Keywords: Centre for Advanced Study; CAS; CAS-Sofia; Newsletter; CAS Newsletter; CAS Newsletter 2003
Articles, pictures and interviews can be reprinted only with the consent of Centre for Advanced Study Sofia (CAS - Sofia). Any citations should be duly acknowledged.
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Keywords: CSD; Center for the Study of Democracy; EU funds conditionality; EU financial assistance; Cooperation and Verification Mechanism; anti-corruption; good governance
The paper examines the impact on Bulgaria’s anti-corruption performance of the interrelation between EU policy conditionality and EU financial assistance, with a focus on post-accession developments. Although the EU never formally linked EU assistance to progress on anti-corruption, the disbursement of funds has tended to peak around critical deadlines for accession progress, e.g. the signing of the accession treaty in 2005, and the expiration of the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism’s (CVM) safeguard clauses in 2010. Both years also marked the lowest levels of corruption experienced by Bulgaria’s citizens. This suggests that the combined effect of EU anticorruption conditionality and development assistance on governance in Bulgaria was positive - but temporary. Moreover, the 2015 CVM monitoring report suggests that, eight years after EU accession, Bulgaria still faces three key governance challenges – combatting high-level corruption, building an institutional approach to anti-corruption, and judicial independence. In 2014, public experience of corruption reached its highest level since the first comparable research in 1998. The lack of anti-corruption conditionality or credible enforcement mechanisms since 2010 has seen Bulgaria backslide in the fight against corruption. The current EU approach and development assistance for anticorruption reforms have been insufficient to put Bulgaria on a virtuous circle path to open access order (or a good governance model), and has not been able to compensate for the lack of domestic political commitment to anticorruption reform. The paper’s findings suggest that the EU and Bulgarian anti-corruption stakeholders need to find new strategies for bringing about lasting governance change. This analysis is part of Work Package 8 of the EU FP7 ANTICORRP Project, comprising eight case study reports looking at the impact of EU conditionality and EU aid in countries in new EU member states, the European Neighbourhood and beyond. Other than Bulgaria, the case studies review Bosnia and Herzegovina, Egypt, Ghana, Kosovo, Tanzania, Tunisia and Ukraine. The integrated case study report is available at the official ANTICORRP webpage.
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This integrated report investigates the link between political corruption and organised crime, by examining the modalities, resources and strategies used by criminal groups to govern and/or capture the market of political corruption. On the one hand, the report looks at the infiltration of organised crime in three main policy sectors where public spending and regulations play a pivotal role: public procurement, the privatization of public services, and management of EU funds. Alongside this, the report also analyses the criminal penetration of electoral politics, by evaluating the influence that criminal organisations can achieve in electoral arenas. As a result, the report provides a general assessment of policy regulations, legal countermeasures and practices adopted to prevent and combat organised crime, especially in interaction with political corruption. The report is drawn from data collected in five European countries (Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, Italy, Kosovo) across the above themes, and includes two more countries for the assessment of anti-organised crime legislation and initiatives (Albania and Georgia). The methodology involves both extensive and intensive strategies of investigation. A quantitative assessment of the crime and politics nexus is based on the Organised Crime & Corruption (OCC) events database, in which events data about the link between criminal groups and political corruption have been gathered and assembled1. A qualitative assessment involves in-depth understanding of the mechanisms of corrupt exchanges, presented as single case studies conducted in the countries covered by this study, inclusive of primary and secondary sources (interviews, legal proceedings, academic and policy-oriented reports). Data collection and analyses were conducted by five institutions across Europe (EUI, CSD, BCE, IKS, PSD).
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The successful implementation of the activities under the recently launched initiative Re-socialization of offenders in the EU: enhancing the role of the civil society (RE-SOC) depends on the expanded knowledge of the prison systems in the participating countries. Therefore, a separate set of activities is dedicated to the collection, analysis and systematization of the available information and tailoring it to the specificities of the other initiative activities. To facilitate this process a Methodology for data collection and analysis was developed, which includes the following components: (1) list of issues to be covered; (2) recommended sources to be consulted and relevant international standards; (3) methodological guidelines on how to collect, analyze and present information; (4) glossary of terms; and (5) language and style requirements. The developed methodology will be used for analyzing the information collected for several EU Member States. The analysis will aim to answer specific questions related to the prison system: structure and legal framework of the penitentiary system, prison capacity, number and structure of the prison population, etc. The results of the analysis will be summarized in country background papers.
