Category: News and Events

BIRN journalist recognised by UNICEF Bosnia and Herzegovina

Eldin Hadzovic, an alumnus of BIRN’s Balkan Fellowship for Journalistic Excellence, was honoured by UNICEF for his outstanding contribution to journalism in Bosnia. 

UNICEF Bosnia and Herzegovina marked Human Rights Day on December 10 with the presentation of the results of its ‘Justice for Every Child’ campaign. Officials also awarded several journalists and recognised the ambassador of the campaign- Bosnian singer Dino Merlin.

The organisation honoured journalistic achievements in the fields of child protection, violence prevention and juvenile justice in 2012.

Eldin Hadzovic won award for his BIRN’s Fellowship article ‘Abandoned Twice: Bosnia’s Orphans Left in the Lurch’ in which he explains how Bosnia is unable to monitor its orphanages properly, nor can provide any decent alternatives to the institutions.  

UNICEF Bosnia and Herzegovina presented awards to local journalists for the best online work, best radio work, the best TV news and the best in print media.

In addition to BIRN’s Eldin Hadzovic, four other journalists from various media outlets in the country were also honoured with special tributes for outstanding contributions to journalism.

UNICEF’s partner organisations were present for the awards ceremony, as well as representatives of state institutions, the media and several non-profit groups.

The ‘Justice for Every Child’ campaign is part of UNICEF’s project for protection of children at risk, and is supported by relevant ministries and organisations in Bosnia. The campaign is also supported by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, SIDA, and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, SDC.

Together towards a better budget

BIRN Serbia and muncipal officials discuss the budgets of Raška and Kuršumlija with local residents.

As part of its “Participatory Budgeting” project, BIRN Serbia and local municipal officials held budget forums last week in Raška and Kuršumlija, where they presented the 2013 budget for each municipality and received input from residents.

Prior to the Forums, those municipalities conducted citizens’ survey on priorities to be funded out from 2013 Budget.  Among proposed, citizens could pick 3 projects of highest priority, by their opinion.

The forums allowed local residents to comment on the draft 2013 budgets and get answers from top local government officials about administration’s plans for the coming year.

More than 20 local residents took part in the debate in Raška, and Mayor Jovan Čorbić stressed the importance of their participation. He told those gathered that it is important for all citizens to show initiative when it comes to examining the budget because it affects the life of the community.

“Let’s determine together what is the most important and find out how to achieve it. It is useless to promise that it is possible to do everything in one year. Therefore, it is necessary to set priorities,” said Čorbić.

Zagorka Šumarac, who heads the budget department in Raška, presented the draft 2013 budget in a “citizen budget” format, which gives residents a comprehensive look at the projects and plans that have been funded.

Zorica Nišavić from the NGO Women Raška said she was pleased that for the first time residents  had an opportunity to be informed about the budget.

“I hope that in the coming years we will again have a chance to talk about the budget and give our suggestions,” she said. Nišavić’s thoughts on the process were echoed by several other participants.

Meanwhile in Kuršumlija, more than 40 residents and local community representatives participated in the budget debate. Mayor Radoljub Vidić expressed his satisfaction with the large turnout for the debate and the questionnaire “Your money, our responsibility”.

Local participation is crucial, Vidic said, because municipal officials can use the feedback from residents as an instrument to ensure the allocation of resources in accordance with local needs.

“The suggestions and complaints of residents push the local authorities to work on creating quality living conditions for all residents of our municipality,” said Vidić.

The draft budget for 2013 was presented by Deputy Mayor Nebojša Jović, who stressed that this budget put forward 100 million dinars more than was planned in 2012.

“In 2013 we focused on priorities related to agricultural development and entrepreneurship, and some resources will be allocated for scholarships for high school and university students. The plan is to improve the living conditions of the citizens by reducing public spending and putting more funds into investments,” said Jović.

Milivoje Perović, a local beekeeper, told the forum participants that Kuršumlija has the potential to be a substantial producer of organic honey, which would create new jobs, and suggested that this be considered in the next budget cycle.

