EU accession

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Serbian Justice Ministry releases draft Action plan for Chapter 23

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The Serbian Justice Ministry has published a draft of its revised Action plan for Chapter 23 – Judiciary and Fundamental Rights – in the country’s pre-accession negotiations with the European Union. The draft was published on the ministry’s web site along with an invitation for comments. The deadline for comments is 8 February.

EU Justice - Support for Chapter 23".The first draft of the revised Action Plan for Chapter 23 was presented at the round table held on 6 February 2019 in Belgrade. Representatives of judicial institutions, civil society organizations and international institutions attended.

The round table was organized with the support of the European Union, which financed the project “EU Justice – Support for Chapter 23”.

The DPNSEE Executive Director participated in the round table. It was an opportunity to meet and exchange with colleagues, especially with those from the Office for Gender equality and Association of Judges and Prosecutors of Serbia.

 

The situation that calls for – an alarm

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A coalition of seven NGOs entitled prEUgovor, which monitors Serbia’s EU accession process, presented a new report that contains the coalition’s assessment of the political criteria for the EU accession process, as well as the fulfilment of criteria for chapters 23 and 24 which include the judiciary, fundamental rights, justice, freedom and security for the period April – September 2018.

The central finding of the report is that key reforms stagnate or even marks a downturn and that much of stagnation happens under the justification of accession process. During that period, the Serbian authorities adopted a series of laws “that are worse than the current ones”, said the NGO coalition made of ASTRA – Anti-Trafficking Action, the Autonomous Women’s Centre, the Belgrade Centre for Security Policy, the Centre for Applied European Studies, the Centre for Investigative Journalism, Group 484 and Transparency Serbia. The report said that the democratic civil control over defence and security institutions is weak in practice.

Commenting at the presentation, DPNSEE Executive Director remarked that the report has no reference to the segment on drugs which is integral part of the Chapter 24 and presented some warning facts about the issue. DPNSEE and the coalition have working relations which both sides hope to be improved in the future.

The report is available following this link>>>>

(photo: prEUgovor)

EU 2018 Enlargement Strategy Paper and Country Reports

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The European Commission adopted and published its annual Enlargement Package for the West Balkans and Turkey, including seven country reports , assessing the implementation of the European Union’s enlargement policy.

The Commission also published the Strategy Paper, which indicates that addressing reforms in the area of the rule of law, fundamental rights and good governance remains the most pressing issue for the enlargement countries and includes conclusions and recommendations for each of the country.

The Commission recommended that the negotiations be opened with the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Albania, in light of the progress achieved, maintaining and deepening the current reform momentum. These are great news for the two SEE countries and their people.

The current enlargement agenda covers the partners of the Western Balkans and Turkey. Accession negotiations have been opened with candidate countries Montenegro (2012), Serbia (2014), Turkey (2005). Bosnia and Herzegovina (application to join the EU submitted in February 2016) and Kosovo* (Stabilisation and Association Agreement entered into force in April 2016) are potential candidates.

We have extracted segments related to drugs from each of the country reports and packed them in one document. It is a pity to see that almost exclusively, except some references to drug abuse prevention and harm reduction in Chapter 28: Consumer and health protection, the reports deal only with law enforcement related to drugs.

The document we prepared is downloadable following this link>>>

Full versions of the Commission’s documents are available following this link>>>