Instead of an Abstract/Summary here, please refer to the Introduction PDF-file, which includes the Executive Summary
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Keywords: glass beads; Meroitic and late Antique Nubia; trade in antiquity; glass manufacturing; chemical composition; provenance study
Strings of colorful glass beads were a popular commodity traded throughout ancient Nubia in the earlier half of the first millennium AD. Combining macroscopic examination with laboratory analyses, the author breaks new ground in Nubian studies, establishing diagnostic markers for a study of trading markets and broader economic trends in Meroitic and post-Meroitic Nubia.Archaeometric results, lucidly presented and discussed, identify the origins of the glass from which the beads under investigation were made. The demonstrated South Indian/Sri Lankan provenance of some of the ready-made beads from Nubian burial contexts and a reconstruction of their distribution patterns in Northeast Africa is the first undisputed proof of contacts between Nubia and the Red Sea coast. Reaching beyond that, it shows Nubia’s involvement in the Asian maritime trade, whether directly or indirectly, during a period of intensive interchanges between the 4th and 6th centuries AD.
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Keywords: antiquity; lighting; lamps; Egypt; Middle East
The Bouvier Collection presents a corpus of almost 800 clay oil lamps from Egypt and the Near East, collected by the Swiss Maurice Bouvier in Alexandria in the first half of the 20th century. Far from collections reflecting their owner’s aesthetic taste or iconographic predilection, the series of lamps published in this volume builds a true panoply of almost all the typologies attested in Egypt from the Phoenician period to the Mamluk sultanate, with a large appendix on Near Eastern types, acquired during trips to Lebanon and Syria. This Swiss collection today is second only to the holdings of the Benaki Museum in Athens. The volume is a milestone of Egyptian, Syrian and Lebanese lychnological studies. The presentation of the material offers in effect a long awaited synthesis of a field that is both difficult and still understudied. The corpus of lamps in the catalog covers all the major historical periods, bringing to the fore many local specificities of Egypt and the Near East, from Phoenician times through the Mamluk period. Complementing the catalog are reviews of the producer’s marks on the bases of the lamps and of the iconographic motifs decorating the discuses of Roman lamps. These will be a ready aid for studies of the actual lamps, both produced locally in Egypt and imports, as well as of the dissemination of decorative motifs. This synthetic and diachronic approach is illustrated by a set of exceptional photographs taken by the collector’s grandson, Marc Bouvier. Students of this category of objects from Egypt and the Near East are also given an exhaustive bibliography on the subject collected by the author, an expert lychnologist, who has dedicated the past twenty years to research on lighting devices and ancient oil lamps in particular. He has given voice to his interests, including the anthropological, social, religious and macro-economic aspects of lighting in antiquity, in an extensive introduction preceding the catalog. The volume is prefaced by Tomasz Waliszewski and introduced by Jolanta Młynarczyk.
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Keywords: regional convergence; parallel convergence; methods; distribution analysis
The author presents an innovative understanding of parallel economic convergence and proposes alternative methods of its measurement. The authors discusses examples of empirical studies that make use of the concept of parallel convergence in different contexts.
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Keywords: Transformation and political will; Kosovo constitution; human resources of public administration; Institutional Structures; public finances; political interference; executive power in Kosovo; Kosovo after independence;
Public Administration Reform (PAR) is a dynamic process aimed at improving its capacity to deliver public services. In Kosovo, it is largely driven by external factors, the European Union (EU) perspective and agendas and other donors. Domestically, a number of internal factors work against effective reform; a high level of politicization, inefficient recruitment and evaluation processes, a bloated size, inadequate training and professional development, a barely functional local administration, a chaotic framework for independent agencies, a deficient focus on service delivery and lack of local ownership of the reform process. Kosovo created its own public administration less than two decades ago, and reforms took place simultaneously with its institutional building. Along the way, from UNMIK’s interim administration to the most recent national PAR Strategy, reform could never succeed without the necessary recourses and willpower. The legal framework has advanced substantially in recent years, mostly as a result of it being a requirement to implement the Stabilization and Association Agreement and the European Reform Agenda, but it is rarely respected.
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Keywords: Serbia-Kosova-Dialogue; civil registry books; cadasters; recognition of diplomas; insurances; customs regulation; freedom of movement;
This report describes the dialogue process in detail; the achieved agreements, their implementation or lack of thereof, and the impact of these agreements. The report treats both technical and political agreements as part of a single process eased by the EU’s involvement. Since the government and other institutions do not have complete information regarding the entire dialogue, this report will serve to create a better institutional memory system for the Government. These descriptions are also significant for the new dialogue phase with Serbia.
