July 04, 2020

Balkans: prone to corruption on both sides of the EU border

topic:	Transparency and Corruption
located:	Serbia
editor:	Katarina Panić

Some states in the Balkans have not refrained from corruption during the COVID-19 pandemic. On the contrary, some have widely misused the state of emergency. It seems that medical equipment, especially respirators, proved to be a very lucrative business.

"One mustn't forget that the main businessmen here occurred during the war. They abused a much worse situation than this one with the pandemic. They were war profiteers, and now they are corona ones," Bosnian journalist Avdo Avdić told to Radio Free Europe.

Image by falco 

The Prime Minister of Bosnia's Federation entity Fadil Novalić was arrested in late May as one of the suspects over overpriced Chinese respirators purchase. The country's largest Bosniak party, to which Novalić belongs, called the investigation anti-Bosniak and accused Chief Prosecutor Gordana Tadić, a Bosnian Croat, of intentionally overlooking other cases involving non-Bosniaks. Tadić asked for additional police protection after she received the threats.

"I do not see anything anti-Bosniak in this process. I can't just watch when someone makes a target out of the prosecutor," Security Minister Fahrudin Radončić, who is also Bosniak, explained one of the reasons for his resignation that followed.

In Republika Srpska, another administrative unit in Bosnia, the investigation over suspicious field hospital purchase was launched after the Public Health Institute cancelled a €1.8 million contract. The opposition claims it was not a hospital, but a tent. They also doubt the investigation is going to be fruitful, accusing the government of complete control over the police and judiciary.

In Serbia, the authorities declared the public procurement of respirators as a top-secret, including the numbers of ventilators that existed and ones intended to be purchased, as well as their price. Whenever the media, the opposition and CSOs warn hospitals are overcrowded, and protective gear is missing, the government accused them of spreading fake news. The same is the case for many other affairs in this country that usually never find their way to court.

In Slovenia, Minister of Economy Zdravko Počivalšek was arrested this week over a suspicious deal with "Geneplanet" which won an €8 million contract to supply medical ventilators. The Minister of Interior Aleš Hojs stepped down instantly, claiming the action is motivated by political background, not by legal issues. The opposition demands the whole government resign.

As long as similar cases are politicised, the authorities are going to bear the burden of being prone to corruption. The rule of law is wholly opposed to the parallel structures that have been carefully nursed for decades after the Iron Curtain fall. The more the so-called deep state is making decisions instead of institutions, the farthest the countries are from proclaimed values of the EU, regardless of being a member or trying to reach a membership.

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