The need to attract foreigners is deemed as a priority given that Serbia is traversing an economic growth phase, with GDP projected to increase between 3% and 4% in the next years, and at the same time dealing with a rapidly ageing population. This evidence seems to motivate the Government as well, with high officials highlighting the need to import as much labour as possible from other regions of the world in the coming years. Welcoming foreigners, however, can go far beyond economic progress, and initiate a process of mutual exchange of resources, good practices, skills and diverse cultural perspectives between Serbia and the rest of the globe. Ultimately, in a world faced by unprecedented environmental, geopolitical and economic crises, building international connections is one of the ways forward.

Članak A Place to Call Home? Addressing foreign nationals’ challenges to entering, residing and working in Serbia se pojavljuje prvo na European Policy Centre.

Članak PAR Monitoring and Coordination: What space for civil society to influence? se pojavljuje prvo na European Policy Centre.

Does the new Law on Public Information and Media enable the improvement of the labour law status of journalists? What awaits us in terms of the transparency of spending public funds? How will the new Law on Electronic Media affect the future composition and functioning of REM? How does the new law limit official campaigns? What remains controversial, and what parts of civil society objected to the new laws?

Find out in the new CEP infographic.

You can download the infographic here.

Članak New media laws 2023: The new rules of the game se pojavljuje prvo na European Policy Centre.

At the 15th BRICS summit in August 2023, the BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) announced plans to expand their membership by inviting six nations to join as official members. This move means that when Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, join the bloc with full membership in January 2024, BRICS will represent about 46.5% of the global population and about a third of the global GDP.

The expansion will likely aid BRICS’ legitimacy as a representative and inclusive institution. However, it also makes an organisation that has already been criticised for being a varied, miscellaneous collection of member-states, even more heterogeneous, adding new regional dynamics, political governance structures, development stages, and economic specialisations to the mix. The expansion thus has considerable implications for the governance, efficacy, and character of BRICS as an international institution.

Meanwhile, scholars and analysts have situated the existence of BRICS in the context of a global political power contest between Russia, China, and the US. This struggle takes place within a Western-led world order that many developing countries also perceive as institutionally excluding the voices and interests of the global South, particularly in the sphere of economic development. The expansion of BRICS, and the subsequent effects it has on the organisation’s competence, is, therefore, a significant development in international politics, even if it is not the watershed for a multipolar world order that some have been hoping for.

This paper aims to track the international context behind the BRICS challenge to Western organisations, discuss the potential geopolitical consequences of a BRICS expansion in the context of a Russian power play, and consider the implications for Serbia’s global positioning.

Članak Uncharted Waters: The BRICS Expansion and Implications se pojavljuje prvo na European Policy Centre.

Public administration reform (PAR), as an integral part of the first cluster, is one of the fundamental conditions on the way to the EU membership. In the Western Balkans region, this reform has been assessed for years through the lenses of the SIGMA Principles of Public Administration, developed by OECD/SIGMA and endorsed by the EU.

These Principles define what makes a well-functioning administration in terms of its ability to deliver transparent, efficient and effective services to citizens and to support socio-economic development. In the context of high external pressure for tangible developments in PAR, homegrown demand for better administration becomes even more important to keep pressuring the government to pursue reforms once the external conditionality dissipates as a result of a completed EU accession process. Civil society actors, with local knowledge of the administration’s functioning, can lead such domestic advocacy efforts aimed at better administration. Independent PAR monitoring and evidence-based dialogue with the government represent a good approach to achieving this goal.

Based on such a rationale, the WeBER project has completed the third PAR monitoring cycle for 2021/2022. The structured, evidence-based approach, as in the previous two monitoring cycles, particularly focuses on PAR aspects with the highest relevance to civil society and to the public. WeBER PAR monitoring strongly relies on the strengths, skills, and local knowledge of the civil society in the Western Balkans. It builds on SIGMA’s Principles of Public Administration as a cornerstone of PAR, while assessing them from the standpoint of an independently produced PAR Monitor methodology. Overall, the methodology, slightly revised using the lessons learned in the first monitoring cycle, is based on the selection of 22 SIGMA principles within six key PAR areas, monitored and reported through 23 compound indicators.

