On the occasion of the International Anti-Corruption Day: Another missed year

Transparency Serbia, on the occasion of the International Anti-Corruption Day, estimates that Serbia did not use 2017 to substantially improve regulations, strengthen institutions and punish the responsible ones for corruption.

We remind that Serbia is entering the last year of implementation of the National Anti-Corruption Strategy of 2013, which proclaimed the policy of "zero tolerance" for corruption. This act envisioned a multitude of measures to prevent corruption, strengthen all anti-corruption institutions, and increase the number of cases solved. However, many activities have not been carried out even after several "paved" deadlines, and no engagement has been noticed on the implementation of individual measures for the past four years. It is indispensable that the National Assembly has not considered reports of the Anti-Corruption Agency for years on (non) implementation of this strategy, nor calls on the ministers and other managers of state bodies who fail to fulfill their obligations.

Transparency - At the time of its adoption, Serbia considered this Strategy and the accompanying Action Plan as insufficiently ambitious, considering the widespread corruption in the country. Thus, for example, as an indicator of success for the prosecution of corruption, the increase is determined in the number of judgments by 30% in 2017. in regard to the baseline situation in 2012. which was marked as very bad. An additional problem for assessing success is that public prosecutors do not publish statistical data. Citizens receive periodic information about police actions and the arrest of a large number of suspects, where corruption is mixed with other crimes. On the other hand, no state authority provides comparable information on how many of the arrested people are really accused, whether the court confirmed their guilt, let alone what was undertaken in order to avoid a similar case in the future.

During 2017, although it was foreseen by the plan, the laws on the Anti-Corruption Agency, the financing of political activities and free access to information of public importance were not improved. Lobbying has not yet been regulated, nor have rules on public debates in drafting laws been improved. Serbia has not taken any step forward in reducing political influence in the public sector.

On the contrary, directly in contrast to the law, almost all the directors of large public enterprises and the vast majority of top civil servants are in the status of duty-bearers and can be replaced every time by an arbitrary political decision by the ruling parties. In addition, the practice of contracting the largest infrastructure projects with direct agreements has been continued, and based on the interstate agreements and related credit arrangements. Many binding decisions of the Commissioner for Information, which are required to disclose documents, are still not executed, which is contrary to the law. The government itself ignores requests for access to the information that has been sent to it. Additionally, in 2017, the position of independent state bodies deteriorated, because the term of office of the President and members of the Council of the State Audit Institution expired, since three members of the Anti-Corruption Agency Anti-Corruption Board were not nominated, and the director of that agency resigned shortly after.When all this is taken into account, the fact that the fight against corruption is given less importance in the program of the Government of Serbia in 2017 than in previous years is particularly worrying. It is equally bad that Serbia has been insufficiently using The European Integrations as a fighter for combating corruption.In that sense, the year before us is crucial, because the plans for the reform are currently being created until the expected entry of Serbia into the EU in 2025. If the plans are now imprecise and unambitious, we can come to the conclusion that the final assessment of the fulfillment of the conditions for accession is negative or based on the arbitrary criteria.