Albania should step up the pace of judicial reform, as a key to starting EU accession negotiations, while Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) needs to overcome its ethnic and political divisions and remain united throughout the EU membership application evaluation process, said Members of the Euriopean Parliament MEPs on Wednesday. Albania Rapporteur Knut Fleckenstein (S&D, DE) said: […]

Bulgarians have a new president and they’re watching his every step very carefully. As the world fretted about Donald Trump in the United States, Rumen Radev won last November’s election as an independent candidate with the support of the Bulgarian Socialist Party. He officially took office on Jan. 22. One of his first moves, ten days after his inauguration, was to veto […]

Politicians agree to public vote following mass protests and international concern over plans to water down anti-graft legislation. Romania’s parliament has agreed to hold a referendum on fighting official corruption following pressure from public protests. An estimated 70,000 people took to the streets on Sunday for the 13th consecutive night of anti-government demonstrations. Those campaigning […]

SKOPJE/SARAJEVO, 9 February 2017 – “It is of paramount importance to ensure further progress and reforms in the region, as they are irreversible processes triggered by the EU accession aspirations. Regional Cooperation Council (RCC) is looking forward to continuation of close cooperation with you in making this region prosperous and stable,” said RCC Secretary General […]

Romanian Justice Minister Florin Iordache has resigned, after a government decree to reduce penalties for corruption triggered mass protests. But Mr Iordache, who had drawn up the bill, insisted that “all that I’ve done was legal”.   Bowing to pressure, the government last week scrapped the decree that would have shielded many politicians from prosecution […]

On February 6th, the Justice Ministry of Moldova issued a statement on the disclosure of names of the trial parties in the online platform for court cases, instante.justice.md. Indicating that several citizens objected to the violations of their privacy rights after the publishing of their names in the online monitor of the cases, the Ministry […]

Romania’s Social Democrat government on Sunday annulled a decree that would decriminalize some graft offences, an embarrassing u-turn for the country’s new prime minister in the face of week-long mass protests and international rebuke. The government also declassified the transcript of debates during Tuesday’s cabinet meeting when the decree that would have shielded dozens of […]

A Bosnian prosecutor indicted 16 people on Thursday including the heads of a regional investment bank and banking agency, over financial crime and abuse of office which cost the banking sector 122.5 million Bosnian marka ($68 million). The defendants are accused of organising a criminal enterprise to take control of Bobar Banka, and of illegally […]

Thousands hit the streets across the country for the second night amid anger at change to law on string of corruption offences. Protesters have clashed with police in Bucharest after hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets in cities across Romania in anger at the government’s decriminalising of a string of corruption offences. […]

RAI Secretariat is pleased to announce that the new Head of Secretariat, Mr. Vladan Joksimovic has joined the team on February 1st. Mr. Joksimovic was selected as the Head of Secretariat at the 24th RAI Steering Group (SG) Meeting held in Belgrade, Serbia, on December 5th 2016 . Mr. Joksimovic graduated from Law Faculty, University of […]