The third monitoring cycle also represents the last edition of the PAR Monitor in accordance with the existing framework of the SIGMA Principles from 2014, modified in 2017, since the process of revision of the Principles is ongoing. Therefore, the next, fourth monitoring cycle will be based on the modified PAR Monitor methodology, aligned with the new SIGMA framework, given that it represents the basis of the WeBER approach to PAR monitoring in the Western Balkans region. The design of all WeBER indicators enables comparisons between the administrations in the Western Balkans and allows for regional comparability of results.

In addition to the methodology, the PAR Monitor package comprises a comparative monitoring report for the entire WB region as well as six reports which elaborate on detailed findings for each administration. This report provides the results of the third monitoring cycle for Serbia, including a set of actionable recommendations.

Članak National PAR Monitor 2021/2022 se pojavljuje prvo na European Policy Centre.

The PAR Monitor 2021/2022 is the result of monitoring work performed during 2022 by the Think for Europe Network, and it represents a compilation report of all the key findings for the entire Western Balkan region in six areas of PAR defined by the SIGMA Principles of Public Administration. Furthermore, as the third systematic PAR monitoring in the region by civil society, this report offers benchmarking between WB administrations and comparison with the baseline 2017/2018, and 2019/2020 monitoring cycles.

PAR Monitor reports are based on a comprehensive methodological framework designed by the WeBER research team, combining quantitative and qualitative evidence sources. With the EU-SIGMA Principles as the building blocks of monitoring work, PAR Monitor reports complement the same type of work of the SIGMA/OECD and the European Commission and offer citizen and civil society perspectives on these Principles. Together with this comparative regional report, the PAR Monitor package consists of six national reports, each including findings on the 23 compound indicators to monitor a selection of SIGMA Principles.In

line with the WeBER mission, these monitoring exercises are driven by the necessity to strengthen domestic, bottom-up pressure for PAR from the civil society in the region, especially from the view of keeping demand for this reform ongoing in the event of loosening of the EU’s conditionality in PAR domain eventually. All findings from this report, PAR Monitor 2019/2020, and the baseline PAR Monitor 2017/2018 can be accessed and compared via the Regional PAR Scoreboard.

Članak Western Balkan PAR Monitor 2021/2022 se pojavljuje prvo na European Policy Centre.

Yet, it is doubtful whether the Commission’s monitoring and assessment mechanisms are effective enough to allow it to act in the expected capacity. In practice, the Council has frequently disregarded or decided not to follow up on the Commission’s recommendations based on these reports. This is largely due to the fact that member states continue to demonstrate a notable level of mistrust when it comes to the Commission’s approach to reform monitoring and assessment. Such an inter-institutional rift in the EU sends inconsistent and even conflicting messages to (potential) candidates, thus undermining the credibility of the enlargement policy and discouraging domestic reform processes.

The 2020 Revised enlargement methodology (REM) was announced as a game-changer in terms of how assessment and monitoring are conducted, as the Commission took upon itself to increase the use of third-party indicators. Three years later, however, the Commission’s approach has remained largely unchanged. While clusterisation of chapters was introduced to simplify and streamline the negotiating process, most other elements of the REM have remained only ideas on paper, without proper operationalisation. As a result, countries in the region continue to stall with reforms on their path to the EU, prompting civil society organisations to actively and repeatedly call for more consistent and evidence-based monitoring and assessment, in order to render the annual reports more objective, accurate, impartial, verifiable, and comparable. It is, therefore, crucial to improve the Commission’s approach to tracking reforms and ensure greater credibility of its reports, especially in face of geopolitical turbulence in and surrounding Europe. This paper explores how the Commission’s approach can be improved, reviews several civil-society-led reform monitoring initiatives, and proposes a way forward with greater utilisation of their results as objective third party indicators in line with the REM.

Članak Monitoring reforms in the EU accession process: A Western Balkan civil society contribution se pojavljuje prvo na European Policy Centre.

The state administration has been reforming for almost two decades, since 2004. With the adoption of the new strategic framework in 2021, it seems that the reform has gained a new momentum, with a greater orientation towards citizens and the economy.1 Not stopping at such a generally defined goal, the Public Administration Reform (PAR) Strategy offers an even more specific commitment towards the administration as a customer centre, that provides user-oriented services that are reasonably priced, while taking care of minority and vulnerable groups.