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Keywords: Romanian higher education history; higher commercial and industrial studies; new disciplines in the curriculum; doctoral seminar; interdisciplinary research; civic activism; schools of economic though
This volume is a collective work dedicated to the memory of Virgil Madgearu (1887-1940) a preeminent professor of the Academy of Higher Commercial and Industrial Studies, the innitial name of the Bucharest University of Economic Studies. Each chapter of the book reveals defining elements of Madgearu’s life and work, his beliefs, viewpoints and active involvement in the academic and institutional development of the university (1917-1940), in the interdisciplinary research of the economy and society, in shaping the Romanian peasant doctrine and promoting Europe wide the interests of agrarian countries, in assuming political responsibilities as parlamentarian or as member of various interwar governments. As a respected professor and a leading politician he vigorously rejected the presence and influence of extreme right movements in the society and that valiant attitude was at the origin of his assassination in November 1940.
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Keywords: Education; financing education;
The aim of the SPENDING FOR EDUCATION IN R.MOLDOVA is to assess the current statute of the financing of pre-university education, highlight the main setbacks of the system and track relevant indicators to the educational services provided to the population. This study emerged from in partnership with the Brookings Institution. // The Study combines several kinds of data: official statistics provided by the National Bureau of Statistics, regular monitoring indicators of the Ministry of Education, as well as data collected from the schools of Moldova, through a comprehensive Survey, implemented during the months of February – April 2008. The analysis considers in great details the institutional dynamics of the pre-university education in the last decade, in correlation with the overall demographic and social-economic trends of the country. // Budgetary spending for the pre-university schools reflect a growing concern for the effective use of resources from the public budget on education in Moldova. Beyound the obvious demand to accelerate the reformation of the current system of public education, which implies an overwhelming agenda of decentralization, territorial relocation, rationalization, privatization and other policies that shall improve the current way of spending for compulsory education in Moldova, we aimed to provide specific policy recommendations how to improve the functioning of the system.
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On the surface, 2006 has seen major changes to the way defense and security issues are approached by both the government and the public. This is primarily because of the high level of attention that has been devoted to the topic of NATO membership, which has become the subject of a bitter political struggle. When Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych announced in September that Ukraine would not be seeking a Membership Action Plan (MAP) at the Riga Summit in November 2006, this seemed to emphasize the fact that the new government had a different approach to defense, security and foreign policy issues.
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UKRAINE’S GAS TRANSPORTATION SYSTEM: READY FOR COOPERATION? // 1. ESTABLISHMENT OF AN INTERNATIONAL GAS TRANSPORTATION CONSORTIUM ON THE BASIS OF UKRAINE’S GTS: THE INTERESTS AND POSITIONS OF THE CONCERNED PARTIES // 2. WAYS, FORMS AND METHODS OF ENHANCEMENT OF THE EFFECTIVENESS OF UKRAINE’S GTS: THE PROBLEM OF CHOICE // 3. CONCLUSIONS AND PROPOSALS // DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN EXPERTS ON ESTABLISHMENT OF AN INTERNATIONAL GAS TRANSPORTATION CONSORTIUM IN UKRAINE THE TRANSFER OF THE GTS INTO MANAGEMENT BY THE CONSORTIUM IS NOT JUSTIFIED ECONOMICALLY // SEVERAL MODELS OF THE CONSORTIUM: ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES // ABILITY SHOULD BE DEMONSTRATED TO THE PUBLIC AND PARTNERS // TRANSPARENCY, COMPETITION AND DIVERSIFICATION OF SUPPLIES WILL HELP UKRAINE ACHIEVE ENERGY INDEPENDENCE // CONSTRUCTION OF A NEW GAS PIPELINE IS THE MAIN DIRECTION OF INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION // THE PREINVESTMENT