Policy Briefs

In 2018 the EU and NATO and the countries from the Western Balkans have a unique chance to reinvigorate the Euro Atlantic perspective of the region. There are many areas of concern that require attention but anticorruption and good governance remain the most critical to tackling the two key risks for the Western Balkans. On the one hand, countering corruption and state capture will free the economy from the monopoly of entrenched political-economic groups and will open up space for spurring entrepreneurship and lowering unemployment. On the other hand, strengthening the rule of law and...

The President of the European Commission has announced 2025 as the target year for the next EU Enlargement in the Western Balkans. The EU would need to carefully balance the desire to provide actionable commitment for enlargement with the reality of slow progress in anticorruption. At 26% of the population, corruption levels in the Western Balkans remain high, despite the fact that EU aided efforts have resulted in a stable decline. In 2018, the European Commission is expected to introduce a reinforced Enlargement Strategy and a new Progress Monitoring Mechanism. It will seek to leverage the...

According to the authors of the policy brief, not declaring in full or partially economic activities in SEE remains widespread in virtually all areas of government – permissions and licenses, labour contracts, social security, taxes and custom duties. It signals a persistent gap between formal and informal institutions and lack of coherent enforcement of rules. Corruption pressure is higher towards those engaged in the hidden economy. At the same time their susceptibility to corruption is also higher, confirming the institutional incongruence. The immense diversity of the scale (from 19 % in...

The current policy brief presents SELDI's key findings on the manifestations, causes and impacts of the hidden economy and undeclared labour in SEE in 2016. According to the research, the hidden economy in SEE remains wide-spread, perpetuates informality, which is linked to corruption, and denotes a substantial gap between formal and informal institutions. This gap is due both to underdeveloped formal market institutions, and also to the lack of coherent enforcement of rules, often related to corruption. Those engaged in the hidden economy are more likely to face corruption pressure than the...

The policy brief analyses the energy sector governance deficits and related corruption risks. Weak democratic traditions, networks of political protectionism, economic oligarchy, and opaque business practices nurtured by corruption and links with organized crime, have been preventing the success of critical reform initiatives in the most important sectors in the Southeast Europe economy.This reasoning can apply for almost all publicly controlled sectors in SEE, but are particularly nascent in the energy sector, which has been understudied in terms of governance deficits and corruption...

The national and regional energy security of Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries has become a hot topic of discussion in the EU recently, focusing the attention of experts, policy makers, and the general public on ongoing and future energy projects but also on the features of energy governance in these countries. The interruption of gas supplies to Europe as a result of the Russian-Ukrainian pricing dispute in 2009, the continuing Russian-Ukrainian crisis after the annexation of Crimea, and the EU-Russia controversies regarding the South Stream pipeline project, as well as Gazprom’s...

Anticorruption policies have been designed and implemented exclusively at the national level with little consideration of their actual enforcement and effect in individual public organisations. Such a general approach has prevented these policies from achieving the level of sophistication achieved by interventions in other fields of public governance.A refocusing of the anticorruption effort at the level of public organisation would enhance the quality of design of policies and would allow more precise monitoring of their implementation and effect. Monitoring Anticorruption Policy...

The continuing debate about Bulgaria’s and Romania’s joining the Schengen Area, the accession of Croatia, and the enlargement negotiations with all of the rest of the region of Southeastern Europe (SEE) has sparked intense debate in the EU media on EU enlargement as a whole, and in SEE in particular. Although fears about internal migration and exploitation and pressure on the old-EU members’ welfare systems have been repeatedly proven as wrong, popular discontent with newcomers aided by media and populist politics has resulted in the freeze of further EU enlargement in SEE for the term of the...

The policy brief analyses the negative influence of the traditional energy security risks in Central and Eastern Europe and the Black Sea region, which is amplified by bad governance and state capture in the sector, and impedes the formation of a common and coherent regional energy strategy.The authors note that the Crimean crisis and the continuing instability in Eastern Ukraine have turned into a rude wake up call for Europe’s energy security vulnerabilities. Russia has demonstrated its capacity to yield political and economic influence on the countries in the CEE and the Black Sea...

In November 2014, the Southeast Leadership for Development and Integrity (SELDI) initiative presented its flagship Regional Anti-Corruption Report Anti-Corruption Reloaded: Assessment of Southeast Europe. Given the major significance of the good governance and anti-corruption issue in Southeast Europe and the prospects of the countries from the region of joining the EU, the SELDI initiative aims to contribute to promoting the civil society-state dialogue in identifying effective counter-measures and possibilities for future collaboration among all stakeholders. Western Balkans citizens and...