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A critical year for Bulgaria’s EU membership, 2006 was also a period of intense public and political debate on the issues at the core of the agenda of the Center for the Study of Democracy (CSD) – justice and home affairs (JHA) reform.
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The present publication summarizes the discussions at the international conference NATO, EU and the New Risks: A Southeast Europe Perspective held on October 29-30, 2004 in Sofia. The conference’s discussions benefited from the participation of NATO’s Deputy Secretary General, Ambassador Alessandro Minuto Rizzo, Bulgarian Deputy Prime Minister Plamen Panayotov, Bulgaria’s Minister of Defense, Nikolai Svinarov, senior government officialsfromSoutheastEurope(SEE)andWestEuropean countries - representatives of international organizations and aid agencies, diplomatic missions, academic institutions, and non-governmental organizations.
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The existing legal and institutional framework and available technical facilities in the Bulgarian capital markets do not work very efficiently towards supporting a fully developed securities market. The necessary legislation, institutions and technical facilities must be put in place, so that, over time, a market will develop which will be able to absorb the volumes normal for a country of the size of Bulgaria and, potentially, international trades. The following discussion presents specific issues that need to be addressed, so that said purposes could be met.
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Keywords: economy; European Union; Visegrad Group; Central Europe; Czech Republic; economic crisis; economics; Euro; Europe; European integration; eurozone; Hungary; Poland; Slovakia; Western Europe
On 19 October 2012, representatives from the four Visegrad countries met in Warsaw, at PISM, to discuss national approaches to the current sovereign debt crisis and the EU’s increasing use of differentiated integration. The goal was to explore the potential of a joint response to hazards that might sideline the Four in EU affairs. The present report picks up on the issues discussed there, with contributions from Janusz Gąciarz, Radovan Kavický, David Král, László Sinka, Rafał Trzaskowski. By identifying much potential for future cooperation, the report, edited by Agata Gostyńska and Roderick Parkes, draws recommendations for the Visegrad Group that can ultimately result in their upgraded cooperation on the EU arena.
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Keywords: Mediterranean refugees crisis; FRONTEX;
Since the beginning of 2015, the news about migrant boat disasters in the Mediterranean Sea have been filling the headlines of major national and international media. Horrible pictures of boat wrecks and floating bodies of migrants have made it to covers of well-known newspapers. Very soon, statistics suggesting that 2015 might be the deadliest year for migrants who have been crossing the Mediterranean Sea in search of a better life appeared. However, the death of so many migrants comes as a surprise, as the Mediterranean Sea belongs to one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world. Various different actors (national search and rescue bodies, merchant vessels, fishing boats, military vessels, civilian-volunteer manned vessels, NGO craft and boats under the Frontex mandate), bound by the international search and rescue legislation, can come to rescue migrants’ boats in distress. Since the international search and rescue obligation has not been always followed to the letter, this research has been dedicated to searching for an understanding of the inclusions and exclusions of actors in search and rescue operations in the Central Mediterranean Sea (an area between Northern Africa and Italy). It has also aimed to outline the boundaries that actors may face when entering or exiting the area of search and rescue. This research has conceptualized search and rescue as an assemblage composed of heterogeneous elements that entangle one another and that are entrusted with a strategic purpose. Moreover, it has specifically used Bruno Latour´s approach to assemblages and their mapping, as this has allowed the researcher to understand how inclusions and exclusions of actors in the assemblage arise and what constitutes the boundaries of the assemblage. It is argued that different elements of the search and rescue assemblage – such as legislation, actors’ scripts or their discursive strategies – can become means of both actors’ inclusion in and actors’ exclusion from the assemblage. These elements can at the same time become boundaries for involvement of actors in rescue operations. However, the irregular rhythms of actors’ inclusions and exclusions in search and rescue suggest that actors’ experience of political subjectivity can determine the shape of the assemblage and its boundaries. Furthermore, it is argued that the shape of the Central Mediterranean Search and Rescue assemblage can largely depend on the mechanisms of power being exercised within the assemblage. It is for the lack of power mechanisms that would force actors into the assemblage and also for the existence of mechanisms that make it less probable and more difficult for certain actors to get involved in search and rescue that so many migrants die on their way to Europe.