The conclusions reached during the local budget forums will be presented to members of the Raška and Kuršumlija municipal councils, and BIRN signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the mayors that confirms further cooperation in this field in the future.

The project of implementing the practice of participatory budgeting at the local level through the European Partnership Programme with EU PROGRES municipalities in 25 municipalities in the south and southwest Serbia is supported by the European Union, the Swiss and the Serbian government.

Serbia’s Far Right Wants NGOs Labelled as ‘Foreign Agents’

A Belgrade based far right group has requested that all the country’s NGOs and media funded from abroad, including BIRN, be labelled as “foreign agents”, based on a Russian model.

On Friday, the Serbian far-right movement “SNP Nasi” called on the authorities to pass a law that would label all NGOs and media outlets that addressed politics and were financed from abroad as ‘foreign agents.’

“After submitting its evidence, SNP Nasi will demand that non-governmental organizations and the media blacklisted for committing criminal and unconstitutional acts be legally banned and prosecuted,” the movement said in a statement.

The black list includes BIRN, B92, The Helsinki Committee for Human Rights, ANEM, E-novine, Pescanik, the Association of Independent Journalists of Vojvodina, The European Movement in Serbia, the Legal Committee for Human Rights (YUCOM) and  the Youth Initiative for Human Rights (YIHR).

According to the statement, these organisations are funded by the US government and the “infamous National Endowment for Democracy Foundation”, which operates as an organization for conducting special operations on behalf of the CIA.

The statement also said that NED had been blamed in Latin America for “creating structures aimed at interfering in the internal affairs and undermining the constitutional order [of nation states]”. In Russia, the foundation is treated by law as a foreign agent.

Earlier this month, the group called on the authorities to outlaw 17 NGOs, which it said had violated Serbia’s constitution.

SNP Nasi is known in Serbia for promoting the idea of a Greater Serbia and inciting violence ahead of Gay Pride parades. Prior to the cancellation of the Belgrade Pride Parade in October, SNP Nasi demanded that such events should be banned for 100 years.

BIRN at TransConflict Breakfast on Transitional Justice

BIRN director Gordana Igric participated in TransConflict’s working breakfast on Tuesday, December 4,  together with Nemanja  Stjepanovic from SENSE agency,  on the challenges of  covering transitional justice issues in the former Yugoslavia.

Igric presented BIRN’s Balkan Transitional Justice initiative, which aims to improve public understanding of transitional justice in former Yugoslav countries through on-line news reports, radio programmes and a TV documentary to be released next year.

Both speakers agreed that the acquittals by the Hague Tribunal, ICTY, of Ante Gotovina and Mladen Markac of crimes against Serb civilians during the Croatian Army’s Operation “Oluja” [“Storm”], as well as the acquittal of Kosovo’s Ramus Haradinaj of war crimes against Serbs and non-Albanians during the Kosovo war, posed challenges when it comes to facing the past in the region.

Stjepanovic said that while the acquittal of Haradinaj was to be expected owing to the lack of fresh evidence on the part of the Hague prosecution, the EULEX mission in Kosovo and the Serbian government, the acquittal of the Croatian generals was more surprising as their indictment was supported with strong evidence.

Both speakers agreed that in both cases, the defence had been much more efficient than the prosecution.

Igric said that although the ICTY verdicts would surely affect relations between countries in the region, Serbia’s government remained determined to start membership talks with the EU.

The public saw the ICTY verdicts as backing the Croatian narrative about a defensive war, which Serbs saw as unfair, Igric noted.

TransConflict is a non-governmental organisation which undertakes conflict transformation projects and research, promoting an approach to – and understanding of – conflict that differs from traditional notions of conflict resolution.

Working breakfast – on the challenges of transitional justice in the former Yugoslavia – was organized as part of its project, ‘Understanding and combating extremism in Serbia’.