STAGE OF THE PROJECT IS UNDERWAY // THE OPTION THAT GUARANTEES THE MOST WORKING PLACES AND THE HIGHEST PROFIT FOR UKRAINE SHOULD BE FOUND // PRIVATE COMPANIES WILL BE PROVIDING FINANCE FOR THE CONSORTIUM AND NOT STATES OR GOVERNMENTS // THE MOST EFFICIENT SYSTEM OF OPERATION IS TO GIVE THE GTS IN CONCESSION TO AN INTERNATIONAL CONSORTIUM // CONCESSION OF THE GTS IS THE MOST ACCEPTABLE CHOICE // UKRAINE’S NATIONAL INTERESTS SHOULD BE PUT AT THE FOREFRONT // PREMATURE DISCUSSION MAY HAMPER FURTHER PROGRESS IN NEGOTIATIONS ON ESTABLISHMENT OF THE CONSORTIUM // COMPREHENSIVE ECONOMIC ANALYSIS OF DIFFERENT COOPERATION OPTIONS IS NEEDED // THE FOCUS SHOULD BE ON THE CONDITIONS OF TRANSFER OF THE GTS INTO THE CONSORTIUM’S MANAGEMENT // AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE CABINET OF MINISTERS OF UKRAINE AND THE GOVERNMENT OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION ON STRATEGIC COOPERATION IN THE GAS SECTOR // INTERNATIONAL CONSORTIUM FOR UKRAINE’S GTS MANAGEMENT: SEQUENCE OF EVENTS
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A NEW FOREIGN POLICY FOR A NEW UKRAINE // UKRAINE’S FOREIGN POLICY ACTION PLAN // UKRAINE’S FOREIGN POLICY: GAINS, LOSSES AND PROSPECTS // READJUSTMENT OF UKRAINE’S FOREIGN POLICY IS POSSIBLE ONLY IF THE RULING ELITE IS REPLACED // FILING APPLICATIONS FOR ACCESSION TO THE EU AND NATO SHOULD BE THE FIRST STEPS “MULTIVECTOR POLICY” AGAIN LOGICALLY ENDED WITH THE “RUSSIAN CHOICE” // UKRAINE’S NATIONAL INTERESTS SHOULD BE THE BASIS FOR FOREIGN POLICY // STRATEGIC CORRECTION OF UKRAINE’S FOREIGN POLICY IS REQUIRED // UKRAINE SHOULD COME UP WITH A CLEAR STANCE REGARDING SEVERAL INTEGRATION AREAS // THE CRISIS OF IDEAS IN UKRAINE’S FOREIGN POLICY WILL PERSIST UNTIL THE MECHANISMS FOR DETERMINING NATIONAL INTERESTS EMERGE // WE HAVE NOT YET FOUND A PLACE FOR OURSELVES IN THE UKRAINERUSSIAWEST TRIANGLE // UKRAINE’S FOREIGN POLICY MUST BE STRICTLY PRAGMATIC BOTH GLOBALLY AND BILATERALLY // UKRAINIAN FOREIGN POLICY: LEGACY PROBLEMS AND NEW PROSPECTS // COMPROMISE AND ITS LIMITS A FOREIGN POLICY FOR THE NEXT PRESIDENT: TOUGH CONSTRAINTS, HARD CHOICES // UKRAINE’S FOREIGN POLICY: EXPERT ANALYSIS // PUBLIC OPINION ON THE STATE AND PROSPECTS OF UKRAINE’S FOREIGN POLICY
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AGING STOCKS OF AMMUNITION AND SALW IN UKRAINE: RISKS AND CHALLENGES // INTRODUCTION // CHAPTER 1. THREATS TO SECURITY // CHAPTER 2. LESSONS OF PAST EXPERIENCES // CHAPTER 3. PLANS AND CAPABILITIES // CHAPTER 4. ASSESSMENT OF RESOURCE REQUIREMENTS // SOURCES AND SOLUTIONS // CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS // ANNEX 1. LIST OF AMMUNITION SUBJECT TO DISPOSAL WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK OF THE NATO TRUST FUND // ARTICLES INTERNATIONAL DEMILITARISATION ASSISTANCE: THE NEED TO ADAPT TO NEW THREATS // MEASURES TO BAN ANTIPERSONNEL MINES: THE CASE OF UKRAINE
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THE NEW GOVERNMENT’S ECONOMIC POLICY: FIRST STEPS AND THEIR EFFECTS // SECTION 1. ECONOMIC POLICIES OF THE NEW GOVERNMENT: GAINS AND MISCALCULATIONS // SECTION 2. THE NEW GOVERNMENT’S SOCIAL POLICY: MIXED RESULTS // SECTION 3.THE DYNAMICS OF PUBLIC ASSESSMENTS AND EXPECTATIONS OF THE NEW GOVERNMENT // FULFILLMENT OF PRESIDENT YUSHCHENKO’S ELECTORAL COMMITMENTS // CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS // AFTER A HOLIDAY: THE STATE OF ACCOUNTS
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Keywords: Russian Econmomy;
The Faculty of Economics has for many years conducted serious research concerning human potential, having significantly expanded its activities in this field. The Faculty trains masters and post-graduates, teachers and professors of relevant disciplines, including training in CIS countries. Together with the UNDP the Faculty has published two training manuals and has created an Internet portal devoted to human development issues, which offers an interactive training course and contains a statistical module with 100 indicators of social and economic development in Russia’ regions. // In this way the UNDP and the Faculty of Economics of Moscow State University have joined forces to promote the human development concept in Russia. Elaboration of national human development reports in the Russian Federation is a principal activity of this joint project. The present Report is devoted to Modernization and Human Development.
