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Author: Reform Monitor

Повик за приклучување кон Националниот консултативен механизам за Реформската агенда

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Повик за изразување интерес за приклучување кон Националниот консултативен механизам за Реформската агенда 2024-2027 (НКМ-РА) на Северна Македонија Институтот за европска политика – Скопје (ЕПИ) како координатор на регионалниот проект „Следење реформи и раст во Западен Балкан“ кој се спроведува во партнерство со партнерите од мрежата „Мисли за Европа“ (Think for Europe Network (TEN)), ги повикува сите заинтересирани граѓански организации (ГО), стопански комори, социјални партнери, академската заедница и други засегнати чинители во Северна Македонија да го изразат својот интерес за учество во Националниот консултативен механизам за Реформската агенда 2024-2027 (НКМ-РА).

Што е НКМ–РА?
НКМ-РА е национална консултативна плаформа што овозможува структуиран, инклузивен дијалог, заснован врз докази помеѓу јавните институции, ГО, стопанските комори, академската заедница, и други засегнати чинители, за спроведувањето и следењето на Реформската агенда 2024-2027 во Северна Македонија во рамки на Инструментот за реформи и раст за Западен Балкан на Европската Унија. Платформата е координирана од ЕПИ, а поддржана од Министерството за европски прашања, институцијата која ги координира сите активности поврзани со спроведувањето на Реформската агенда во земјата, врз основа на потпишан Меморандум за соработка со цел да се обезбеди структуриран дијалог и транспарентност, во согласност со нагласокот на Европската комисија за вклучување на граѓанските организации во реформските процеси. Кој може да се приклучи во НКМ-РА? НКМ-РА е платформа отворена за сите невладини чинители со искуство или интерес за следење на Планот за раст, Реформската агенда и/или процесите на ЕУ интеграцијата. Од учесниците во консултативниот механизам се очекува конструктивен придонес и почитување на принципите на инклузивност, транспарентност и дијалог заснован врз докази.

Зошто да се приклучите на НКМ–РА?
НКМ–РА обезбедува простор за конструктивна соработка помеѓу државни органи и останати засегнати чинители, овозможувајќи им на членовите да придонесат кон следење засновано на докази и дискусии за реформи, како и да влијаат врз спроведувањето на Планот за раст за ЗБ . Специфично, платформата ќе:
● Овозможи консултации засновани на податоци и алатки за следење;
● Поттикне меѓусекторска соработка помеѓу различни нивоа на владеење;
● Понуди можност за градење на капацитети и поддршка за застапување;
● Промовира транспарентност и отчетност преку објавување извештаи од состаноци и повратни информации од засегнати чинители.
Како да се приклучите?
Доколку Вашата организација сака да се приклучи во НКМ-РА, Ве замолуваме да го
пополните формуларот достапен на следниот линк:

Следни чекори
По завршувањето на процесот на изразување на интерес преку пополнување на формуларот погоре, ЕПИ ќе ја организира првата консултативна средба на НКМ–РА и ќе ја достави финалната верзија на Концепт-документот за НКМ–РА во која ќе ги вклучи коментарите од засегнатите чинители. Средбите ќе се реализираат двапати годишно преку хибридни состаноци со вклучување на членовите преку редовни консултативни сесии, активности за градење на капацитети и можности за доделување на мали грантови во рамки на проектот.

Kosovo hold new NCoMER meeting

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Pristina, 26 October 2026

The Group for Legal and Political Studies (GLPS) today organised the fourth meeting of the National Consultation Mechanism on Reform Agenda. The event started with a discussion entitled “Kosovo’s Path towards the EU after the Political Deadlock: From Momentum to Reforms”, bringing together representatives of Kosovo’s institutions, the European Union, and civil society to discuss the implementation of the Reform Agenda, the consequences of institutional delays, and the steps needed to advance Kosovo’s European integration process.
The discussion highlighted that, following a prolonged period of political and institutional deadlock, Kosovo must seize the current momentum to accelerate reforms and translate political commitments into concrete results. With important deadlines approaching, the implementation of the Reform Agenda must be a priority for the Government and all responsible institutions.
During the presentation of GLPS’s report, researcher Besar Gërgi stressed that a considerable number of reform steps had been delayed due to the institutional crisis, including measures that had already been prepared and primarily required political decision-making. The Civil Code and the Anti-Corruption Strategy were cited as examples. GLPS emphasised that reforms must be treated as an institutional priority and that reform steps whose deadlines have passed must not be disregarded.

