedure”. However, these draft laws have not been accompanied by elaborate procedures, necessary analysis of the fiscal impact and the influence on women and men. Moreover, consultations with the interested and expert public are missing.
“Therefore, we need a more (pro)active role of the Parliamentary Service in conducting extensive analysis that should precede MPs’ major decisions. We notice that the Parliamentary Institute is being more intensively relied on for the conduct of research in the area of gender equality. However, this topic remains ‘ghettoised’ and reduced only to the Gender Equality Committee, while the essence of gender mainstreaming is that it permeates all sectors and that each Committee within its competence analyses the impact on women and men,” concluded Nikoleta Pavićević at the Committee session.
You can watch the Committee session at the following link:
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The absence of targeted, participatory, and inclusive public discussions and consultations also contributes to the weak incorporation of the gender perspective into laws and strategies. Ministries do not act proactively but fulfil what is the legal minimum – the publishing of calls for participation on the webpage of a ministry and eUprava and in one newspaper that is not particularly read. Additionally, it is concerning that out of 69 valid strategies in Montenegro, only 29 were publicly discussed, while none of the 18 ministries has published a list of acts for public discussion for 2022 – stated Pavićević at the Committee session.