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Keywords: Kosovo; media; public service broadcasting; finances; regulations; socio-political and economic context; digitalization;
With a population of 1.8 million, where Albanians make up more than 90 percent, Kosovo is the smallest and the last territorial unit that emerged as an independent state from former Yugoslavia. Formerly, it had the status of an autonomous province in Yugoslavia and later Serbia. Then for almost a decade before declaring independence in 2008 Kosovo was under the functional governance of the United Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) a UN-led mission mandated to run the day to day affairs and set up institutions of self-government in the post-conflict Kosovo, based on the UN Security Council Resolution 1244 adopted in June 1999. The development of the media sector in Kosovo was part of the UNMIK mandate and under a decade-long international management, the media sector experienced important transformation. The liberal media regime introduced by UNMIK was successful in ensuring the diversification of the media sector. However, the liberalization of the media sector and the post-conflict rapid increase in media outlets has led to a saturated and weak media market with declining sources of revenue. One of the major projects in the media sector initiated by UNMIK in post conflict Kosovo was to set up the country’s national public broadcaster – Radio Television of Kosovo (RTK). This paper investigates the current position, role and functioning of RTK – in a diachronic perspective - from its inception in 1999 to the present. It explores whether the overall context in which the RTK is embedded provides a favorable environment for its future prospects and continued development by focusing on the challenges that RTK is facing at present with respect to regulatory, financial, technological and socio-political trends. Upholding the independence and long-term sustainability of RTK are commitments that the Kosovo Government set out to meet upon embarking on the European integrations process. In 2015 Kosovo signed the Stabilization and Association Agreement (SAA) as a first important step towards the European integrations process. Meanwhile, the need to address the vulnerable position of RTK and ways to ensure its editorial independence, have been systematically highlighted in the EU’s Kosovo progress reports in recent years. From the EU perspective, nurturing the independence and financial sustainability of RTK is seen as a firm assurance that Kosovo will continue to have a universally accessible public forum where ideas, opinions and political views are presented and debated. It is also a firm assurance that the diverse segments of Kosovo’s multicultural landscape will feel represented. However, keeping on air a public broadcasting system fully dependent on state budget and not vulnerable to political interference, in Kosovo’s conditions, seems difficult, if not impossible. The paper is based on the review of different processes related to the developments around RTK. It includes analysis of legislation, strategic documents, official correspondence between Kosovo legislators, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe Mission in Kosovo (OSCE) as well as interviews with a number of interlocutors (media experts, RTK managers, former RTK consultants and other stakeholders). The analysis is framed within contemporary international debates on the future of PSB in a changing media environment and taking into consideration specificities of the development of PSB in post-communist societies and Western Balkan countries in particular. The paper also explores the current perspective and challenges for future development of PSB (e.g. digitalization and the EU driven perspective on commercialization etc.) In light of the new paradigm promoted by the EU with provisions that emphasize an inherent bias toward market liberalization, it is important to understand the implications that such policies might have for the prospects of the media market and the challenges that such policies entail with regards to access and future paths of the PSB development in Kosovo. In efforts to provide a coherent outlook on the present and the future of RTK the research is guided by three broad questions. The first question relates to the process of initial media policy adoption and the role of various actors played within it (e.g. influence of EU, local power elites, etc.). The second question explores the current situation of PSB and the extent of implementation of the current media policies. The third question seeks to provide answers to the future developments and prospects of PSB in Kosovo. The paper sets a theoretical and analytical framework against which the analysis of RTK is conducted. It is divided into three sections. The first section reflects on the contemporary debates on PSB on a global and EU level followed by an outline of relevant characteristics of PSB in postcommunist and Western Balkan countries. The section also takes into account some of the relevant approaches to explain the PSB transformation in the specific context. It explores propositions put forward by Jakubowicz and Sükösd8 on the idealistic, mimetic and atavistic orientations in the transformation of PSB in the former communist bloc, propositions that were further advanced in Voltmer, to see whether the same can be applied in the trajectory of the setup, development and current operation of Kosovo’s PSB. The second section provides a brief overview of the methodological approach used in this research. The third section, the analysis section, concludes with a discussion of the research findings and offers a set of recommendations that could be useful in addressing the current status of RTK and the challenges ahead in the future.