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Keywords: Euro crisis; Economic and Monetary Union; financial crisis; policy measures; government; financial markets; banks; economic policy; economic development; EU foreign policy; energy; climate changes; environmental policy;
The euro crisis has inflicted severe financial, economic and political damage in all countries of the eurozone and beyond. Progress was made in 2012 to address these problems and to reduce the risk of repetition but they are by far not yet fully overcome. The good news is that this crisis has forced agreement on policy measures towards more centralised, European decision-making, which was unthinkable only a few years ago, and towards more European integration in those policy areas where this is needed. The recent positions taken by member countries in the European Council testify to the need as well as the difficulties of making real progress, requiring a combination of substantial solidarity and tough discipline on the part of all countries leading to further transfer of national sovereignty.
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Keywords: BiH; legal education; Bar Exam; examination of the jurist's knowledge;
Bar Exam is one of the most important steps in legal education. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, passing the bar exam is possible before the entity and state levels, respectively before the Ministry of Justice of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Federal Ministry of Justice and Ministry of Justice of Republika Srpska. Based on the personal experience of the author, this paper examines the most important legal solutions regarding the procedure and content of the bar exam, discussing key segments that need to be modified in order for bar exam to fit its primary purpose: adequate examination of the jurist's knowledge. The first part of the paper presents the conditions, as well as the two-part structure of the bar exam. The oral part of the exam, with its new design after the recent changes of the Federal Ministry of Justice is problematical since it does not enable complete insight into the candidate's knowledge. The second part of the paper is about basic statistics results on the performance and success rate of the bar exam before the Federal Ministry of Justice. Following part of the paper is devoted to the composition of the bar examination commissions and the fundamental criterion of "high reputation of legal expert" required for appointment to the Commission. There are several examples that point to a broad interpretation of the above criterion, which results in erroneous practice in the appointment of the examination commissions. In the final part of the paper, I analyze the existence of informal preparatory seminars as well as the participation of examination commissions members in such seminars. In this segment of the pre-bar exam seminars there is a lack of regulation on the participation of commissions members as lecturers, since they later examine candidates who have previously met in such informal trainings. The concluding considerations outline the key problems in the current system of passing the bar exam in Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as possible solutions to preserve the bar exam as the most important examination of the knowledge of every jurist's career.
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Keywords: Centre for Advanced Study Sofia Newsletter
Articles, pictures and interviews can be reprinted only with the consent of the Centre for Advanced Study Sofia
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Keywords: CSD; undeclared work; EU; agriculture; aviation; tourism; hotel, restaurant and catering sector; European Platform
As part of the support team of the European Platform tackling undeclared work, CSD is developing a series of papers, analyses and toolkits, aimed at sharing good practices and experiences among the Member States. Since 2016, the European Platform tackling undeclared work provides an EU-level forum that allows different actors, including social partners and enforcement authorities, such as labour inspectorates, tax and social security authorities, to engage in closer cross-border cooperation and joint activities. The Platform’s 2-year work programme for 2019-2020 includes activities enabling Platform members to deal with undeclared work through a holistic approach. The new work programme is building on work to tackle bogus self-employment and fraudulent letterbox companies. Four sectors that are heavily affected by undeclared work have been identified for specific action: agriculture; aviation; tourism; and the hotel, restaurant and catering sector.
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Keywords: CSD; undeclared work; EU; agriculture; aviation; tourism; hotel, restaurant and catering sector; European Platform
As part of the support team of the European Platform tackling undeclared work, CSD is developing a series of papers, analyses and toolkits, aimed at sharing good practices and experiences among the Member States. Since 2016, the European Platform tackling undeclared work provides an EU-level forum that allows different actors, including social partners and enforcement authorities, such as labour inspectorates, tax and social security authorities, to engage in closer cross-border cooperation and joint activities. The Platform’s 2-year work programme for 2019-2020 includes activities enabling Platform members to deal with undeclared work through a holistic approach. The new work programme is building on work to tackle bogus self-employment and fraudulent letterbox companies. Four sectors that are heavily affected by undeclared work have been identified for specific action: agriculture; aviation; tourism; and the hotel, restaurant and catering sector.
