Alongside the rule of law reports for EU member states, the European Commission, for the first time in July this year, also published similar reports for four Western Balkan candidate countries that have made the most progress in the negotiation process – Albania, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia. According to the European Commission, their inclusion will support these countries’ reform efforts to achieve irreversible progress on democracy and the rule of law ahead of accession, and to guarantee that high standards will continue after accession.
Reports for Western Balkan countries were prepared using the same methodology as for EU member states. European Commission report takes stock of the rule of law situation assessing in a structured and rigorous way significant national developments, both positive and negative, in four areas: justice, anti-corruption, media pluralism and freedom; and institutional checks and balances.
A particularly problematic area in these reports is the fight against corruption. Although the four countries have been in the EU accession process for a long time, the findings show a lack of effective fight against corruption and prosecuting high-level cases, insufficient implementation of existing laws, and a need to improve the capacity of institutions responsible for combating corruption.
Daniela Mineva, Senior Analyst at Center for the Study of Democracy (CSD), agrees that EC reports for all candidate countries generally show insufficient progress in combating corruption, despite some of the candidate countries being in the negotiation process for many years.
She believes that the EU should change its approach concerning the fight against corruption and should go beyond potential monetary loses and the frequency of corruption cases.
“The Rule of Law reports should be expanded beyond four limited topics of judiciary, anti-corruption measures, media pluralism, and institutional check and balances. They could also cover the topics of strategic corruption, state capture, and the links between corruption, money laundering and organized crime”, says Mineva.
Responding to the question about the biggest advantages of this type of reporting about the rule of law, Mineva believes that the main possible future advantage would be if the Rule of Law reports turn into a real accountability (meaning also – sanctioning) tool for both EU member states and EU candidate countries.
“As we have seen with the example of Hungary, Poland, Slovakia – EU membership is no guarantee that the rule of law will be upheld. Thus, stronger checks and balances are needed for non-compliant countries. Freezing the EU funds and the EU sanctions are a step in the right direction”, Mineva assess.
She adds that, building on the example of the impactful US Global Magnitsky Act, a targeted anti-corruption regime within the EU and its neighbourhoods would be critical.
“The current absence of such a regime in the EU allows corrupt individuals and entities, barred from US markets due to sanctions, to exploit the European market and currency for illicit activities. This not only poses a significant reputational risk for the EU but also jeopardises the efficiency of its economy and single market”, says CSD’s Senior Analyst.
Asked whether the EC’s report for Bulgaria improved the situation in the country regarding fight against corruption, Mineva says that state capture has become a pervasive practice that continues to spread uncontrollably across all public institutions, which is the reason why there reports have not led to any improvements.
“As the SELDI policy brief “The State of Capture: Тhe Elusive Quest for Anti-Corruption Results” highlights, the Government of Bulgaria continues to pilot its anti-corruption plane blind. While national and international efforts have yielded numerous policy and practical innovations for tackling corruption, a government system for measuring and monitoring corruption risks is still lacking. Any solid anti-corruption policy – especially one prioritising prevention – requires the most comprehensive picture possible of the social context in which corruption originates”, Daniela Mineva concludes.
Albania: Corruption is prevalent in many areas, including during electoral campaigns
According to the report for Albania, corruption still risks seem to exist in the health, education, property sectors and within the police. Internal checks and inspection mechanisms in the public administration are weak and ineffective, while the digitalization measures helped to tackle petty corruption but did not address major issues in internal administrative processes.
“Overall, corruption is prevalent in many areas, including during electoral campaigns, with preventive measures suffering from an overly complex legal framework and continuing to have limited impact in vulnerable sectors” says the EC report for Albania, adding that misuse of state sources during electoral campaign is also an area of concern.
It is noted that a new Anti-Corruption Strategy for 2024-2030 is being prepared, while the legal framework to fight corruption is broadly in place.According to the EC, the number of persons investigated, prosecuted, and convicted for corruption offences has been increasing over the past three years, whereas a recent amnesty law raises concerns. It is added that the systematic use of financial investigations and asset confiscations has improved, though limitations in scope limit their impact.