Serbia: Budget Process Fast, But Not Transparent

While Serbian officials adopted the state budget on time, the process lacked public input, participants in the Fourth National Budget Forum concluded on Monday.

At the forum, which was organised by BIRN and PRO CONCEPT, participants said the most significant progress made in Serbia’s budget process is prompt voting, but they lamented the lack of public participation.

The forum brought together over 100 representatives of ministries, members of parliament, civil society representatives and experts, representatives of embassies in Belgrade and local governments.

Vlajko Senić, State Secretary in the Ministry of Finance, said the budget is realistic, and added that in creating it, the Ministry considered the remarks of the Fiscal Council related to the improvement of budget control.

“The establishment of a quarterly expenditure control mechanism introduced tougher discipline and better transparency,” he said at the forum, which was held at the National Parliament.

Responding to the comment that there was no public debate before the vote on the budget, Senić said that a new government was formed in the final quarter of the budget season, and there was no time for wider public involvement in the decision-making process.

Vladimir Vučković, a member of the Fiscal Council, told participants he was pleased that the Ministry had acknowledged and adopted numerous comments made by the Council. He described the budget as realistic, while pointing to areas of risk on both the expenditure and the revenue sides.

“Non-tax revenue and income taxes have been overestimated in the projections, but it is still possible to reach the projections if the inflation rate increases,” Vucković said.

On the expenditure side the most important test for the Ministry of Finance will be to hold to planned salaries and not to succumb to social pressure and abandon the tight control of wages and earnings, he added.

Meanwhile Dimitri Boarov, a journalist from the weekly magazine “Vreme”, said he was pleased that the Ministry of Finance had adhered to the budget calendar and followed the advice of expert bodies, but noted that such steps do not bring about fundamental change to the process.

“It is almost certain that the budget will face major risks in implementation, primarily the risk of not maintaining levels of planned expenditures,” Boarov said.

Citizens budget

At the forum on Monday, BIRN and PRO CONCEPT presented the Citizens Guide to the State Budget, which was drafted by the two organisations.

The first manual of its kind in Serbia, the Citizens Guide was created with the aim of making the preparation, adoption and execution of the budget more accessible and more comprehensible to the public.

“We have forgotten about the citizens and the fact that the budget is actually in their interest. This guide is designed for citizens and is part of an effort to make it easier for them to actively engage in monitoring the budget, ” the guide’s creators told the forum.

The editor of the economic section of “Večernje Novosti”, Gordana Bulatovic, who represented the media at the public hearing, said that not only were citizens deprived of basic information related to the budget, but media outlets were also given inadequate information.

“The media can not find anything about hidden costs and how much money is given to each Ministry. For many subjects we have no counterparts in government. Reporting on the budget was reduced to tabloid newspaper and transfer of parliamentary replicas, while there was no analysis of the law and its impact on citizens,” said Bulatovic.

Kosovo and Serbia Talk “Live”

In an unprecedented public debate organized by Internews Kosova and BIRN, Edita Tahiri, Kosovo’s Chief Negotiator, and Serbia’s former Chief Negotiator, Borislav Stefanovic, have discussed the agreements they have reached during the EU moderated negotiations.

In their first public debate without the mediation of Robert Cooper, EU’s chief negotiator, Tahiri and Sefanovic recalled the most difficult moments of the 18-month long Brussels negotiations.
 
In the first ever edition of the series of regional TV debates called ‘Tema’(Topic), Tahiri and Stefanovic spoke about the challenges of reaching agreements in seven areas and elaborated on the problems encountered in implementing those agreements in the field.
 
The debate will be aired by privately owned national broadcasters, on Monday, December 3, at 10.30 pm on TV21 in Kosovo and on Thursday, December 6, at 9 pm on B92 INFO.
 
Since March 2011, the EU has been facilitating technical negotiations between Kosovo and Serbia, aimed at normalizing the relationship of Belgrade and Pristina.
 
So far, the two sides have reached deals on trade, mutual recognition of university diplomas, representation of Kosovo at regional meetings, freedom of movement including the Integrated Border Management, IBM.