Representatives of Kosovo’s institutions and the European Union underlined the importance of mobilising all stakeholders to implement the Reform Agenda. Jeton Zulfaj, representing the Government, stressed that the Reform Agenda should not be viewed solely through the lens of financial benefits, but also as an important process for transforming the country. He acknowledged that reforms in Kosovo often take longer than in other countries and emphasised that delays do not mean the reforms should not continue.
Alexis Hupin, Deputy Head of the European Union Office in Kosovo, stressed that the Reform Agenda must be a government priority and that time is of the essence in completing the required steps. He underlined that the engagement of all institutions is essential and that the importance of the process extends beyond financial allocations to encompass fundamental reforms and the rule of law.
From the Kosovo Assembly, Jehona Lushaku-Sadriu as the Chair of Parliamentary Committee on European Integration emphasised the need to establish European integration as a priority and to ensure that legislation is aligned with the European Union’s acquis communautaire. She warned of the risk of losing more than €100 million and highlighted the importance of holding line ministries accountable for fulfilling the Reform Agenda’s requirements.

The discussion also highlighted the need for greater transparency and earlier, more meaningful involvement of civil society in the reform process. Civil society representatives called for better access to implementation documents, greater predictability in consultation processes, and opportunities to contribute their expertise at the early stages of policy and legislative drafting.
Lura Limani noted that, despite the delays, reforms had continued at the level of institutions and agencies, while the measures included in the Reform Agenda had a direct impact on the lives of citizens and businesses. She underlined that transparency and access to implementation reports remain essential for monitoring progress and ensuring public accountability.
GLPS emphasises that responsibility for implementing reforms must remain with the institutions mandated to carry them out, while civil society must have meaningful opportunities to contribute through expertise, monitoring, and recommendations. Accelerating reforms must not come at the expense of legislative quality, public consultation, or alignment with European standards.
In conclusion, participants stressed the need for improved interinstitutional cooperation, clear lines of responsibility, and a more dynamic approach to fulfilling reform measures. Kosovo must move from identifying obstacles to taking concrete action, making use of the opportunity to advance reforms and the European integration process.

GLPS will continue to monitor the implementation of the Reform Agenda and contribute through research, recommendations, and public engagement to ensure that reforms deliver tangible results for the citizens of Kosovo.

Reform Agenda Snapshot – Bosnia&Herzegovina (up to June’26)

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Snapshots (3)

Halfway through the project infographic

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Halfway through

Reform Agenda Snapshot (up to June‘26)- Kosovo

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Key findings and recommendations from our Reform Monitor update for Kosovo, up to June 2026.

Snapshots (2)

Reform Agenda Snapshot – Serbia (up to June ’26)

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Snapshots (1)Snapshots (1)

 

Bosnia and Herzegovina – Reform Agenda Update – June’26

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This publication is part of the series “Reform Agenda Updates”, national monitoring reports that track the implementation of the Reform Agendas as part of the Reform and Growth Facility for the Western Balkans (RGF), within the Western Balkan Reform and Growth Monitor project (Reform Monitor).

The “Reform Agenda Updates” assessment focuses on the implementation progress of country-specific obligations under the RGF. Monitoring is conducted through a set of procedural, reform implementation, and financial indicators. The core of the monitoring exercise tracks reform steps with defined deadlines, assessing their implementation status based on publicly available evidence and official documentation obtained by national authorities, and, where relevant, complemented by information from independent institutions and civil society sources. Cross-cutting attention is given to stakeholder participation and transparency.
The monitoring exercise covers selected reforms organised into so-called “policy domains,” created by coding the sub-areas of the harmonised policy areas in the Reform Agendas. The selected policy domains, which enable regional-level analyses, benchmarking, and comparability, are supported by the available human resources and the thematic expertise of the Think for Europe Network (TEN).For methodological notes and the reform steps selection process, see the draft methodology note at the.
The cut-off date for data collection and assessment for this update is 30.06.2026. Further policy developments may shift the status of currently pending reforms and will be reflected in subsequent updates.

