Bulletin

In this issueAlmost hundred defendants, including former mayors, former city officials, entrepreneurs, lawyers and art dealers face possible jail terms amounting to a total of up to 500 years and fines totaling about one billion euros in Spain's biggest ever corruption trial. They are accused of corruption in approving the planning permits and selling state owned land in Marbella, a jet-set tourist resort in the south of Spain. The Spanish Prosecutor’s Office needed three years to gather enough evidence and start this big-time corruption trial, which is expected to last about a year.Over the Atlantic, Mexico's federal police agency has fired nearly 10 percent of its force this year for failing checks designed to detect possible corruption, a major obstacle in the country's battle against increasingly brutal drug gangs. Mexico's federal police are required to undergo periodic lie detector, psychological and drug examinations, and the government routinely investigates their finances and personal life. The sacking came as a result of President Felipe Calderon’s all-out war against the drug cartels, which has left some 28,000 people dead since he came to power in December 2006.In Bosnia and Herzegovina – EU High Representative openly said the corruption has entered all pores of the society and called on the citizens to take this fact into account at the next voting.In addition, we also provide journalistic analysis of the failure of Macedonian authorities to fully utilize the domestic and international funds and donations for reconstruction of schools, pinpointed in the latest auditing report of the Ministry of Education and...

In this issueAlmost hundred defendants, including former mayors, former city officials, entrepreneurs, lawyers and art dealers face possible jail terms amounting to a total of up to 500 years and fines totaling about one billion euros in Spain's biggest ever corruption trial. They are accused of corruption in approving the planning permits and selling state owned land in Marbella, a jet-set tourist resort in the south of Spain. The Spanish Prosecutor’s Office needed three years to gather enough evidence and start this big-time corruption trial, which is expected to last about a year.Over the Atlantic, Mexico's federal police agency has fired nearly 10 percent of its force this year for failing checks designed to detect possible corruption, a major obstacle in the country's battle against increasingly brutal drug gangs. Mexico's federal police are required to undergo periodic lie detector, psychological and drug examinations, and the government routinely investigates their finances and personal life. The sacking came as a result of President Felipe Calderon’s all-out war against the drug cartels, which has left some 28,000 people dead since he came to power in December 2006.In Bosnia and Herzegovina – EU High Representative openly said the corruption has entered all pores of the society and called on the citizens to take this fact into account at the next voting.In addition, we also provide journalistic analysis of the failure of Macedonian authorities to fully utilize the domestic and international funds and donations for reconstruction of schools, pinpointed in the latest auditing report of the Ministry of Education and...

In this issueSeveral non-governmental in Serbia have decided to ‘whistle’ against corruption. They have launched a special web portal that offers opportunity to citizens to report corruption, namely to blow the whistle, while journalists engaged in this project will further investigate these reports and alarm the public. Although active for less than two months the portal ‘pistaljka.rs’ has already achieved results.Very often the United Nations (UN) and its senior officials are also part of corruption scandals or at least of such allegations. The head of internal audit department resigned, accusing the UN Secretary General for lack of transparency and accountability.In neighboring Kosovo one of the serious corruption affairs resulted in a detention of the National Bank governor, while in Bulgaria the leader of ethnic Turks living in this country will go on trial over possible conflict of interests during his service within the mandate of the previous government.Corruption has been flourishing in the Western Balkan countries. Latest reports of relevant institutions say the combat against corruption in the Balkan countries is only declarative, thus presenting an obstacle on their road to the European Union membership. On this occasion our regular analysts Vanja Mihajlova gives a cross section of combating the corruption in the neighboring countries in an attempt to answer the question whether they are willing to deal with this problem.In the meantime, the third Round Evaluation Report on Macedonia of the Council of Europe’s Group of States against Corruption (GRECO) notifies lack of effective application of the party funding regulations  and urges for certain...