Despite such a far-reaching goal, the available data indicate that there is still a lack of sensibility of the administration for the needs of the citizens, especially for the vulnerable and endangered. Also, the data points to the uneven accessibility of jobs positions in the state administration – an aspect that the PAR Strategy does not deal with. If all citizens do not get the opportunity to access services, information and public facilities, not only the success of the PAR is put into question, but also the existence of an inclusive society and the exercise of human rights. Likewise, enabling persons belonging to vulnerable groups to get a job in the civil service, i.e., state administration bodies, should be one of the ways in which the reform can contribute to greater accessibility of the administration to everyone, within the broader social aspirations to reduce discrimination and respect different social needs.

Numerous international obligations and regulations of the Republic of Serbia require equal access and treatment of all persons who perform business with public authorities. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, to which Serbia is a signatory, unequivocally stipulates that states provide equal access to institutions and services intended for the public, that is, promote the possibility of employment, including in the public sector.4 Also, according to the current legislation in Serbia, everyone has the right to equal access and equal protection of rights before courts and public authorities, and any discriminatory behaviour by a public official in a public authority is prohibited.5 In addition, employers in the public sector are obligated to provide equal employment opportunities for employment regardless of sex, gender and family status, while paying due attention to the equality of vulnerable social groups. It is particularly important to emphasise that discrimination against persons with disabilities before a public authority is considered to be administrative conduct that prevents or hinders the realisation of rights, as well as that discrimination regarding the availability of services and access to facilities in public use is prohibited.

Although PAR in Serbia is not only a long-term, but also a continuous development process that needs to be constantly adapted to new circumstances, it cannot yet be said that, as a result of this reform, we are closer to the aforementioned normative principles or dispositions, at least when it comes to the accessibility of state administration. This brief presents some of the problems with access to services, facilities, and jobs of the state administration, based on data from the WeBER PAR Monitor 2021/2022, the Commissioner for the Protection of Equality, and other relevant sources.

Članak State administration in Serbia: A thorny road to equal opportunities and access for all se pojavljuje prvo na European Policy Centre.

Accessibility is considered a priority in a modern-day state administration. As an important precondition for achieving broader societal goals of social inclusion and welfare, accessibility has also become a clear-cut administration issue.

Rising demands for accessible administrations – services, building, workplaces – but also for more equitable opportunities for getting jobs, including civil service employment, result from the fast-paced socio-economic and technological changes, which in turn require to accommodate as many needs of the population as possible. The COVID-19 pandemic outbreak is only one, but largely important example of how suddenly such needs for fast adaptations occur.

On their EU accession path, the countries in the Western Balkan region must demonstrate that basic accessibility principles are sufficiently secured, as part of a broader, but fundamental public administration reform. According to international assessments that measure the compliance with such principles, the work is far from done – the legislative and policy frameworks are in place, the digital services accelerated, but mechanisms for improving the accessibility of services are weak across the region. The results of the surveys of civil servants and civil society organisations (CSO) implemented by the WeBER initiative, analysed in this brief, tell a similar story of weak guarantees for accessibility of state administrations. Specifically, their reflections on the opportunities for accessing civil service jobs, workplaces, facilities, and services, indicate that those most vulnerable have fewer chances and struggle the most.

Measuring perceptions has its limitations, from sampling errors, bias, to difficulties in capturing nuances. Also, survey results are largely affected by respondents’ motivation and availability to participate. As such, they should be interpreted with caution and used as a stimulus for further research. However, civil servants and CSOs are among the key actors from whom to obtain feedback regarding the application of the accessibility principle in practice. This is due to their respective roles as service and information providers to the public, in case of the former, and active participants in public affairs, especially as voluntary service providers to different population categories, in case of the latter.  Perception data alone cannot be used to remedy policy implementation but can additionally help to spotlight potential gaps. If legal and policy mechanisms largely fail to achieve their intended purpose, which is to allow unrestricted access to administration, it results not only in a waste of resources but also in the deprivation of different societal groups of their fundamental rights.

Članak Accessibility and Equal Opportunities in State Administrations in the WB: What Civil Servants and Civil Society Actors Have to Say? se pojavljuje prvo na European Policy Centre.

