11.12.2019.

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Joint Effort of the Western Balkans and the EU is Key for Rule of Law in the Region

The current challenges of the European Union's enlargement to the Western Balkans are a good opportunity to rethink our own efforts towards the realization of the rule of law. This was one of the conclusions of the discussion “What can we do for the rule of law in the Western ...

The current challenges of the European Union's enlargement to the Western Balkans are a good opportunity to rethink our own efforts towards the realization of the rule of law. This was one of the conclusions of the discussion “What can we do for the rule of law in the Western Balkans in 2020?” in which BCSP Director Igor Bandovic  participated. The event was held on 20 November 2019 in Podgorica.

Blocking Albania and Northern Macedonia from moving forward on the path to the EU should be used to think about how we can improve our own societies, and to what extent we need EU instruments, Bandovic highlighted.

“We don’t see that the rule of law in the region begin with us. I think it is a good time to say that many things are up to us, not the EU. If we act as if the EU is a pile of money and ignore the values, I’m afraid we will have the same kind of thing we have today, which is a sort of semi-accession,” said Bandovic.

Bandovic concluded that there are individual acts of civic courage that, with adequate support and understanding from international partners, can counter the culture of impunity, nepotism and corruption to some extent.

Politicon Network Executive Director Jovana Marovic said that both the European Union and the Western Balkan countries need to think about how to restart the rule of law that has been stagnant for many years. She stressed that civil society organizations that work with citizens play a big role in building a culture of lawfulness.

“Reforms should show results. It doesn’t mean that we should do nothing if certain conditions are lacking. Domestic institutions have to commit to the rule of law because it’s about our citizens,” highlihgted Zoran Nechev, head of the Centre for European Integration at the Institute for Democracy “Societas Civilis” in North Macedonia.

Nechev pointed out that a vacuum had been created – a period of uncertainty in which no one knows what to do, neither the countries of the Western Balkans nor the EU.

Vedran Dzihic of the Austrian Institute for International Affairs at the University of Vienna said that the decision not to open negotiations with North Macedonia and Albania was a cynical act of the EU.

“It’s an act that is not consistent with either EU principles, nor does it conform to the methodology and principles that the EU itself has defined for this process. And when it comes to the French proposal, it seems to me that this is a technocratic form of cynicism that somehow tries to justify what was sent as a message,” concluded Dzihic.

Tara Tepavac from CRTA said that the big problem is that there is no basic consensus in society about what the rule of law is and whether it is the direction we want to go. Consensus would imply that citizens, regardless of the EU integration process, know what the rule of law should look like, and that there is a common effort of different parts of society towards this goal.

“As civil society and as responsible citizens, we can fight for the truth to be heard. In addition to the many problems we face, there is a lot of fake news and a lack of getting informed via facts,” concluded Tepavac.

The panel discussion was organized by Politikon Network, CRTA and Team Institute with the support of the European Fund for the Balkans (EFB).

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