On July 24, the European Commission released its annual Rule of Law report, now including Albania, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia for the first time. This extension puts these EU candidate countries on equal footing with member states, reflecting their progress toward EU accession and emphasizing the EU’s increased support for rule of law reforms in the Western Balkans.
The Balkan Civil Society Development Network (BCSDN) welcomes the 2024 Rule of Law report and the inclusion of the four accession countries. Monitoring accession countries on par with member states is in line with BCSDN’s long-term advocacy efforts for applying equal and rigorous standards to both current EU member states and countries aspiring to join the EU. This provides means for the EU to promote consistent and sustainable reforms, prevent democratic backsliding across Europe, and support a fair and transparent enlargement process.
The Analysis:
- Summarizes key Rule of Law findings in accession countries
- Provides an overview of the civil society environment in the EC Rule of Law (RoL) report 2024, compared with BCSDN’s own monitoring.
- Briefly compares the state of civil society in accession countries with that in EU member states.
- Analyses the Commission’s reporting on fundamental freedoms, attacks on CSOs, activists, journalists, public funding, and CSO-government cooperation in the accession countries, identifying areas well-covered and those lacking detail.
- Provides conclusions and recommendations on the report’s findings and suggests future EC RoL cycles and report improvements.
We believe that the inclusion of the accession countries in the EC Rule of Law report represents a significant step towards advancing their accession process. Extending this approach to other enlargement countries will strengthen EU support for reforms, aid their accession process, and ensure high standards in post-accession. We hope that in the next RoL cycle, the EC will take concrete steps to address these issues, further demonstrating its dedication to the Western Balkan region’s integration and development.
A more detailed analysis of the RoL report and the involvement of the accession countries in the RoL mechanism will follow.
The full Analysis is available HERE.