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Keywords: Serbia; Constitutional Court; transition; court organization; policies;
This paper explores the role of the Constitutional Court of Serbia (hereinafter: CC) in the process of democratic transition in Serbia, examining the impact of the CC’s decisions on the development of democratic society. It is written within the framework of the research project ‘Courts as Policy-Makers? Examining the Role of Constitutional Courts as Agents of Change in the Western Balkans’. Specifically, it considers the CC’s impact on democratic transition after the adoption of the 2006 Constitution of Serbia. There are several reasons for choosing this time frame. Although Serbia adopted a new Constitution and held its first multiparty elections in 1990 (as part of the former Yugoslavia), the decade that followed was marked by the authoritarian rule of Slobodan Milošević. Democratic transition started in earnest only when the Milošević regime was deposed on 5 October 2000. The 1990 Constitution was replaced by a new one in 2006. The 2006 Constitution envisaged a constitutional court with a different composition and competences than that under the 1990 Constitution. Although there is institutional continuity between the two constitutional courts, it seems justified to focus on the new court in the light of these changes, particularly because the present study is not only a study of the court’s case-law but also a case study of the court itself. Moreover, in the period between the democratic change of 2000 and 2008 (when the CC was constituted and began to function under the 2006 Constitution), the court had long periods of inactivity. It is also not without significance that, in 2006, Serbia as a state found itself outside the (con)federal frameworks of which it was previously part (the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) and the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro). For all these reasons, this paper will primarily focus on the CC formed under the 2006 Constitution and its performance and impact on the still on-going democratic transition in Serbia. In that respect, we are particularly interested to see if and to what extent the CC exercised judicial activism, as set by the joint analytical framework of the research project, which adopts value neutral position towards the notion of judicial activism. Accordingly, the paper relies on the notion of judicial activism suggested by Wojciech Sadurski – as the action in which constitutional courts alter the preferences of the parliamentary majority or depart from the views of the constitution makers in cases that pertain to fundamental political choices on central public issues. Thus, judicial activism implies a setting in which there is a collision between the views of the political majority and the court on the articulation of the meaning of a constitutional provision and a possibility for the court to either uphold or strike down the view of the majority embodied in a legal provision. The paper also follows Sadurski’s criteria for the inquiry into judicial activism: (1) the importance of the invalidated law and (2) the nature of the reasoning leading to such invalidation. These criteria lead us to focus on abstract constitutional review cases before the CC, and for this reason our analysis does not deal in detail with individual constitutional complaint cases. However, we do consider cases concerning the prohibition of associations, because they have raised questions that are important in the context of transitional democracy. This reflects our general approach of focusing on cases that concerned controversial political issues in Serbia, and also raised issues related to the country’s compliance with European standards of parliamentary democracy and human rights, since democratic transition is a process that brings a country in conformity with these standards. Moreover, we considered the impact of internal and external factors on the performance of the CC in general and in the context of the cases we selected for analysis. Broadly speaking, internal factors relate to the institutional design of the CC, in particular its competences and the selection and position of its judges. External factors relate to political and social factors influencing the work of the CC in general and its decisions in the selected cases. The research methodology of this paper is multifaceted. It is based on qualitative analysis of information from the sources relevant for the assessment of the performance of the CC. These sources incorporate constitutional and legal provisions, decisions of the CC and other legal and political documents pertinent to the CC’s rulings. Further, they integrate findings from semi-structured interviews with sixteen relevant actors and observers, academic writings discussing the performance of the CC and media reports on the implementation and reception of the CC’s rulings. The first part of the paper deals with the CC’s institutional structure. It provides an overview of its composition (including the procedure for selection and eligibility criteria for its judges) and competences. This chapter also contains an account of other constitutional and legal provisions relevant for the work of the CC (i.e. those pertaining to guarantees of judicial independence, decision-making and transparency). On the basis of these we will provide a setting in which the internal factors influencing the performance of the CC and its input legitimacy can be assessed. Further, we provide a summary of the output of the court, i.e. the statistics of its work, in order to provide a fuller picture of the extent and nature of its activity. The second part explores how the CC dealt with selected cases that involved thorny constitutional and political