“Coordination between institutions in charge of corruption prevention and relevant law enforcement structures remains weak. While declarations of assets are verified by the High Inspectorate for the Declaration and Audit of Assets and Conflicts of Interest, some shortcomings exist in terms of its mandate and human resources. Overall, corruption is prevalent in many areas, including during electoral campaigns. Preventive measures suffer from an overly complex legal framework and continue to have a limited impact, particularly in vulnerable sectors”, says EC.
North Macedonia: Anti-Corruption Strategy in place, its implementation lags behind
In its report for North Macedonia, European Commission states that high risk of corruption remains prevalent in many areas. It is noted that recent amendments to the Criminal Code weakened the legal framework, negatively affecting the prosecution of corruption, especially in high-level corruption cases.
“Some of these amendments, which are on corruption-related criminal offences, raise concern since they reduce the maximum penalties for specific corruption-related crimes such as criminal association and abuse of office, have implications on the statute of limitations and the applicable criminal procedures, and remove from the Criminal Code a specific category of offences, notably abuse of office in public procurement”, says the European Commission.
European Commission noted that there is a resource constraints and a lack of cooperation between national authorities hamper the effective prosecution of corruption and hinder the establishment of a robust track-record of high-level corruption cases.
It is added that high risk of corruption remains with public procurement and public sector employment.
“Overall, anti-corruption measures continue to have limited impact in particularly vulnerable sectors. A systematic approach in tackling corruption to address the common denominators of the risk factors is lacking. These denominators include strong political influence in the public sector; low rate of sanctioning corruptive behaviour; inconsistent regulations; low level of enforcement of integrity measures; insufficient transparency, oversight system and control mechanisms in the public sector”, says European Commission.
Montenegro: The track-record of investigation of high-level corruption stable, lack of trials and final decisions
According to the European Commission report, the Special Prosecution Office (SPO) has significantly improved its performance over the past years, although its human resources are insufficient to cope with its workload.
EC noted that over the last two years, the Special Prosecution Office acted promptly in several high-profile cases that appear to point to a deep infiltration of corruption and organised criminality within State structures, including at the top level of the judiciary and law enforcement
“The track record of investigations and prosecutions in cases of high-level corruption is stable. By contrast, the track record of trials and final decisions is almost non-existent, contributing to a perception of impunity, which in turn hampers deterrence”, says EC.
It is noted that the Agency for prevention of corruption has experienced a surge in the number of income and assets declarations and issued a large number of opinions on incompatibility of functions and conflict of interests.
European Commission adds that the new 2024-2028 Anticorruption Strategy identifies the following areas as the most vulnerable to corruption: the judiciary, the police and customs administration, environment, urban planning, public procurement, local self-government, and state-owned enterprises.
Serbia: Public procurement is a high risk corruption area
In the report for Serbia, European Commission assess that the legal framework for the fight against corruption is broadly in place, adding that shortcomings exist in practice. While most forms of corruption are criminalised, further improvements are needed in Serbia for establishing a robust track record on investigation, indictments and final convictions in high-level corruption.
“The Prosecutor’s Office for Organised Crime remains understaffed and there is the risk of politically motivated interference into high-level corruption investigations and prosecutions”, says EC.
It is noted that there is a risk risk of politically motivated interference into high-level corruption investigations and prosecutions although new safeguards have been introduced.
“In this context, civil society organisations highlighted in particular reluctance on the side of the prosecution and the police to pursue investigations against suspects of corruption who are close to political and economic power as a concern. There has been a case, where investigating prosecutors of the Higher Public Prosecution Office were removed from a corruption and money-laundering case concerning a state-owned enterprise and transferred to the General Crime Department in Belgrade, with reportedly insufficient justification. Their removal from the case led to widespread criticism”, it is said in a European Commission report of Serbia.
When it comes to the public procurement, European Commission assess that there is high-risk corruption i this area. It is assessed that a positive step was made with the repeal of the Law on special procedures for linear infrastructure projects, which seriously undermined the effective implementation of the Law on public procurement.
“However, challenges exist in ensuring that exemptions from the Law on public procurement are in line with the EU acquis, in particular in the context of intergovernmental agreements114 . Other areas of particular risk to corruption include state-owned enterprises, concessions, bankruptcy proceedings and public private partnerships”, it is added.
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