In this issueSeveral non-governmental in Serbia have decided to ‘whistle’ against corruption. They have launched a special web portal that offers opportunity to citizens to report corruption, namely to blow the whistle, while journalists engaged in this project will further investigate these reports and alarm the public. Although active for less than two months the portal ‘pistaljka.rs’ has already achieved results.Very often the United Nations (UN) and its senior officials are also part of corruption scandals or at least of such allegations. The head of internal audit department resigned, accusing the UN Secretary General for lack of transparency and accountability.In neighboring Kosovo one of the serious corruption affairs resulted in a detention of the National Bank governor, while in Bulgaria the leader of ethnic Turks living in this country will go on trial over possible conflict of interests during his service within the mandate of the previous government.Corruption has been flourishing in the Western Balkan countries. Latest reports of relevant institutions say the combat against corruption in the Balkan countries is only declarative, thus presenting an obstacle on their road to the European Union membership. On this occasion our regular analysts Vanja Mihajlova gives a cross section of combating the corruption in the neighboring countries in an attempt to answer the question whether they are willing to deal with this problem.In the meantime, the third Round Evaluation Report on Macedonia of the Council of Europe’s Group of States against Corruption (GRECO) notifies lack of effective application of the party funding regulations  and urges for certain...

In this issueSeveral non-governmental in Serbia have decided to ‘whistle’ against corruption. They have launched a special web portal that offers opportunity to citizens to report corruption, namely to blow the whistle, while journalists engaged in this project will further investigate these reports and alarm the public. Although active for less than two months the portal ‘pistaljka.rs’ has already achieved results.Very often the United Nations (UN) and its senior officials are also part of corruption scandals or at least of such allegations. The head of internal audit department resigned, accusing the UN Secretary General for lack of transparency and accountability.In neighboring Kosovo one of the serious corruption affairs resulted in a detention of the National Bank governor, while in Bulgaria the leader of ethnic Turks living in this country will go on trial over possible conflict of interests during his service within the mandate of the previous government.Corruption has been flourishing in the Western Balkan countries. Latest reports of relevant institutions say the combat against corruption in the Balkan countries is only declarative, thus presenting an obstacle on their road to the European Union membership. On this occasion our regular analysts Vanja Mihajlova gives a cross section of combating the corruption in the neighboring countries in an attempt to answer the question whether they are willing to deal with this problem.In the meantime, the third Round Evaluation Report on Macedonia of the Council of Europe’s Group of States against Corruption (GRECO) notifies lack of effective application of the party funding regulations  and urges for certain...

In this issueSeveral non-governmental in Serbia have decided to ‘whistle’ against corruption. They have launched a special web portal that offers opportunity to citizens to report corruption, namely to blow the whistle, while journalists engaged in this project will further investigate these reports and alarm the public. Although active for less than two months the portal ‘pistaljka.rs’ has already achieved results.Very often the United Nations (UN) and its senior officials are also part of corruption scandals or at least of such allegations. The head of internal audit department resigned, accusing the UN Secretary General for lack of transparency and accountability.In neighboring Kosovo one of the serious corruption affairs resulted in a detention of the National Bank governor, while in Bulgaria the leader of ethnic Turks living in this country will go on trial over possible conflict of interests during his service within the mandate of the previous government.Corruption has been flourishing in the Western Balkan countries. Latest reports of relevant institutions say the combat against corruption in the Balkan countries is only declarative, thus presenting an obstacle on their road to the European Union membership. On this occasion our regular analysts Vanja Mihajlova gives a cross section of combating the corruption in the neighboring countries in an attempt to answer the question whether they are willing to deal with this problem.In the meantime, the third Round Evaluation Report on Macedonia of the Council of Europe’s Group of States against Corruption (GRECO) notifies lack of effective application of the party funding regulations  and urges for certain...

In this issueSeveral non-governmental in Serbia have decided to ‘whistle’ against corruption. They have launched a special web portal that offers opportunity to citizens to report corruption, namely to blow the whistle, while journalists engaged in this project will further investigate these reports and alarm the public. Although active for less than two months the portal ‘pistaljka.rs’ has already achieved results.Very often the United Nations (UN) and its senior officials are also part of corruption scandals or at least of such allegations. The head of internal audit department resigned, accusing the UN Secretary General for lack of transparency and accountability.In neighboring Kosovo one of the serious corruption affairs resulted in a detention of the National Bank governor, while in Bulgaria the leader of ethnic Turks living in this country will go on trial over possible conflict of interests during his service within the mandate of the previous government.Corruption has been flourishing in the Western Balkan countries. Latest reports of relevant institutions say the combat against corruption in the Balkan countries is only declarative, thus presenting an obstacle on their road to the European Union membership. On this occasion our regular analysts Vanja Mihajlova gives a cross section of combating the corruption in the neighboring countries in an attempt to answer the question whether they are willing to deal with this problem.In the meantime, the third Round Evaluation Report on Macedonia of the Council of Europe’s Group of States against Corruption (GRECO) notifies lack of effective application of the party funding regulations  and urges for certain...