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Keywords: festival;catalogue;film;
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Keywords: Migratory Data Production Systems; Major Data Sources; Population register; Foreigner registers; NIS data;
The study outlines the main features of the Romanian data production system on migration and population stock. The study is part of the country report on Romania elaborated for the following transnational project: SEEMIG Managing Migration and its Effects in South-East Europe - Transnational Actions Towards Evidence Based Strategies. Previously, a common methodology was elaborated by the Demographic Research Institute at the Hungarian Central Statistical Office and other participant research institutes in order to gain comparable descriptions for all eight SEEMIG countries. According to this methodology, we focused in this study both on administrative and statistical data sources.
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Keywords: Western Balkans; media; democratization; international assistance; cross-national comparison;
This is the concluding report of a project aiming to enhance the knowledge and understanding of conditions and factors that influence the creation of sustainable and functional media institutions in the democratizing countries of the Western Balkans, especially in contexts where there is a strong presence of international assistance programs and conditionality mechanisms. The project covers four countries that emerged from former federal Yugoslavia, i.e. Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia and Serbia, as well as a fifth country, Albania. This report summarizes and compares the country and subject-matter-specific contributions with the aim of exploring the nexus between the democratic transformation of the media and international media assistance as constrained by the local political conditions. Although the countries of the Western Balkans share significant social, political, historical and economic traits, the region’s recent trajectory has not been very coherent. Since the collapse of socialism in the 1990s, all five countries are undergoing a difficult transition to democracy and a free market economy. They have in common a post-authoritarian legacy, relatively small territories and weak economies. However, these similarities should not obstruct the recognition of important differences in political traditions, local cultures and ethnic composition of the population throughout the region. In the past, political traditions of statehood differed significantly, characterised by periods of bloom and decline as well as external influences, notably from the Ottomans and the Austrian empire. The region’s conflict-ridden history has inspired the term Balkanization, which is widely used to describe a process of geopolitical fragmentation. After the disintegration of Yugoslavia and war with the Serbian hegemon, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo were founded as modern states. Macedonia was also affected by a limited conflict between its two majority peoples – Macedonians and Albanians. NATO undertook extensive military interventions against Serb forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1995, and in Kosovo and Serbia in 1999. Albania alone went through a peaceful transition albeit the country took in many war refugees, mainly from Kosovo. All of the countries in the focus of this project are multi-ethnic but their composition varies to a significant degree. In Albania and Kosovo, Albanians are by far the majority people but there is a significant Serb minority in the latter. Serbia’s dominant majority are Serbs (83 percent of the population). In contrast, Bosnia and Herzegovina is the home of three constituent peoples (Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats) and in Macedonia ethnic Macedonians and Albanians coexist, among others. Today, out of these five Western Balkan countries two are in the antechamber of the European Union (EU). For some time already Macedonia and, recently, Serbia have had candidate status but the pre-accession negotiations are open-ended. Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo and Albania are still potential candidate countries, and thus further away from their ultimate aim to accede to the EU. Striving for EU membership requires from these Western Balkan countries to comply with its democratic and market economy standards (the so-called ‘Copenhagen Criteria’). Today EU conditionality is a major driver of reforms in the region.
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Keywords: Urban planning; corruption; local budgets; Municipalities; Montenegro; implementation problems;
The analysis “Urban planning in Montenegro: construction and payoffs” has been prepared in the framework of the project Corruption at the local level- zero tolerance!, in order to reveal one of the cornerstones of corruption at the local level- urban planning and to encourage decision makers to take concrete actions so as to protect the public interest. Therefore, this analysis presents a set of causes and effects due to which this area is still normatively unfinished, deficient in human resources and represents a high risk for the occurrence of corruption, and at the same times gives illustrative examples of individual cases and practices of local self-governments which have led and still lead to budgetary imbalances, inadequate management of urban construction land, as well as unsystematic dynamics of adoption and harmonization of planning documents which are under the jurisdiction of the local self-governments.
