The Committee on Foreign Affairs (AFET) holds a public hearing on corruption in the Western Balkans, in the European Parliament in Brussels.

Committee on Foreign Affairs

Brussels

public hearing

ALBERTINI, Gabriele (EPP, IT)

Enlargement to the Western Balkans countries (T)

Corruption in the Western Balkans: extracts from the public hearing

SOUNDBITE (Italian), Gabriele ALBERTINI (EPP, IT), Chair of AFET Committee, The idea of having this debate now stand for the question we put to ourselves: What the EU do to support the fight against corruption in our neighborhood. We've often been concerned and really work hard for coming up with some sort of European prospects , based on the fundamental principle of the rule of law which we think are essential to the whole exercise. We repeated that consistent economic and democratic developments are the bases for accession to the EU.

SOUNDBITE (English), Vanja CALOVIC, MANS Montenegro, My citizens are saying according to public opinion surveys that they trust me more than they trust any politician in my country. I want tell you that Montenegro is a country which is very similar but still quite different than other countries in the Western Balkans. Montenegro is the only country in the Western Balkans, the only country after the communism was stopped, it never changed its government. We still have the very same government structure in power for over two decades now. 

SOUNDBITE (English), Vanja CALOVIC, MANS Montenegro, Even if it was the best government ever, even we had the most honest politicians in the world, even if they had the strongest civil society the strongest opposition to observe their work, they would still get a bit corrupted after twenty years, perhaps. Especially having in mind the situation that the country have gone through the war and sanctions and during that period we have been doing some of the things which are considered to be organised crime in most of the countries including cigarettes smuggling, arm smuggling, human being smuggling etc.

SOUNDBITE (English), Vanja CALOVIC, MANS Montenegro, After we got the opportunity to answer to the questionnaire of the EC. Our corruption perception index increased. However as we knew that that is really no back-up with the real reforms and concrete results, Montenegro is now the only country in the region whose corruption perception index worsen this year. Moreover, we are the country which is according to The reporters without borders really violating freedom of media. And only in this year we dropped for 24 places at the scale among all of the countries which are being reviewed by them.

SOUNDBITE (English), Vanja CALOVIC, MANS Montenegro, Moreover, I would really feel free to say that Montenegro is the only country in the process of EU integration which is keeping translation to the keys secret, even from its parliament, not to mention from its citizens. Montenegro was also, our government was also, monopolizing the process of EU integration and keeping the questions and questionnaire itself provided by the European Commission. However we did manage to get to their answers and we realized why they are keeping them secret because they accidentally forgot to mention how they are harassing media, they forgot to mention so many cases which were initiated against media by high level officials.

SOUNDBITE (English), Lutfi DERVISHI, Executive Director, Transparency International Albania, Albania is regularly monitored from the EU on issues regarding the rule of law, government transparency, fight against corruption and good government issues. Starting from 2001, each year we get the year progress report in which two sentence remain almost the same from one year to the another. Respecting the state of corruption is a serious problem or particularly serious problem for Albania and the other one farming that in Albania the existence of laws and strategies against corruption does not constitute a problem but rather the application and implementation.