More than ten million euros were spent on the fight against corruption, and Serbia has the worst results in the region in this regard
Despite the planned investments in the fight against corruption, which for a period of three years exceed the amount of 10 million euros, Serbia records worse and worse results on international lists, so this year according to the corruption perception index it was ranked the worst in the region, writes Dunja Marić for The new economy.
The new Action Plan for the period from 2026 to 2028 foresees a series of measures, but the question arises as to how much they will really affect the reduction of corruption in Serbia, especially when it is taken into account that for some problems, such as the behavior of the police or the availability of information of public importance, solutions have not even been proposed.
The Government of Serbia adopted the Action Plan for the period from 2026 to 2028 for the implementation of the National Strategy for fight against corruption for the period from 2024 to 2028. The document in question states, among other things, what has been accomplished so far in terms of reducing and preventing corruption, what are the next steps, and how much money is needed for that.
The general goal of the Strategy is, as stated, "the constant commitment of public authorities and political subjects to the suppression of corruption and the efficient and consistent application and constant improvement of anti-corruption rules, the timely detection and adequate punishment of corrupt behavior and the strengthening of awareness of the causes, state and harmfulness of corruption."
Also, the Strategy recognizes five special goals. These are the improvement of the normative framework for more effective prevention and suppression of corruption, the strengthening of the institutional framework for preventing and fighting corruption, the improvement of transparency, the strengthening of integrity in the public sector and authorities responsible for the suppression of corruption, and raising awareness of the harm of corruption.
Corruption Prevention Agency, which supervises the implementation of the strategy, stated, based on the results for the period 2024-2025, that the general strategic goal was not achieved, but that this could not have been expected, given that the Strategy was adopted for the period until 2028. The Agency's report states that out of 143 activities, 61 activities were implemented, which is 43 percent. 80 activities, or 56 percent, were not implemented. The Agency could not evaluate the remaining two activities due to lack of data.
The key challenges in the implementation of the Strategy are "the absence of effective coordination at the political and operational level, insufficient human and managerial capacities in institutions, as well as the practice of transferring a large number of unrealized activities to the next action plan, which has influenced the postponement of their implementation." In the field of supervision, problems also arise due to insufficiently defined indicators, which often measure the execution of individual activities, rather than actual changes in the state in a certain area.
The total funds needed for the implementation of this action plan are estimated at 1,2 billion dinars, or about 10,3 million euros. Of this, around 4,5 million euros (532 million dinars) are planned for 2026, 3,5 million euros (417 million dinars) for 2027, and 2,2 million euros (260 million dinars) for 2028.
The assessment of the necessary funds was carried out Ministry of Justice.
Some of the activities that should be undertaken are the analysis of the need for the introduction of a special criminal offense of unjust enrichment, the analysis of the risk of corruption in the Law on Health Care, the Law on Health Insurance, the Law on Medicines and Medical Devices and the Law on Chambers of Health Professionals, then amendments to the Law on the Protection of Whistleblowers, implementation of training for employees in the judiciary, increasing the number of employees in the Agency for the Prevention of Corruption and the Council for the Fight against Corruption...
Despite the fact that millions of euros have been earmarked for the fight against corruption, Serbia ranks worse and worse in terms of the perception of corruption. According to Transparency's research, during the year 2025, in the ranking of countries and territories according to the Corruption Perception Index (CPI - Corruption Perception Index), with almost 33rd and 116th position on the table, Serbia further worsened the result and was ranked the worst in the region for the first time. Namely, Serbia's index is two points lower than the previous year, in 2024, and the lowest since 2012, when the existing evaluation methodology was introduced. Countries are ranked from zero (extremely corrupt) to 100 (very "clean"). A comparison by position on the table in relation to the number of ranked countries shows that this is the worst ranking since 2004.
In this year's list of the global organization Transparency International (TI), there are a total of 182 countries and territories, and Serbia's position is 45 places worse than the best recorded 10 years ago.
In relation to other countries from the Western Balkans and the former Yugoslavia, Serbia is the worst, for the first time behind Bosnia and Herzegovina (34), and in the whole of Europe, only Belarus (31), Turkey (31) and Russia (22) are behind it.
