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BIG DEAL: The Association should not be prioritized over rule of law

On Tuesday, April 19, the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) and Internews Kosova held a roundtable to launch and discuss the most recent publication by BIG DEAL,  a civic oversight initiative on the Kosovo-Serbia negotiations.

Three years since the ‘historic’ “First agreement on principles” was signed in Brussels by Ivica Dacic and Hashim Thaci, only four of sixteen agreements have been implemented.

On the other hand, the formation of the Association/Community of Serb-majority municipalities poses challenges for Kosovo’s political stability, its rule of law, and for the credibility of the European Union, the BIG DEAL report argues.

“By making the dialogue their top priority, the EU and the US have constantly tolerated the weakness of democracy and the rule of law in Kosovo. Yet the damage inflicted on both as a consequence has risked to undo even the limited progress achieved in the dialogue so far,” said Bodo Weber of the Democratization Policy Council, the author of the report. “Therefore the US and the EU need to demonstrate full commitment to and respect for the constitutional and legal foundations of the state of Kosovo in the framework of the Serbia-Kosovo dialogue.”

The report, entitled “Awkward Juggling: Constitutional insecurity, political instability and rule of law in the Kosovo- Serbia dialogue” examines the way forward for the implementation of key agreements in the wake of the December ruling by Kosovo’s Constitutional Court on the general principles of the future Association/Community of Serb-majority municipalities.

The report calls on the European External Action Service to “engage international experts on the topics of constitutional law, forms of positive discrimination in multi-ethnic polities and on local self-governance to participate in the process of drafting the Statute of the future Association/Community of Serb majority municipalities.”

Panelists, including the EU representative in Kosovo, Samuel Zbogar and Jelena Milic from the Center for Euro Atlantic Studies, also discussed the current stagnation with implementation of agreements in general.

“It is unfortunate that, similar to six months ago when we presented our comprehensive monitoring report, only four of 16 reached agreements have been fully implemented,” said Faik Ispahiu, Executive Director of Internews Kosova. “Five years after the Kosovo-Serbia dialogue began, Kosovo and Serbia are refusing to recognize one another’s diplomas. The draft law on cadastre has been blocked for two years with no progress, and Kosovars still don’t have an operating telephone code despite the fact that not one, but two agreements have been signed about this very topic.”

Samuel Zbogar, EU representative in Kosovo stated that their job was to facilitate the process and believed normalization was in Kosovo’s interest.

However, we warned that with the political situation in Kosovo, there is a need to build wider political consensus around the dialogue.

“Although it has been plainly stated by members of the Serbian government that their top priority is the formation of the Association/Community, this should not be the condition for the implementation of other agreements that were signed long before the 19 April 2013 agreement,” Xharra said. “The fair implementation tempo should push for the agreements to be chronologically implemented: those that were signed first should be fully implemented first.”

Moreover, said BIRN Kosovo Director Jeta Xharra, EU and US diplomats need to send clear signals to both Prishtina and Belgrade that the implementation of all other pending agreements is just as important as the one on the Association/Community.

BIG DEAL is a platform for civic oversight of the Kosovo-Serbia dialogue led by BIRN Kosovo, Internews Kosova and BIRN Serbia. Members of BIG DEAL include the Advocacy Center for Democratic Culture (ACDC) of North Mitrovica. The Belgrade-based Center for Euro-Atlantic Studies, and the Berlin-based Democratization Policy Council.

“Our civic oversight initiative has brought progress,” said Tanja Maksic, Program Coordinator of BIRN Serbia.

“We as BIG DEAL have demanded that delegations of Serbia and Kosovo bring down the cost of travel because it was costing a fortune for people to cross the border from one neighbour to another – today, I am glad this cost has come down significantly,” said Maksic.

Government to stop with witch hunt

BIRN Serbia calls representatives of the Serbian government to stop deceiving the public and participating in the campaign against civil society organisations, which report professionally and objectively on the work of Serbian institutions.

