Public administration reforms (PAR) have been implemented in the Western Balkans for over a decade now, with varying degrees of success. Since 2014, PAR is acknowledged as one of the fundamental areas of reform on any country’s path to EU membership and a set of principles was prepared for the accession countries to follow and comply with in this area in order to become successful EU member states.

European Policy Centre – CEP, as the National Researcher of the Independent Reporting Mechanism (IRM) under the Open Government Partnership (OGP), has made Serbia Progress Report for 2016-17 period.

*This paper was submitted to the call for papers on “What if the Balkans Never becomes Part of the EU?” and presented at the Belgrade Security Forum 2017.

Serbia received the European Commission’s annual report as a country negotiating the EU accession (since 2014), with four chapters of the acquis communautaire already open, and two more under preparation for opening at the time. In general terms, the Commission’s tone was “between positive and neutral,” and, despite the anticipation resulting from the changes in reporting methodology, it brought no major surprises.

Even though the EU is the largest single donor in Serbia since 2000, the majority of Serbian citizens are not aware of that fact, and more than two thirds have never heard of any EU-financed project. Instead, they perceive Russia, Japan, China and others as greater donors than the EU. Moreover, around 50% of the citizens are […]

CEP, as the national researcher of the Independent Reporting Mechanism (IRM) under the Open Government Partnership (OGP), has produced the Progress Report 2014-15 for Serbia. The IRM assesses development and implementation of national action plans to foster dialogue among stakeholders and improve accountability.

This is the first structured attempt to provide an independent regional analysis and follow-up of EC country reports on the Western Balkan countries, on the basis of a harmonised methodology and unique approach by a group of CSOs from the region. The European Policy Centre provided the analysis of the EC’s Serbia 2015 Report.

The views expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent opinions of the Think for Europe Network or its member organisations.

Both manuals resulted from the work on a project entitled “Achieving Effective Policy Monitoring and Evaluation through Evidence Supplied by the Civil Society” funded by the European Union through the Civil Society Facility programme and the Office for Cooperation with Civil Society of the Republic of Serbia.

This paper examines some directions, policies and practices in human capacity development for EU accession in the Western Balkan and CEE countries and aims to induce a more vivid regional level debate on the best approaches to recruiting, forming and retaining professional staff needed for achieving and upholding EU membership.