At the top of the global list are Denmark (89) and Finland (88), and at the very bottom are Somalia (nine) and South Sudan (nine). Serbia's rating is nine points below the global average, and 29 points below the European Union average.
Although the fight against corruption is a good thing, the plan itself has certain shortcomings. As Nemanja Nenadić, program director of the organization Transparency Serbia, explains for New Economy, the Action Plan was adopted a few days ago, while the previous plan expired in 2025, so there was a period of about six months that was not even used to implement the activities that were planned in the previous plan. This especially applies to those activities for the implementation of which it is not necessary to allocate additional financial resources.
"How little importance the Government of Serbia attaches to the plan can be seen from the fact that, after its adoption, no conference was held to present the plan to the public, which was held by the Prime Minister and the others who voted for its adoption. This is because they are aware that the plan, even if it were fully implemented within the planned deadlines, would have very limited effects on problematic situations. Also, Transparency had the opportunity to make proposals during the drafting process, most of which were not accepted, including the most important ones for improving the legal framework and practices for the fight against corruption", says Nenadić for Nova ekonomija.
Nenadić explains that one of the biggest causes of corruption is that the most valuable jobs are planned non-transparently and contracted without competition. According to our interlocutor, this can be solved simply - by the Government ceasing to contract jobs, either on the basis of international agreements, or on the basis of passing laws adopted by the Parliament. It is also necessary to create preconditions for examining the effects of contracted jobs, because, according to Nenadić, based on the publication of one such contract, we saw that the price was not justified, and even the Prosecutor's Office for Organized Crime (TOK) had the elements to launch an investigation against members of the Government and state enterprises for contracting work.
"It is clear to everyone that one of the biggest problems is that corruption remains, not only unpunished, but also undetected, because corrupt deals are always contracted in secret, but even when they are disclosed, the prosecution does not react. We should provide measures so that such situations do not occur," says Nenadić.
One of the activities in the plan adopted by the government, whose realization was planned for the second quarter of this year, is "the creation of an analysis of the Law on the financing of political activities in order to specify the essential features of the existence of that criminal offense and misdemeanor from the aforementioned law." It would be logical, says Nenadić, that after the analysis, changes were proposed to the definition of some works, which should have been presented to the general public. He also reminds that ODIHR, on the basis of whose recommendations these changes were announced, stated in the first opinion that nothing was done to establish a system of sanctions that would be appropriate and proportionate.
Nenadić believes that it is necessary to emphasize the importance of the Council for the fight against corruption.
"It is an extremely important institution, and this political set came to power, among other things, on a wave of promises to resolve disputed situations, for example in privatization procedures, about which the Council wrote in its reports. Since 2012, the Council has published dozens of new reports, but the Government did not react to them, or reacted completely inadequately, in the form of insults against the members of the Council. Instead of ensuring that the reports are examined, we have something vague, a measure to establish cooperation It is planned to be done in the last quarter of 2026, but the question is why it is not done immediately", says Nenadić.
"The action plan does not contain an answer that would solve the problem that has existed in practice for the last year, which is that the police, when investigations were launched due to high-level corruption, denied support to the prosecutors. It is a huge problem, one of the most harmful things, and no solution is offered for that problem," says Nenadić.
There are some other things that were left out of the plan, but they are important. According to Nenadić, these are amendments to the Law on Free Access to Information of Public Importance.
"It is an obvious problem, because the Government does not respect requests for access to information of public importance at all. Serbia should have solved this problem as early as 2022 and enabled complaints against the actions of the Government, which are submitted to the commissioner for information of public importance. The only thing currently possible is the initiation of an administrative dispute, which has been going on for years," says Nenadić.
Nevertheless, Nenadić says that there are measures that will be useful, although they will not significantly affect the reduction of corruption.
"There are things that will be useful, but they are not enough for significant progress and there is little probability that the strategy will achieve its goal, which is measured by whether the index of perception of corruption has improved, that is, whether we will move from 35th to 43rd place by 2028, especially since, after the adoption of the strategy, not only did we not progress, but we went backwards according to the index", concludes Nenadić.
Source: New Economy
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