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Serbia finally got its Anti-Corruption Strategy, but what effects will it bring?

Government of Serbia building; Photo: WIkimedia Commons

The final version of the National Anti-Corruption Strategy for the period 2024-2028, adopted by the Government of Serbia on 25 July, indicates that the authorities have tried to formally meet the requirements of the European Union when it comes to formulations and goals, but it is not entirely clear what concrete steps will be taken to solve the “chronic” problems that exist in this domain, our interlocutors say.

It is stated that “the million question” is whether the Strategy will actually lead to a reduction of “high-level corruption” and corruption in public procurement, the troubles which the European Commission often underline in the Reports concerning the situation in this country.

The Draft Strategy was published in August 2023, and Serbia had not had a document defining the fight against corruption for more than five years. The new Strategy envisages the adoption of an Action Plan within 90 days. According to the Strategy, the basic “vision” is “to build a democratic society based on the principles of the rule of law, transparency and accountability, in which a system of integrity prevents corruption”.

The main goal is “the constant commitment of public authorities and political entities to the suppression of corruption and the efficient and consistent application and constant improvement of anti-corruption rules, timely detection and adequate punishment of corrupt behavior and raising awareness of the causes, condition and harmfulness of corruption”.

At the same time, the Strategy defines specific goals, such as improving the legal framework, raising public awareness about corruption, and offers the solutions related to the domains such as public procurement, issuing of building permits, work of inspection, customs officers, tax officials…

Nemanja Nenadić: The measures listed in the Strategy can be useful, but may not be sufficient

Evaluating the text of the Strategy, Nemanja Nenadić, Programme Director of the NGO Transparency Serbia, states for the European Western Balkans that the Ministry of Justice has made an effort to adapt the text of the Strategy to meet the requirements of the European Commission, which were visible in last year’s Progress Report.

“The text of the Strategy provides an overview of the transitional benchmarks for Chapter 23 and of the outstanding GRECO recommendations. The Strategy also mentions “high-level corruption” and the bodies charged with combating it. However, it is not clear from this document what exactly will be done. The intention is visible to make changes in the Criminal Code, the code of Criminal Procedure and the Law on organisation and jurisdiction of state authorities in combating organised crime, terrorism and corruption and to strengthen the capacities of investigative authorities. All of this can be useful, but not sufficient”, without being enough”, Nemanja Nenadić says.

He thinks that the main problem is that there is much more corruption than there are indictments or criminal charges, and that is why the purpose of reforms should be that prosecutors do not wait for anyone’s criminal charges, but to investigate, at least all these cases where not only suspicions have been publicly presented, but  also other indicators of possible corruption. Therefore, such investigations should also be carried out on the basis of detected corruption patterns.

As an example of shortcomings in the fight against corruption, Nenadić cites the recent arrest of a former State Secretary in the Ministry of Education, who is suspected of influencing educational institutions to “fix” the procurement of low-value works for one company, with each individual procurement being contracted just below the tender line (3 million dinars).

“After that, Transparency Serbia conducted an analysis of the works contracted since the beginning of the year in Serbia in the range between 2 and 4 million dinars. It turned out that about half of these contracts have a value between 2.9 and 3 million dinars, although according to the law of probability, their share should be ten times less. Any such procurement could be a reason for a new investigation, although the case should be investigated by the public procurement office even before the prosecution. It can rightly be noted that for such an approach, it would be necessary to significantly increase the number of prosecutors investigating corruption”, he points out.

Prosecutor officers must be more active

Nenadić notes that when it comes to strengthening capacities of prosecutor officers, radical changes are usually not envisioned, but rather filling the places that are still systematized, which are otherwise planned according to the existing number of cases in process

“So, we are talking over and over again- if you are looking for a more active prosecutor, they will answer that there are not enough of them, and it is not even planned to be enough of them for such a role. Also, there is another problem -measures that should eventually be implemented by the Supreme Public Prosecutor or the High Council of the Prosecutor’s Office – the Strategy adopted by the Government foresees no obligations for them, since these are bodies over which the government does not have any authority”, Nenadić stresses.

Assessing the impact of the Strategy on reducing corruption in public procurement, Nenadić points out that the Strategy states that it is necessary to prepare an analysis of the Law on public procurement and, based on the prepared analysis, improve the law in order to reduce public procurement that are excluded from the implementation of the law to a minimum.

“Analysis of the Law on public procurement may be necessary for some exceptions However, such analysis, including amendments to the Law on public procurement, cannot solve another problem – if large infrastructure works were contracted on the basis of interstate agreements, on the basis of special laws, if, as we saw at the recent session of the  Nation Assembly, even authentic interpretations of interstate agreements were used for this purpose… Proof of the intention to abandon such practice would be the decision of the  National Assembly to repeal the special laws, the decision of the Government that the negotiators of Serbia do not agree to the provisions of interstate agreements that exclude the application of the domestic law on public procurement, or at least, be obliged to explain in detail how and to what extent the possible benefits of direct contracting cover the damage that will occur due to exclusion of competition”,  Nemanja Nenadić says.