In this issueSeveral non-governmental in Serbia have decided to ‘whistle’ against corruption. They have launched a special web portal that offers opportunity to citizens to report corruption, namely to blow the whistle, while journalists engaged in this project will further investigate these reports and alarm the public. Although active for less than two months the portal ‘pistaljka.rs’ has already achieved results.Very often the United Nations (UN) and its senior officials are also part of corruption scandals or at least of such allegations. The head of internal audit department resigned, accusing the UN Secretary General for lack of transparency and accountability.In neighboring Kosovo one of the serious corruption affairs resulted in a detention of the National Bank governor, while in Bulgaria the leader of ethnic Turks living in this country will go on trial over possible conflict of interests during his service within the mandate of the previous government.Corruption has been flourishing in the Western Balkan countries. Latest reports of relevant institutions say the combat against corruption in the Balkan countries is only declarative, thus presenting an obstacle on their road to the European Union membership. On this occasion our regular analysts Vanja Mihajlova gives a cross section of combating the corruption in the neighboring countries in an attempt to answer the question whether they are willing to deal with this problem.In the meantime, the third Round Evaluation Report on Macedonia of the Council of Europe’s Group of States against Corruption (GRECO) notifies lack of effective application of the party funding regulations  and urges for certain...

In this issueSeveral non-governmental in Serbia have decided to ‘whistle’ against corruption. They have launched a special web portal that offers opportunity to citizens to report corruption, namely to blow the whistle, while journalists engaged in this project will further investigate these reports and alarm the public. Although active for less than two months the portal ‘pistaljka.rs’ has already achieved results.Very often the United Nations (UN) and its senior officials are also part of corruption scandals or at least of such allegations. The head of internal audit department resigned, accusing the UN Secretary General for lack of transparency and accountability.In neighboring Kosovo one of the serious corruption affairs resulted in a detention of the National Bank governor, while in Bulgaria the leader of ethnic Turks living in this country will go on trial over possible conflict of interests during his service within the mandate of the previous government.Corruption has been flourishing in the Western Balkan countries. Latest reports of relevant institutions say the combat against corruption in the Balkan countries is only declarative, thus presenting an obstacle on their road to the European Union membership. On this occasion our regular analysts Vanja Mihajlova gives a cross section of combating the corruption in the neighboring countries in an attempt to answer the question whether they are willing to deal with this problem.In the meantime, the third Round Evaluation Report on Macedonia of the Council of Europe’s Group of States against Corruption (GRECO) notifies lack of effective application of the party funding regulations  and urges for certain...

IN THIS ISSUEJust two months since you have read on these very same pages an exclusive interview with the leading regional anti-corruptioner, the head of Slovene Commission for Preventing Corruption and Chairperson of the Council of Europe’s Group of States against Corruption (GRECO), Drago Kos, we present yet another exclusive interview in this issue. Yale University Professor Susan Rose-Ackerman, one of the leading experts in corruption, recommends what one government should do in order to be considered anti-corruptive. PhD Rose- Ackerman, who in particular studies the link between corruption and economic development and having substantial experience with post-communist countries, recommends establishing of an anti-corruption alliance, comprised of the NGO sector, businessmen, administration and politicians.This summer is marked by another significant event related to the global combat against corruption. G-20 tabled the corruption on its last summit in Canada and set up a group that would fight this evil.In the neighborhood, a poll of the ‘Gallup’ agency shows that up to 90 percent of respondents consider that business climate has plunged deeply into corruption, while 80 percent believe for the judiciary to be one of the main strongholds of the corruption.In our regular analyses, we refer to the role of whistleblowers in corruption and organized crime. While this instrument is close to non-functional in our country, it has been frequently used in the United States and developed Asian countries. Two moments are considered vital for the functioning of whistle-blowing: institutions to really do something after being informed on corruptive activity and offer serious protection to good-will...