RA_Pilot Reform Monitor Bosnia and Herzegovina

 

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Serbia – Reform Agenda Updates – June ’26

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This publication is part of the series “Reform Agenda Updates”, national monitoring reports that track the implementation of the Reform Agendas as part of the Reform and Growth Facility for the Western Balkans (RGF), within the Western Balkan Reform and Growth Monitor project (Reform Monitor).

The “Reform Agenda Updates” assessment focuses on the implementation progress of country-specific obligations under the RGF. Monitoring is conducted through a set of procedural, reform implementation, and financial indicators. The core of the monitoring exercise tracks reform steps with defined deadlines, assessing their implementation status based on publicly available evidence and official documentation obtained by national authorities, and, where relevant, complemented by information from independent institutions and civil society sources. Cross-cutting attention is given to stakeholder participation and transparency.
The monitoring exercise covers selected reforms organised into so-called “policy domains,” created by coding the sub-areas of the harmonised policy areas in the Reform Agendas. The selected policy domains, which enable regional-level analyses, benchmarking, and comparability, are supported by the available human resources and the thematic expertise of the Think for Europe Network (TEN).For methodological notes and the reform steps selection process, see the draft methodology note at the.
The cut-off date for data collection and assessment for this update is 30.06.2026. Further policy developments may shift the status of currently pending reforms and will be reflected in subsequent updates.

RA_Pilot Reform Monitor_Serbia

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Kosovo – Reform Agenda Update – Jun’26

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This publication is part of the series “Reform Agenda Updates”, national monitoring reports that track the implementation of the Reform Agendas as part of the Reform and Growth Facility for the Western Balkans (RGF), within the Western Balkan Reform and Growth Monitor project (Reform Monitor).

The “Reform Agenda Updates” assessment focuses on the implementation progress of country-specific obligations under the RGF. Monitoring is conducted through a set of procedural, reform implementation, and financial indicators. The core of the monitoring exercise tracks reform steps with defined deadlines, assessing their implementation status based on publicly available evidence and official documentation obtained by national authorities, and, where relevant, complemented by information from independent institutions and civil society sources. Cross-cutting attention is given to stakeholder participation and transparency.

The monitoring exercise covers selected reforms organised into so-called “policy domains,” created by coding the sub-areas of the harmonised policy areas in the Reform Agendas. The selected policy domains, which enable regional-level analyses, benchmarking, and comparability, are supported by the available human resources and the thematic expertise of the Think for Europe Network (TEN).For methodological notes and the reform steps selection process, see the draft methodology note at the link.

The cut-off date for data collection and assessment for this update is 30.06.2026. Further policy developments may shift the status of currently pending reforms and will be reflected in subsequent updates.

RA_Pilot Reform Monitor Kosovo

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Montenegro: The Constitution Has Already Been Amended, You Just Don’t Know It

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The Montenegrin Government presented its fourth semi-annual report on the implementation of the Reform Agenda as an unquestionable success: “As many as 34 [out of 41] reforms have been fulfilled, which will bring 97 million euros to Montenegro,” it was stated. Nowhere in official addresses or media reports was it emphasized that this is a self-assessment of the Government’s success, which the European Commission has so far cut in half three times through its reviews of the actual state of affairs.

The Reform Agenda is a list of 130 reforms, each with a due date and an amount of money it carries. Every six months, the Government reports on what has been done, and the European Commission decides how much of that is truly “earned” and pays out money as a reward for the measures that were implemented.