The results will also depend on the quality of the action plans

According to Nenadić, the results of the Strategy will also depend on the quality of the action plans. He points out that the experience from 2005 and 2013 teaches us that for many of the problems that were mentioned in the  Strategy, an adequate solution was not offered within the action plans, and that this danger exists even now.

“The intention is that instead of an Action Plan for the entire period of validity, they are adopted on an annual or two-year level. Last year, in addition to the Strategy, an Action Plan until the end of 2024 was presented for public debate, now it is stated that it will be adopted in 90 days. Although it is not incorrect, this approach leads to the fact that whatever is objected to at the moment is not included in the Action Plan, the answer may be that it will be done in the coming years. In general, and having in mind last year’s Action Plan proposal, the main danger lies in the fact that some activities are unnecessarily delayed and made less transparent,” Nenadić states.

He notes that that for many laws, it was planned to first do an analysis that would show what needs to be changed, and then to start the process of changes only next year.

“In many situations, this is a waste of time, because some analysis and concrete proposals for changes to regulations already exist and there is no reason not to start the process of writing changes immediately. In addition, it is very often about already existing, but not fulfilled international obligations, for example the GRECO recommendations,” Nenadić clarifies.

Nemanja Nenadić adds the Action Plan presented last year did not clearly foresee that the public would have any involvement in the preparation of the analyses.

“Unfortunately, Serbia has had very bad experiences in some similar situations before, when certain foreign or domestic experts followed the needs and opinions of the one who hired them and for whose needs the analysis is being done (for example, a Ministry), rather than being willing to record all the weaknesses that have already been observed by domestic organizations that use or monitor the implementation of this law.  Although other issues may come to the agenda during the writing, once the analysis “hits” the list of topics for amending regulations, and that list is incomplete, then in the end we can get the amended law, an assessment that the activity from the action plan has been fulfilled, and that in reality we do not have the change that we needed”, he concludes.

Siniša Janković: All clauses refer to small corruption, while political corruption is completely omitted from the Strategy

Speaking on the same topics, Siniša Janković, an anti-corruption expert from CSOs Institute for research on corruption – Kareja, tells EWB that he strongly opposes the Strategy adopted by the Serbian Government, and considers the document to be “unacceptable”.

According to Janković, the Strategy “simply does not contribute to the fight against corruption, on the contrary, it contributes to the unhindered development of corruption, especially political corruption, thus representing a national strategy for a fictitious rather than a real fight against corruption”.

“Bearing in mind the principle of “high corruption does not tolerate small corruption, all clauses of the National Strategy refer to small, street, benign or corruption available to citizens, while political corruption is completely omitted from the National Strategy. Thus, the National Strategy and the whole process around it is an example of corruption in the fight against corruption itself”, Siniša Janković believes.

Our interlocutor explains that, as a representative of a civil society organization dedicated to the fight against corruption, he was a member of the Working Group of the Ministry of Justice for drafting the National Strategy.

“I have been actively involved in the work of almost all of the about 50 meetings of the working groups. I made critical observations on all of them and pointed out from the first meeting the methodological malfunction. No objection has been accepted”, Janković remarks.

Janković adds that he also submitted his separate opinion, which the administration did not submit to all members of the Working Group, and publicly pointed to formal and substantive omissions even during the “symbolic, almost fictitious public debate made by a round table in Belgrade that was closed to the media”.

“I had the support of the Coalition for Integrity, which apart from Kareja consists of The Bureau for Social Research BIRODI and the Podrinje Anticorruption Team PAKT Loznica. We had requested that a public hearing, planned for August 2023, be postponed till September, considering that the attention of the public during the summer is at a minimum, but our proposal was not accepted, nor answered”, Janković explains.

About 200 written comments were submitted regarding the Draft Strategy

Siniša Janković stresses that the Coalition for Integrity then organised an alternative public debate, which resulted in about 200 written remarks on the proposed Draft National Strategy.

“Nothing has happened for almost a year, so even the formal conditions for further work on the National Strategy were not met. Namely, before the Government considered the draft text of the proposer’s National Strategy – The Ministry of Justice had to at least formally establish the draft text through the Working Group. This was not done, as the Working Group did not make a statement on the proposed text of the National Strategy. Therefore, The adoption of the National Strategy does not demonstrate that Serbia is on the path of a clear goal and a firm commitment to preventing and eliminating corruption to the greatest possible extent. On the contrary, it shows that everything is directed towards disabling any activity against political corruption”, Janković concludes.

This article was published as part of the project “Civil society for good governance and anti-corruption in southeast Europe: Capacity building for monitoring, advocacy and awareness-raising (SELDI)” funded by the European Union

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