Fri
Feb
23

Protests of hauliers and farmers in Jan 2024: Societal resilience vs elite ineffectiveness

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 February 2024

Context

On January 10th, 2024, Romanian farmers and hauliers engaged in a nationwide protest against the government’s transport and agricultural policies, briefly blocking traffic at border crossings and several cities, including the frontier with Ukraine and the capital’s ring road.

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Fri
Feb
11

Building a constituency for rule of law. Lessons from the Romanian anti-corruption drive

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Policy Recommendations

  1. Do not trade long-term sustainability (accountability, due democratic process, stakeholder negotiation) for short-term efficiency. Yet, short-term results and investment in drivers of change are necessary to build up the credibility of the process. Striking the golden mean is painstaking, but rewarding.
  2. Hold out credible reward for performance (EU accession) and build a rule of law constituency (invest in independent media, civil society organisations, public communication). Empower them to carry the flag and be domestic agents of change. Beware of window-dressing reformers using the accession process for their own ends.
  3. Treat rule of law, anti-corruption and good governance as cross-cutting issues to be incorporated and monitored in every chapter of negotiation and partnership with the EU; ensure stakeholder participation up and down the decision-making process; maintain focus on values, not just ticking boxes.

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Tue
Jan
11

The rule of law in Montenegro between deep polarisation and an unstable majority – how to get back on track?

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Policy Recommendations

  1. The government should develop precise roadmaps in the EU accession talks and a clear framework for strengthening the rule of law. The measures should include better defined indicators and activities while insisting on more specific tasks on an annual basis within the interim benchmarks to facilitate both performance assessment and monitoring of progress. A new model of reporting based on a simplified form, which would include an overview of key challenges in meeting the benchmarks and thus strengthening the rule of law, would be advisable as well.
  2. The new parliamentary majority and all parties in the parliament should strive to remove political influence from the judiciary and find solutions that will enable the strengthening of institutions and ensuring their impartiality. As the EU insists on a broad consensus on these issues, and society is in a state of deep polarisation, a kind of mediation between the two blocs, the majority and the opposition, is needed. In this way, the selection of the best candidates in the judiciary, especially where envisaged membership of the academy (civil society), which will not be close to any party, and thus impartial law enforcement will be ensured and politicisation avoided.
  3. The government should fully open the reforms to the public to allow public scrutiny and impartial evaluation.

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Tue
Jan
11

Lessons learned from the justice reform in Albania

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Policy Recommendations

  1. The political will of the domestic political elites – or the lack of it – should be taken into account when initiating such deep reform(s) because it is a precondition for an efficient implementation of the required changes and results.
  2. The good governance features should apply to the newly established judicial institutions and structures. Their implementation is crucial in determining the outputs and the long-term impact of the reform.
  3. The citizens, who are the main beneficiaries of the reform, should be involved throughout the whole process from the design of the reform to its implementation and operation. Thus, there is a need to prepare information in a way that makes it easier for citizens to understand and to create external mechanisms such as involving representatives of civil society, academia or bar associations to monitor the strategic action plans of the new justice institutions.

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