We request that instead of suppressing dissenting voices, the government create an environment where organisations that point to criminal actions and corruption will be involved in debate on fundamental issues in our society in a fair and free manner.
Instead of openness to criticism, Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic has joined an ongoing campaign led by major Serbian tabloids against independent media outlets such as the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network, BIRN, Serbia’s Centre for Investigative Journalist, CINS, and the Crime and Corruption Reporting Network, KRIK.
In the television show Cirilica [Cyrillic], broadcast on Serbia-wide Happy TV on November 9, Prime Minister Vucic once again accused those pointing to corruption in the state of aiming to overthrow the Serbian government. These government watchdogs, BIRN Serbia included, are accused of using lies to attack the state.
It is an extremely dangerous environment when the prime minister is using his position to dismiss opponents, qualifying them as mobsters, thieves and criminals despite no evidence or opportunity for them to defend themselves. This creates an atmosphere where unpredictable and sometimes lethal consequences exist.
During his interview with Happy TV, Prime Minister Vucic voiced his support of the theory that independent investigative centres in Serbia are paid by foreign donors to destabilise the government.
The day prior, the interior minister Nebojsa Stefanovic addressed the same theory in his appearance on national broadcaster TV Pink’s programme Teska rec. He used his public podium to express allegations that BIRN, CINS and KRIK are being financed exclusively by foreign donations. This approach suggests that BIRN’s financing is controversial.
We would like to remind the public that BIRN is not exclusively financed from foreign funders, but also with taxpayers’ money through the government’s office for cooperation with civil society. BIRN Serbia is not a phantom organisation on a secret mission to cause unrest, but an organisation that has worked in Serbia for ten years, in accordance to all the laws of our state. BIRN Serbia also makes all data, including financial records, publically available through the competent bodies.
The latest attacks are merely a continuation of the campaign against BIRN, which started in April 2014. The initial attack was sparked when BIRN published the draft agreement between the Serbian government and Etihad Airways, which showed that the state had paid more for its stake in carrier Air Serbia than it had revealed to the public. That campaign reached a peak earlier this year after an investigation into the controversial tender for de-watering Serbia’s biggest mine, Tamnava, was published. To this day, the findings have not been denied.
BIRN believes that this continual campaign was directed at discrediting the organisation in the absence of arguments, which would deny the findings of our published investigations.

BIRN Praised for Good Practice in Journalism

Media experts and journalists from south-east Europe who met to discuss how to preserve journalistic integrity said that only a few media in the region, including BIRN, were serving as role models.

The South East European Media Observatory brought together journalists and media experts in Sarajevo on April 14 to discuss the reasons for the deterioration of media integrity in the region at a round-table entitled ‘How to save the integrity of journalism and the media? Learning lessons from good practice in the protection of media integrity in the countries of south-east Europe’.

The panellists said that the issues that usually affect media integrity include problematic and non-transparent ownerships, politically-controlled advertisng and non-transparent state advertising.

Although the situaiton in media previous years has been worsening, they said there were some examples of good practice in defending media freedoms, citing the weekly magazine Novosti in Croatia, the online magazine Žurnal.info and the Buka online portal from Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Sarajevo-based Centre for Investigative Reporting and the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network, BIRN.

“All the good examples are non-profit media, established by journalists, and they are all clear what the purpose of journalism is. They are clear about their public mission, and journalism as a public service,” Brankica Petkovic of the Peace Institute from Ljubljana said during the discussion.

“Only journalists can save journalism – not the state, not the government, not researchers,” Petkovic added.

The panellists expressed concern about a sigificant decline in foreign financial support for independent media in the region, which is threatening their sustainability.

BIRN regional network director Gordana Igric said this should be addressed as a matter of urgency.

“Media debates in the region should therefore only be directed towards finding new ways of funding investigative and independent reporting,” said Igric.

“Investigative reporting is expensive and some of the biggest media outlets, like Britain’s The Independent, have failed to find a sustainable model and faced closing. If such big media shut down, this could happen to anyone,” she warned.

The round-table participants concluded that they ought to start searching for and developing new financial models because although Balkan countries are in great need of objective and independent journalism, ways have to be found for these media to become sustainable.

BIRN Serbia Launches Government Performance Report

Much-needed reforms are still being delayed and persistent problems such as corruption have yet to be tackled, says the latest Government Performance Report from BIRN Serbia.

BIRN Serbia’s newly-published report analyses developments in the economy, the fight against corruption and the education and health sectors under Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic’s government from 2014 to the announcement of early elections in 2016.

The report shows that reduced wages and pensions caused stagnation in consumer spending, unemployment remained high, and economic reform has been much slower than promised.

Serbia is still suffering from widespread corruption and the government has had limited impact on the problem, while convictions for corruption at the highest levels are still lacking, the report says.

The government’s time in office was marked by serious protests by education workers, while plagiarism scandals involving senior state officials have yet to be unresolved.

One of the biggest problems in healthcare relates to the financing of the health system. The anti-corruption struggle in the healthcare sector has only been partially successful, while access to healthcare is still not at a satisfactory level.

The full report is available at Mera Vlade.

BIRN Bosnia Journalists Get New Media Training

BIRN Bosnia and Herzegovina’s journalists have attended training sessions on new technologies, social networks, video editing, online analytical systems and investigative journalism in recent months.

BIRN BIH journalists underwent the training sessions as the organisation began following the work of judiciary in the field of the rule of law in addition as well as reporting on war crimes and preparing a new modern media platform called detektor.ba.

The goal of the specialised training sessions was to modernise the journalists’ working tools and present the content produced by BIRN BiH to as many readers as possible, without compromising its journalistic ethics.   