issues. It analyses these decisions in an attempt to identify and evaluate the approaches and strategies employed by the CC in deciding the cases under consideration and the quality of the reasoning offered in the decisions. In this part we also try to ascertain the impact, if any, of various factors affecting the role and performance of the CC during democratic transition in Serbia. Finally, we discuss the effects of these CC decisions by assessing their implementation and the reactions they received from the general public, politicians and experts. On the basis of such an analysis, we will be able to assess the legitimacy of the CC in sociological and normative terms. While the former reveals actual respect of the CC by the general public, the latter concerns the independence of judgment, reasonableness and consistency of the CC in the eyes of independent expert observers. Moreover, we provide an insight into the CC’s output legitimacy that pertains to the results of court’s work. These will be evaluated on the basis of the consequences of decisions of the CC in respect to dominant political values in the society. On the basis of this analysis, we hope to be able to provide, in the third part of this article, findings on the positioning, legitimacy, and overall performance of the CC in ‘times of transition’, to be followed by our concluding remarks.
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Keywords: BiH; public procurement; equal participation; transparency; key obstacles;
The public procurement system in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) is characterised by numerous weaknesses and shortcomings. In the ten years of application of the BiH Law on Public Procurement, a range of irregularities in public procurement procedures have been identified, including practices of privileging individual bidders through discriminatory criteria and technical specifications in tender documentation, dividing procurement value into smaller amounts to avoid implementing the public procurement procedure for higher amounts, procurements of goods, services or works without a public procurement procedure, use of annexes to existing contracts to increase the value of procurement, and other ways of changing the terms of contracts based on public procurement procedures. Irregularities and abuses in public procurement have, among other things, contributed significantly to the spread of corruption and to hindering the operation of the private sector in BiH. Research has shown that corruption is one of the most significant obstacles to the work of private companies and to overall economic development, not just in BiH, but in countries of the region as well. Reports by international and non-governmental organisations and representatives of the business sector in BiH have for the past few years pointed out failings and irregularities in the public procurement system that undermine the basic principles of fair and active competition, transparency, equal treatment of bidders, and efficient and responsible public spending. This report resulted from the need to identify key problems in public procurement based on surveying a representative sample of the business community with direct experience of public procurement in BiH. The report is based on the findings of research conducted during 2014 with the main aim of mapping the major obstacles faced by companies in BiH entering public procurement procedures in BiH. Representatives of private enterprises of various sizes (micro, small, medium and large enterprises) and from various branches of the economy throughout BiH participated in the study. The study provides insight into the views and perceptions, as well as the reallife experience of business sector representatives in BiH when it comes to various aspects and phases of public procurement. In that context, this is the first survey study in BiH that identifies key problems in public procurement by relying on the views and experiences of business sector representatives that have participated in public procurement procedures. For the purposes of this report, which presents the main obstacles to the participation of enterprises in public procurement, the respondents answered questions about issues such as availability of public procurement invitations for submitting bids, definitions of eligibility criteria and technical specifications, application of appropriate procedures, transparency of outcomes, legal protection, public procurement contract implementation control, perception of the degree of corruption in public procurement, trust in the fairness and justice of public procurement procedures, etc. The examination of practices that hinder efficient market functioning and the identification of areas of heightened risk of corruption were also recognised in strategic documents of BiH authorities as a necessary measure for the development of efficient anti-corruption policies in BiH. The present study naturally fits into this normative and strategic framework. Namely, given that public procurement is particularly vulnerable to corruption, data from this report can prove useful as guidance for decision makers in BiH working to improve the public procurement regulatory framework and practices. The report first presents the main features of the public procurement system and gives details of the research methodology. Research results that reflect the experience of private sector representatives in public procurement in BiH are set out in the fourth chapter and divided among all the phases of the public procurement cycle. The conclusion sums up the key results and indicates further research and analyses necessary in this area.
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Keywords: transormation:
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