![CSD Policy Brief No. 45: Управление и Разпореждане с Конфискувано Имущество в Страните - Членки на ЕС](/api/image/getgrayliteraturecoverimage?id=document_cover-page-image_418849.jpeg)
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The policy brief makes an overview of the levels of corruption and the impact of corruption on the societal sectors. In 2014, the Corruption Monitoring System has recorded the highest levels of involvement of the Bulgarian population in corruption transactions in the last 15 years. In the past year Bulgarians have conceded to being involved on average in roughly 158 thousand corruption transactions monthly.Most corruption transactions have been initiated by the administration through exerting corruption pressure on those seeking public services. The public’s susceptibility to corruption in 2014 is similar to 1999 despite the increase of intolerance to corrupt behaviour. In the business sector corruption’s effectiveness for solving problems has grown in 2014. Most companies do not trust public organisations and do not consider they are treated equally in courts.
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The Crimean crisis and the continuing instability in Eastern Ukraine have turned into a rude wake up call for Europe’s energy security vulnerabilities. Russia has demonstrated its capacity to yield political and economic influence on the countries in the CEE and the Black Sea regions by leveraging its dominant position on their energy markets. Russia has pressured governments to support its flagship project, South Stream, at the expense of the countries’ long-term strategy to diversify their natural gas supply and in defiance of EU’s strategy for building a liberalised common market. Since the beginning of the crisis the EU and NATO have scrambled for finding the right measures to a balanced response to Russia’s growing assertiveness, while striving to alleviate the most acute energy security risks for their members.
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The EU legal framework requires that all Members States criminalise the financing of organised crime. According to the provisions of Article 2 (a) of the Council Framework Decision 2008/841/JHA of 24 October 2008 on the fight against organised crime "Each Member State shall take the necessary measures to ensure that one or both of the following types of conduct related to a criminal organisation are regarded as offences: (a) conduct by any person who, with intent and with knowledge of either the aim and general activity of the criminal organisation or its intention to commit the offences in question, actively takes part in the organisation's criminal activities including the provision of information or material means, the recruitment of new members and all forms of financing of its activities, knowing that such participation will contribute to the achievement of the organisation's criminal activities". Nevertheless, criminal justice authorities in Member States rarely make use of these provisions.
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Over the past decade or so, the global political preoccupation with corruption has been matched by extensive research and the design of various ways of measuring its level in society. The resulting abundance of measurement and monitoring instruments have allowed a better understanding of its dynamics and have informed the design of some anti-corruption policies. The current stage of anti-corruption thinking, therefore, opens the opportunity for at least two additional paths of exploration: a critical review of existing measurements and monitoring tools and an examination of possible gaps in these tools. The results of the review of measurements tools have informed the design of a Monitoring Anti-Corruption Policy Implementation (MACPI) tool which is intended to evaluate the anti-corruption preparedness of public organisations by identifying areas of corruption vulnerability.The findings indicate that while the enforcement of anti-corruption policies has been prioritised by international and national governments, the tools for evaluating this enforcement have not been developed.
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Anticorruption policies have been designed and implemented exclusively at the national level with little consideration of their actual enforcement and effect in individual public organisations. Such a general approach has prevented these policies from achieving the level of sophistication achieved by interventions in other fields of public governance. A refocusing of the anticorruption effort at the level of public organisation would enhance the quality of design of policies and would allow more precise monitoring of their implementation and effect. Monitoring Anticorruption Policy Implementation (MACPI) - a tool recently developed by the CSD and University of Trento experts - will facilitate such refocusing by allowing evaluators and policy makers to review the anticorruption architecture of individual public sector organisations. It could also help the use of benchmarking and policy templates at the public institution level.