Producers and editors from the leading media outlets in the region and community managers presented BIRN journalists with contemporary methods for creating and organising content with the aim of attaining a better outreach and having better communication with the audience.

The BIRN BiH team learned how to achieve achieving bigger presence and better positioning of their products on social networks like Facebook and Twitter, as well as increasing readership on BIRN’s own media outlet.  

Gordana Igric, BIRN’s regional director, also held a training session for junior journalists on investigative journalism, accentuating the importance of fact-checking, objectivity and impartiality, as well as the rule of having at least two sources.

MEPs ‘Deplore’ Defamation Threat Against BIRN Albania

In an amendment to the draft-resolution on Albania’s reform progress in 2015, two members of the European Parliament have expressed strong worded condemnation of a defamation threat issues against BIRN Albania from local officials, on the heels of investigation that exposed the criminal background of a number of mayor candidates in the June 2015 local elections.

The European Parliament “deplores that the Balkan Investigative Regional Network, an independent and investigative media outlet, has been threatened with a defamation case, following its investigations into the criminal past of a mayoral candidate during the local elections in 2015,”reads the amendment proposed MEPs Marietje Schaake and Ilhan Kyuchyuk, from the Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe.

On the eve of the local elections BIRN Albania published an investigation exposing evidence that three mayor candidates running in the local elections had a criminal background.

Evidence obtained by BIRN showed that two candidates running for the Socialist-led ruling coalition, Artur Bushi and Elvis Rroshi, standing for the posts of mayor of Kruja and Kavaja , had been arrested for drug trafficking.

A candidate for the opposition Democratic Party in the municipality in Kelcyra, Gentian Muhameti, was meanwhile convicted of drug trafficking.

After the publication of the story the mayor of Kavaja Elvis Rroshi issued a statement threatening to sue BIRN for defamation in the amount of €100,000. The threat articulated by Rroshi, which included a three-day ultimatum for BIRN to withdraw the story, was repeated several times by Prime Minister Edi Rama in prime-time interviews.

BIRN Albania stood by its report and the threat of a lawsuit issued by Rroshi never materialized.  

In the draft-resolution prepared by the Rapporteur for Albania, Knut Fleckenstein, the European Parliament also expressed concern about the widespread censorship in the local media.

The concerns expressed by the MEPs come on the heels of a land-mark study published by BIRN Albania in October 2015 on the roots and causes of self-censorship among local journalists.

The report not only offers a complete overview of the roots and causes of self-censorship in the Albanian media as well as the forms in which it appears, but also proposes a series of recommendations on the necessary means and mechanisms that should be raised to combat it.

BIRN Albania Holds Training on Asset Declarations of Judges

The Balkan Investigative Reporting Network in Albania held a training session on March 9th in Tirana on the investigative techniques used to expose the illicit wealth of officials in the justice system.  

About 15 mid-career journalists from local and national media participated in the training, which provided p a guide to the basic methods and techniques of investigative journalism as well as an overview of the asset declaration system and procedures in Albania.

The training aimed to strengthen the skills of journalists to look closely at systemic issues of illicit wealth and conflict of interest, with a special focus on the red flags raised by the audit of asset disclosures by judges and officials of the justice system.

During the training key aspects of the asset declaration system in Albania were discussed as well as ongoing investigations by law-enforcement agencies and methods investigative journalist can employee to unearth the hidden assets of corrupt public officials.   

The training is part of the project ‘Exposing Illicit Wealth in the Albanian Justice System’ supported by the Democracy Commission Small Grants Programme of the US Embassy in Albania.

The journalists who take part in the training will participate in a competition from which BIRN Albania through an independent jury will select story ideas for five investigations and five in-depth analyses related to judges’ asset declarations that will be funded from the project and published with the help of BIRN editors via the online publications BalkanInsight.com and Reporter.al. 

Serbian PM Repeats Criticism of BIRN Investigation

Serbian premier Aleksandar Vucic said he stood by his claim that BIRN lied in an investigation into a government contract, but insisted that he never describes independent media as ‘foreign mercenaries’.

Vucic said on Monday that he was right to criticise the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network for its article last year alleging that a contract to clear flood water from Serbia’s Tamnava mine was awarded to a firm without prior experience of such work.

Asked about calling BIRN “liars” because of the article, Vucic said that he still has the same opinion about the investigation, but he may have used inappropriate language.

“Should I use the word ‘liars’? I suppose not. It is inappropriate for me as prime minister to use that word, but in essence, I did not said anything that is not true,” Vucic said in an interview with Serbian news portal Insajder.

Insajder journalist Irena Stevic asked Vucic to clarify what exactly was inaccurate in BIRN’s article, but he said he could not remember the details of the report.