The two negotiators engaged in polemics over what was exactly agreed especially on the issue of the ‘Integrated Border Management’ agreement reached by the two sides on December 2, 2011.
 
The former Chief Negotiator Borko Stefanovic, insists that Belgrade was provided with guarantees that some of the agreements reached are not applicable to the Serb-run north of Kosovo.
 
“We agreed that EULEX [EU Rule of Law Mission to Kosovo] has the executive role at the Jarinje and Brnjak border crossings,” Stefanovic said insisting that if this is not the case in the north, then “there will be no agreement,” as far as Serbia is concerned.
 
On the other hand, Kosovo’s former Chief Negotiator, Edita Tahiri, told Stefanovic that he misinformed his own parliament after the technical protocol was agreed upon.
 
This episode is the first in a series of several Kosovo-Serbia debates will be aired in both places.  
 
The aim of the debates is to break the communication barriers between Belgrade and Pristina and demystifies the process of negotiations.

View the trailer in Serbian

View the trailer in Albanian

Dijalog Kosova i Srbije “uživo“

U jedinstvenoj debati koju organizuju Internews Kosovo i BIRN, šefica pregovaračkog tima Kosova Edita Tahiri i bivši glavni pregovarač Srbije Borislav Stefanović pristali su da pred kamerama govore o dogovorima postignutim tokom pregovora vođenih pod posredstvom Evropske unije.

Dvoje političara prvi put razgovaraju bez posredstva glavnog pregovarača EU Roberta Kupera i prisećaju se najtežih trenutaka osamnaestomesečnih pregovora.

Debata će ove nedelje biti emitovana u ponedeljak, 3. decembra na TV21 na Kosovu, i u četvrtak, 6.decembra u 21h na B92 INFO.

U prvoj seriji regionalnih i televizijskih debata pod nazivom ‘Tema’, Tahiri i Stefanović govore o izazovima koje su imali u procesu postizanja sedam sporazuma i problemima sa kojima su se suočili u procesu implementacije ovih sporazuma na terenu.

Od marta 2011. pod pokroviteljstvom Evropske unije održava se tehnički dijalog između Kosova i Srbije koji za cilj ima normalizaciju odnosa dve strane. Do sada su postignuti sporazumi o slobodi trgovine, međusobnom priznavanju fakultetskih diploma, predstavljanju Kosova na regionalnim skupovima i o slobodi kretanja koja obuhvata i dogovor o integrisanom upravljanju prelazima.

Tokom razgovora uživo između Prištine i Beograda ova dva izaslanika ušla su u polemiku oko toga šta je tačno dogovoreno, naročito kada je u pitanju dogovor o integrisanom upravljanju granicama koji su dve strane postigle 2. decembra, 2011. godine.

Kada je u pitanju ova tema, bivši šef pregovaračkog tima Srbije Borko Stefanović insistira na tome da su Beogradu date garancije da neki od postignutih dogovora nisu primenljivi na severu Kosova.

“Dogovorili smo se da EULEX ima izvršnu ulogu u Jarinju i Brnjaku”, rekao je Stefanović insistirajući da, ako to nije tako na severu, onda, što se Srbije tiče, “neće biti nikakvog dogovora”.

S druge strane, pregovarač Edita Tahiri rekla je Stefanoviću da je on pogrešno informisao svoju skupštinu nakon što je postignut dogovor o tehničkom protokolu.

Ova epizoda je prva u nizu od nekoliko regionalnih debata između Kosova i Srbije koje će biti emitovane i na Kosovu i u Srbiji a koje imaju za cilj da demistkfikuju pregovarački proces i otvore u javnosti razgovor o temama važnim za obe strane.

BIRN Launches Book on Mladic in the Media

The Balkan Investigative Reporting Network, BIRN, of Bosnia and Herzegovina will launch its publication ‘Spotlight on Mladic: Villian or Celebrity?,’ on December 11 in Sarajevo. 