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In 2015 Bulgaria has regained one position compared to the previous year in the economic competitiveness ranking of the World Competitiveness Yearbook (WCY), published by the Institute for Management Development (IMD). The country is ranked 55th out of 61 economies. This is only a marginal improvement and remains significantly lower compared to its highest achievement in 2009 - 38th place. // The ranking highlights two particular commonalities among the best ranking countries. Firstly, nine countries from the top 10 are also listed in the top 10 of the business efficiency factor. And secondly, all top positions are occupied by economies which are driven by innovation-based growth. // In the policy brief the Center for the Study of Democracy provides the following recommendations for increasing the competitiveness of the Bulgarian economy: - Tackle high level corruption and state capture; - Modernize public administration and strengthen independent regulators; - Adopt education for innovation-based growth; - Tackle energy poverty, energy intensity and supply dependency; - Improve the country's branding.
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The national and regional energy security of Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries has become a hot topic of discussion in the EU recently, focusing the attention of experts, policy makers, and the general public on ongoing and future energy projects but also on the features of energy governance in these countries. The interruption of gas supplies to Europe as a result of the Russian-Ukraine crisis after the annexation of Crimea, and the EU-Russia controversies regarding the South Stream pipeline project, as well as Gazprom's non-compliance with the EU regulations in several anti-trust cases in the past few years are the major cornerstones that shape the CEE energy security framework and policy options as the region remains heavily dependent on Russian oil, gas and nuclear technology. At the same time, the fragile democratic traditions in the CEE countries, the existing networks of political protectionism and economic oligarchy, and the opaque business practices nurtured by corruption and links with organised crime, have been reinforced by the negative implications of Russian economic and geo-political influence. Russia has exploited its dominant position in the energy market and its long-term links with certain political and economic groups to shape political decisions across the region according to its own interests, but often to the detriment of the home country consumers. The current review of energy security risks in four selected CEE countries, two energy poor - Bulgaria and Serbia, and energy-resourced - Romania and Ukraine, assesses the factual situation per se and the transparency and accountability of energy policy governance in the region.
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Improvement of registration of non-profit organisations (NPOs) - associations and foundations, is a necessary precondition for strengthening the civil society and increasing its transparency and accountability. An easy and simple registration procedure, with no duplication of information and functioning automatic exchange of data, is an important stage in the establishment of a modern registration system. It also guarantees the availability of reliable and up-to-date information on all registered entities
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The policy brief analyses the energy security and governance risks. The authors underline that: - Bulgarian ranking has improved significantly, jumping from 73rd to 58th place, narrowing the gap with the average OECD results. - Since Bulgaria receives all of its natural gas from one source and via one pipeline, it is imperative that the government’s decisions for the initiation of future energy projects are based on the projects’ potential to diversify supply sources and ensure an uninterrupted energy supply. - The efforts to diversify the gas supply by building the Interconnector Greece - Bulgaria (IGB) have stalled in spite of external financing, existing contractual obligations with the Shah Deniz consortium and due to lack of administrative capacity and state capture from domestic and foreign interests. - The European Commission’s efforts to integrate the SEE region into the EU internal market and diversify its gas supply away from a single supplier have started to pay off. The liberalization of the cross-border capacities along the Transbalkan pipeline, previously fully reserved by Gazprom, is now open for competitive bidding. - The liberalization of regional natural gas trading and the completion of the interconnector pipelines with Greece and Romania would advance Bulgaria’s bargaining position vis-à-vis Gazprom by reducing the country’s gas import costs, and improve the country’s security of supply and the affordability of residential gasification initiatives.
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The Policy Forum aims to identify those factors that will improve the economic and legal environment for the growth of the small and medium sized enterprise ("SME") sector in Bulgaria. The forum is designed to bring together some of the countries most influential individuals, representing various institutional and independent bodies, to discuss the constraints that are hindering the development of the SME sector and to propose and review various recommendations to overcome these obstacles.
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The March survey of the "hidden economy" in the business sector covered 537 companies accross the country. It involved an expanded sample comprising another joint-stock companies. To ensure proper comparative analysis, the main conclusions in the present paper are based on data excluding the added joint-stock companies, i.e. covering 437 companies. Fieldwork took place in the period february 28 - March 24, 2003. The survey employed the method of the face-to-face interview.
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In the period September 11 - 25, 1999 Vitosha Research conducted its regular survey on corruption among the Bulgarian population. This study is part of the Corruption Monitoring System of Coalition 2000. The report "Corruption monitoring by Coalition 2000" (.pdf) presents the main findings, comparative analysis, trends and conclusions based on the data of the last survey.