However he said that the company awarded the contract to pump out the Tamnava mine, Energotehnika – Juzna Backa, lost about 1.5 million euros, which should prove there was no corruption.

Vucic said that he does not believes that he is responsible for attacks on independent media outlets by privately-owned pro-government media such as the tabloid Informer, Pink TV and Belgrade’s local television station Studio B.

“I think I went through the worst lynching. I don’t think I should answer for something that someone says in private media,” Vucic said.

Asked why foreign donations to independent media are depicted as anti-Serbian by pro-government outlets, which have also described independent journalists as traitors, Vucic said that he does not make that kind of accusation.

“You will not hear a story about treason and foreign mercenaries from me… that is simple not my vocabulary. I think those kind of qualifications belong to the past,” he said.

Insajder recently reported that over the past 15 years, the EU has given the Serbian government 2.6 billion euros in grants, but only gave Serbian media outlets 35 million euros during the same period.

But Vucic responded that the EU grants did not represent a major part of the state’s income.
“That kind of money is really small for the state… It is less than one per cent of the annual budget,” he said.

Since BIRN published its Tamnava investigation last year, it has unsuccessfully been trying to obtain information from Serbia’s state electricity provider, EPS, on the exact costs of pumping the water out of mine and how much money was paid to Energotehnika – Juzna Backa by the state.

BIRN requested EPS’s invoice for the service, as well documents from Energotehnika – Juzna Backa, on February 3, 2015.

EPS has never replied, and as a result has had to pay two fines of 160 euros and 1,500 euros imposed by the Commissioner for Information of Public Importance.

BIRN Macedonia Wins Investigative Reporting Award

BIRN Macedonia was awarded the prestigious “Nikola Mladenov” award for investigative reporting for the “Skopje 2014 Uncovered” database and series of investigative reports about the grand revamp of the capital.

“Considering its scope,’Skopje Uncovered’ is a groundbreaking endeavour in investigative journalism in Macedonia. BIRN’s team has demonstrated an exquisite capacity for research, analysis and organising huge volume of data,” said Biljana Petkovska, director of the Macedonian Institute for Media, when she announced the first prize for BIRN.

“This award is recognition for teamwork – an incentive and a promise that you will see many more BIRN investigations,” said Meri Jordanovska, BIRN reporter at the awards ceremony in Skopje on Thursday. 

The eight-month investigation draws on data procured through the Access to Public Information Act, the official web page of the Public Procurement Bureau, the “Skopje 2014” audit and other reports by the government.

When the grand revamp of the Macedonian capital was first announced back in 2010, the project, known as “Skopje 2014”, envisaged the construction of some 40 monuments, sculptures, facades and new buildings. Fast forward to 2015 and the number of buildings and monuments has tripled.

The price tag of Skopje’s new look has meanwhile also shot up, far surpassing the initially announced figure of €80 million, to around €634 million, BIRN’s investigation shows.

The “Skopje 2014 Uncovered” database documents and maps works built or under construction with the official contracts, authors’ fees, annexes and statistics on most contracted builders, sculptors, architects and foundries that participated in the project.

The second prize went to journalist Biljana Nikolovska from Telma TV for her documentary on a little girl who died while waiting for funds for surgery. The third prize was divided between team of NOVA TV website for their series on Telecom affair and SCOOP journalist Xhelal Neziri for an investigation on pollution.

Another investigation published on BIRN’s website Prizma by Aneta Dodevska on foreign investments received special mention by the jury.

The Macedonian Institute for Media first established the prize in 2001 to support investigative journalism in the country. Three years ago this award was named after Nikola Mladenov, a veteran editor and owner of Fokus weekly who died in a tragic car accident.

BIRN Bolsters Social Media Expertise

Communication officers from across the BIRN Network gathered in Serbia’s capital on February 23-24 for an intensive training session focused on social media.

BIRN Hub organised the two-day training programme for its six communications officers as part of its focus on staff capacity building, as well as improving the overall output of BIRN’s publications for its international audiences.

Developments in social media and technology were on the agenda, alongside ways to maximize the use of advertising tools, audience targeting strategies, community building and improving the overall digital experience for BIRN’s audiences.

The training was also an opportunity for the country-specific communications officers to share information and experiences face-to-face, rather than via online portals as is common in a Network spanning multiple countries.

Attendees were also able to discuss the Network’s future growth and how they plan to adapt their social media and digital strategies for the future.

BIRN Hub, as a secretariat of the Network, is tasked with offering assistance to its members, including by developing editorial, digital and other relevant skills. The Network has identified a need to support its members by building their capacities and management skills in order to ensure long-term sustainability.

As part of its investment in social media skill development, BIRN Hub will be organising monthly training sessions for its communication officers, aimed at fostering a cohesive approach across all five regions in the Network – Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia and Serbia.