The publication contains an overview of the coverage of the arrest and the beginning of the trial of Ratko Mladic, who is charged with genocide and other crimes in Bosnia and Herzegovina, in the media in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Croatia.

Monitoring focused on the highest-circulation dailies and weeklies in the three countries selected. 

The publication is co-authored by Christian Axboe Nilsen, Erna Mackic, Marija Ristic, Boris Pavelic and Selma Ucanbarlic, containing an introduction by Balkan Insight editor Marcus Tanner.

Speakers at the launch in the Atrium Hall of the Europa Hotel in Sarajevo will include Gordana Igric, the publication editor’s and BIRN Director, Sabina Wölkner, Director of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in BiH, Erna Mackic, analyst and BIRN Justice Report editor and Christian Nilsen, historian, the author of the publication’s foreword

Implementation of the project was made possible with support from, and collaboration with, the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

BIRN, ProConcept Open National Budget Forum

BIRN Serbia and ProConcept will open the fourth annual National Budget Forum in Belgrade on Monday.

The two organisations will hold the forum on Monday, December 3 at 12.30pm in the small hall of the National Parliament.

Participants in this year’s forum will examine transparency in the budgeting process and control of budget execution.

Following an introductory debate, which will focus on the main budget policies and challenges that Serbia is likely to face in 2013, the Citizens Budget of the Republic of Serbia will be presented at working tables. Forum participants will then take part in a second debate that will focus on possibilities for greater control of the budget’s execution by the Serbian Parliament Finance Committee.

Senior officials from the Finance Ministry, Fiscal Council and National Parliament will take part in the debates, as well as experts from the community.

This annual event, now in its fourth year, is traditionally the final debate on budget priorities and models for improving the budgeting process.

Simultaneous translation from Serbian to English will be provided by the organisers.

For more information please contact Ms. Lada Vučenović at 060 3 1985 21 or [email protected].

First Culture Watch Award Goes to Vranje

The first ever Culture Watch Award for analytical and investigative reporting on cultural issues in the Balkans went to Valentina Milenkovic from Vranje.

Gordana Igric, Valentina Milenkovic

The award organised by Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) and SeeCult.org was presented at the regional conference “What is (to be) Done” that took place on November 28 in Dom Omladine in Belgrade.

The jury, consisting of six cultural experts and an internationally awarded journalist, gave the first prize to Valentina Milenkovic, a journalist at “Vranjske” weekly magazine, for her complex investigative piece “How does government entertain people”.

Milenkovic investigated the funding of the cultural event “Cultural-touristic manifestation” in the municipality of Vranje in Serbia over the period of three years.

“For all that time they can only show four or five contracts that prove how the money was spent. Over 50 participants, some of them really famous Serbian singers, took part in the event,” said Milenkovic at the award ceremony.

“This is my first award in 13 years-long journalistic career, and therefore this is very important to me,” she added.

The second prize was awarded to Gordana Popovic from the daily newspaper Politika for her article “Serbia and the EU  – Culture and Candidature” about the reaction from the Serbian officials after the country obtained the EU candidate status.

“I talked to numerous officials and it was really interesting to confront opinions of two different sides in Serbia,” said Popovic.

The third prize went to Pristina to Vullnet Krasniqui, a journalist from the daily newspaper Koha Ditore for the article: “Kosovo authorities risk loosing some clay figures of Kosovar origin”.

Article by Bosnian journalist Irfan Hosic “Departures as a Rule” published in the “Dani” weekly magazine, was given the fourth prize.

“It is an honour for me to receive this award especially for my analysis of art scene in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the emigration of the artist from the country,” said Hosic.

The Balkan Initiative for Cultural Cooperation Exchange and Development, BICCED, envisages the Culture Watch Award was envisaged as a step towards strengthening the analytical and investigative approach to cultural issues.

The BICCED board decided on Tuesday that the award would become an annual event. This year’s awards were supported by the Swiss Cultural Programme for the Western Balkans (SCP).