Political influence on public administration is as old as administration itself. Given that civil servants are the ones who implement government policies, having control over them means controlling the institutions that execute political power and implement policies. This control also opens opportunities for rewarding loyalists and achieving political interests.
When reduced to a minimum, such political manoeuvre is less likely to have a lasting impact on an administration’s functioning, but when it becomes overwhelming, a state apparatus can be completely captured by transient political actors, in the service of interests other than public.

For a modern democracy, seeking to join the EU, professional and depoliticised civil service is necessary, not only for the sake of fulfilling membership conditions, but to enable society to achieve its socio-economic development potentials, and citizens to exercise their rights. In Serbia, however, international organisations and domestic civil society have reported on the issue of civil service politicisation since the start of democratic transition two decades ago. Still, the depoliticisation process, exceptionally prominent when it comes to the top echelon of the state administration senior civil service (SCS), has gone unaccomplished to the present day.

There are at least three inter-connected aspects of the SCS politicisation. First, acting senior civil servants, appointed temporarily until the right candidate is selected in the competition procedure, have become a regular instead of a temporary solution for filling in managerial positions, eliminating the principle of merit for recruitment.

Second, the very process of appointment of acting managers has become heavily compromised by frequent extensions of acting periods, beyond legal limits, constituting a perpetuated rule of law violation. Finally, even when competition procedures for SCS positions are implemented, there are additional and completely obscure political vetting procedures, due to which candidates proposed in the legal process often do not get appointed by the Government.

Since public administration reform belongs to the fundamental negotiation cluster that the EU microscopically observes, SCS politicisation has become an obstacle on Serbia’s EU path over the years. However, a more severe consequence is that, by politically controlling the administration, the Government makes decisions and policies at the expense of rule of law. Altogether, these bring forward principal concern that if politics does not let the civil service be, Serbia will simply entrench in weak institutions in an unforeseeable future, unable to unlock country’s development potential and improve citizens’ quality of life.

Članak The Neverending story of senior civil service depoliticisation in Serbia se pojavljuje prvo na European Policy Centre.

At the centre of the monitoring of public administration reform (PAR), there are topics that are of primary interest to citizens and civil society. One of them, which pervades practically all areas of PAR and on which the quality of implemented reforms can depend to a significant extent, is certainly transparency.

Transparency implies that the goals of public policies, their legal, institutional and economic framework, as well as political decisions and all related data and information are delivered to the public in an understandable, accessible and timely manner.2 Relying on this understanding of transparency and the OECD/SIGMA Principles of Public Administration, the WeBER PAR Monitor methodology for monitoring PAR in the Western Balkans largely integrates the principle of transparency as one of the central components of good governance.

The importance of transparency can be viewed from several perspectives. In the first place, transparency enables citizens to be fully aware of their rights and to fulfil their obligations timely and efficiently. It is also important for the smooth functioning of the market, i.e., so that economic actors can conduct their business in a free and competitive atmosphere. In connection with the previous, full transparency that enables public oversight of the administration narrows the space for corruption, which is of vital interest to both citizens and the economy. Finally, PAR is an area of fundamental importance for the process of accession of the Western Balkan countries to the European Union, side by side with the rule of law and the functioning of democratic institutions.

The aim of this brief is to show the state of transparency in various areas of the PAR, draw attention to numerous weaknesses, but also present examples of good practice, when PAR transparency in the region is in question, based on the findings of the last monitoring cycle in the Western Balkans region carried out in 2022.4 Starting with public policies that are still developed behind closed doors, through insufficiently transparent human resources management and limited proactivity in informing the public, all the way to the issue of providing services, reporting on the budget and public procurement, shortcomings in transparency were pointed out, which permeate each PAR area and represent the problem of all countries in the region.

Članak Transparency of public administration reform in the Western Balkans: Numerous shortcomings and limited examples of good practice in the region se pojavljuje prvo na European Policy Centre.

This report presents the results of the latest WeBER public perception survey, implemented in the entire Western Balkan region in May 2022. Additionally, the report draws main comparisons with the same survey implemented in 2020, shortly after the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic, and informs about the main changes in public perceptions regarding administrative service provision in the last two years.

Članak Citizens still steadily in favour of government service provision practices: Third public perception survey in the Western Balkans se pojavljuje prvo na European Policy Centre.