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Keywords: Montenegro; media; 2014; report; RTCG; public broadcasting services; information access; law;
The project “Equal chances for all media” aims to contribute to the creation of clear oversight mechanisms for the public finances and for the allocation of state aid to the media, as required by the European Union regulations and the international standards and best practices. The more specific objective of this project is to raise the awareness among interested public about responsible management of the public budget, and analyse the relationship between the state institutions and the media in Montenegro as reflected in the financial allocations of public funds to the media in payment for specific services or through other forms of support. The public sector analysed in this study is defined by the Law on the Budget of Montenegro, and encompasses public institutions, municipalities (local self-government units), independent regulatory bodies, agencies and enterprises in which the state or the municipalities hold a controlling stake, the judiciary (courts and the prosecution), and others. The project builds on the previous work of the Centre for Civic Education (CCE) in this field, which produced annual reports for 2011, 2012, and 2013. These studies have raised the visibility of the problem of media financing in the Montenegrin public discourse, and became a reference for important international reports. Our findings highlighted countless shady areas in the public financing of the media in Montenegro, and stressed the need for better regulation in this area. They also highlighted the continuing attempts of the public bodies to exercise influence over media through selective and opaque financing, undermining the market competition, reinforcing unequal opportunities and thereby creating indirect pressure on editorial policies. The lack of transparency in financing as well as the lack of adequate criteria for the allocation of funds, alongside the incomplete legal framework, additionally undermines the already alarming state of the Montenegrin media. Considering that public administration and local self-government bodies spent EUR 2 642 070.83 in 2011 on advertising in a market that is altogether worth EUR 9 - 9.5 million, it is obvious that the state is a major, if not the largest customer for advertising services, capable of significantly influencing the revenues and the financial sustainability of individual media houses. In 2012 public spending on the media services decreased by nearly almost EUR 1 million to EUR 852 059.00 according to the CCE estimates, although this amount excludes the spending by local self-governments. In 2013, public administration and local self-governments bodies together spent EUR 2 196 739.00. This makes it clear that there was no reduction in the amount of public funds spent on advertising and other media services. On the contrary, if we bear in mind that the above amount includes only 67.6% of public sector entities from whom we could gather the data, the real expenditure is likely to be much higher. At the same time, our findings show a continued practice of opaque spending of public funds, without well defined rules and procedures. CCE’s findings drew the attention of the key international organisations. Among other, the European Commission’s 2015 Progress Report on Montenegro expresses: “concerns about transparency and nondiscrimination in state advertising... The precarious economic situation of journalists puts them at risk of editorial interference and possible self-censorship. The fact that many media outlets are not financially sustainable has a negative impact on the quality of reporting and professionalism.” Similar concerns were already expressed in the 2013 Progress Report, which found that “Concerns persist also regarding possible state aid and advertising funding allocated to print media in 2012, which were not in line with public procurement rules and could jeopardise competitiveness on the media market.” The 2015 Resolution on Montenegro of the European Parliament similarly warns that Montenegro should “adopt a clear legislative framework, which will establish rules related to media ownership and financing.” The international non-governmental organisation Reporters without borders ranks Montenegro 114th out of 180 countries on its World Press Freedom Index for 2015, which combines assessment on categories such as violence against media, pluralism, media independence, self-censorship, legislative framework, transparency and infrastructure. The only country in the region that was ranked worse than Montenegro is Macedonia, which came 117th. SEEMO Report on state of media in Montenegro for 2014 cited CCE’s findings, as did the last three reports of the US State Department on the state of human rights in Montenegro. Freedom House’s report “Nations in transit 2015”, lowered Montenegro’s rating on independence of the media from 4.25 to 4.50 on 1-7 scale (where 1 stands for best and 7 for the worst level of independence). Last but not least, CCE’s prior work on this problem led the renowned Paris-based international organisations World Association of Newspapers and News publishers and the Centre for international media assistance to choose CCE as the partner for their first report “Eroding freedoms: media and soft censorship in Montenegro”. In the interest of continuous monitoring of this area, CCE conducted a new study that compiles data for 2014 and provides the updated, comprehensive overview of the allocation of public funds to media in 2014, along with comparison to the previous years. The study is accompanies by specific recommendations on the ways to secure transparency and determine criteria for the allocation of public funds to the Montenegrin media that would be in line with the acquis communitaire on the freedom of expression and independence of the media, competition, state aid, and public procurement. Without a clear mechanism for the allocation of state aid to the media, these funds have the potential to create severe distortions of the media market, through discrimination and in violation of the EU competitiveness policy. This is all the more troubling when it is being done with public funds. The citizens, as tax payers, have the right to know how their money is spent, and whether the way in which the state allocates the public funds interferes with the impartial reporting of the performance of public institutions, or obstructs the development of media pluralism. This report warns of the existence of a mechanism used to control and exert pressure on the media, and provides recommendations on the ways to end bad practices that deprives Montenegrin citizens of their right to free and independent media and thereby of objective, accurate reporting on the activities of the government, political parties, institutions, as well as other issues of public importance.
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