When one takes even a casual look at how the Government reported to the EC, it is clear that there is a significant delay in the implementation of reforms and that there is no chance that, this time either, the EC will recognize everything we reported as fulfilled. There are no problems, no failures — everything is marked as fulfilled or partially fulfilled. The Government goes so far to present success where there is none, as to use the label “partially fulfilled”, despite regulations that do not allow that label to be used in reporting for these measures at all.

For example, in the report, the Government says that the work regarding amending the Constitution is finished, and the step fulfilled, and it requests 4.6 million from the EC, which is the reward for that task. The official deadline expired a year ago, and in June the grace period expired as well. When the period for which the report was written expired, the Constitution was not amended, amendments were not even written, and public discussion about them had not even begun. By the way, this is the third time the Government reports that this step is fulfilled, and both previous times, the EC concluded in its statements simply “Not achieved” — and did not pay us the requested money.

A similar pattern repeats at the step related to electoral legislation and the implementation of ODIHR recommendations (worth 3.4 million). This step was also “fulfilled” for the Government, even though not one of the four required laws was adopted, except that compliance tables and one draft law were sent to the European Commission for review.

Amendments to the Law on the Election of the President of Montenegro, worth 2.3 million euros, were also reported as completed work — the law at that time was not even sent into parliamentary procedure, was not considered in committees, and was not adopted in the Parliament.

Integration of the electricity market was self-assessed as “fulfilled”, although confirmation from the Energy Community is still awaited. The new IT platform for visas was self-assessed as “fulfilled” — although it is only in the phase of preparing tender documentation. The Government is convinced that measures were implemented even where it admits itself that the numbers are not good, like the one about providing a comprehensive out-of-cell activity regime for detainees (the number of employed persons deprived of liberty fell from 300 (2023) to 250 (2025), the number of participants in sports activities from 42 to 22).

This is a continuation of the practice of inflated statistics in Government reports and giving obviously inaccurate ratings. In the first report from March 2025, the EC rejected a third of the steps the Government reported as fulfilled; in the second, from July 2025, even over 70%; in the third, from January this year, the EC officially established that more than half of the measures (55%) were falsely presented as fulfilled. That can also be seen through payments from the EU — had we implemented everything we should have, we would have received 135.5 million by now, and we received 67, slightly less than half.

At the same time, for the first time, we can permanently lose funds intended for us because the deadline for implementing reforms has expired. Of the 41 measures for which the Government has now reported, two-thirds are reforms whose deadline expired long ago, for some as far back as December 2024. Certain reform measures have been traveling through reports for two years already; the Government unsuccessfully tries to “sell” them as implemented, but the EC does not recognize them.

It sounds technical and complex, but it is important — this will be the foundation of our financing after we enter the EU. In the financial package for Montenegro’s EU accession that was adopted in June, the European Commission stated that all member states, in the next seven-year EU budget, will receive money through “plans based on results… with payments linked to the fulfillment of agreed steps”, which is the same principle as the Reform Agenda. The system we are building now, with 383.5 million euros at stake, will tomorrow be applied to a package worth 3.2 billion euros.

Inaccurate reporting is the consequence of a lack of capacity to implement reforms, insufficient commitment of competent institutions to carry out activities that they proposed themselves within defined deadlines, and insufficient political will to achieve results and coordinate the work of the administration toward true changes.

If it is already known that Brussels cannot be tricked, then it turns out that the purpose of the report is for domestic needs — to sell success to the citizens by painting statistics and in the hope that they won’t follow when, in roughly 90 days, the European Commission publishes how much of the announced 97 million it will actually pay us.

In a system in which the EU rewards us with money for implementing reforms, the Government’s inflated assessments and beautifying of reality only waste time and money, while we suffer the consequences of a dysfunctional administration that changes sluggishly and reluctantly. We must eradicate the habit of painting over results while the stakes are “only” tens of millions of euros, both because of the money and because of the dignity of the citizens for whom those reports are written and reforms implemented.

This op-ed was originally published in Montenegrin

Author: Marko Sošić, Institute Alternativa, Montenegro

Image: gov.me

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