Lack of government transparency in Serbia

This policy brief tackles the transparency of two inter-related aspects of the Serbian Government’s work: decision-making at its sessions and reporting on its activities and results, including on budget spending. It reminds that insufficient transparency limits opportunity for public scrutiny, and therefore opens the door for erosion of rule of law and other democratic standards.

It starts with briefly setting governmental transparency within the overall context of the EU accession process. It further presents the evidence, collected through the WeBER monitoring of public administration reform (PAR), that the Serbian public is only partially provided with information on the Government’s decisions, activities and achievements, despite the external EU’s conditionality which requires transparent decision-making and reporting. Finally, it discusses the consequences of existing Government practices, possible reasons for their persistence, and concludes with recommendations for improving the transparency of the Government’s work and for ensuring more effective public scrutiny.