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The economic dimension of regional cooperation is a key pillar for achieving an interconnected and developed Western Balkan region. Due to the prolonged economic transition, the high unemployment, especially among the youngsters, and the consideration of WB6 countries as non-functioning market economies, the economic cooperation and integration pillar has in fact topped the agenda of the ‘Berlin Process’ and has consequently received the largest allocation of funds, when compared with the other two –diplomatic and soft- pillars.
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Bil i Melinda Gejts zatražili su poštovanje privatnosti nakon što su najavili da će se razvesti, ali čini se da će teško izbeći navalu pažnje. Zanimanje za njihov bračni aranžman nije tek puka ljubopitljivost. Oboje su javne ličnosti, a njihovi privatni životi imaju političke posledice. Urgentno pitanje u globalnim zdravstvenim krugovima glasi šta će se nakon razlaza desiti sa njihovom moćnom fondacijom. U pitanju su velike količine novca.
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Kada je konzervativna britanska vlada najavila popuštanje zaštitnih mera od 1. juna, ponadali smo se da to znači da smo izašli iz prvog talasa pandemije i da će popustiti i ekonomski, socijalni i mentalni pritisci kojima smo izloženi od marta ove godine. Ali to se nije dogodilo.
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UKRAINE AND THE EURASIAN ECONOMIC COMMUNITY: INTEGRATION OR CO-OPERATION? // 1. EURASIAN ECONOMIC COMMUNITY: THE PRINCIPLES OF ACTIVITY AND PROSPECTS OF DEVELOPMENT // 2. THE STATE AND PROSPECTS OF UKRAINE’S RELATIONS WITH THE EurAsEC // 3. CONCLUSIONS AND PROPOSALS // EXPERT POLL OF THE RAZUMKOV CENTRE SOCIOLOGICAL SERVICE // DIPLOMATS OF FOREIGN COUNTRIES ON THE EurAsEC // UKRAINE AND THE EURASIAN ECONOMIC COMMUNITY // EURASEC AS A MEANS OF PRESERVING THE OUTSIDER STATUS // UNION OF THE EurAsEC AND UKRAINE: EXPEDIENCY AND POSSIBLE CONSEQUENCES
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UKRAINE IN THE MARKET OF THE EUROPEAN UNION // 1. REGULATORY-LEGAL AND INSTITUTIONAL BASIS OF UKRAINE’S TRADE IN THE THE MARKET // 2. CURRENT STATE AND TENDENCIES OF UKRAINE'S PRESENCE IN THE EU MARKET // 3. PROBLEMS AND PROSPECTS OF UKRAINE’S ACTIVITY IN THE EU MARKET // 4. CONCLUSIONS AND PROPOSALS // EXPERTS AND BUSINESSMEN ON UKRAINE'S PROSPECTS IN THE EU MARKET // UKRAINE'S PRESENCE IN THE EU MARKET: TRENDS AND PROSPECTS // THE ENLARGED EU WILL BECOME THE LARGEST EXPORT MARKET FOR UKRAINIAN PRODUCERS // PROSPECTS FOR CREATING SECTORAL NETWORK STRUCTURES: WORLD EXPERIENCE AND THE FIRST STEPS IN UKRAINE // UKRANE AND THE EUROPEAN MARKET OF INFORMATlON TECHNOLOGIES
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The aim of this note is to provide recommendations on improvement of the draft law as well as of the certain elements of mechanisms present in Moldova on preventing and combating money laundering, so that to protect the fundamental rights, proper functioning of the business environment and to preserve a rational approach to prevention and combating the money laundering phenomenon. It is vitally important to understand the general context and the role of prevention and combating money laundering in such context. The primary goal of modern societies and states is to eradicate organized crime, drug trafficking, human trafficking, organ trafficking and illegal arms trafficking. In this context the international community developed services to identify and fight these crimes. Once the technologies were developed and the financial flows enhanced, it became obvious that the criminals’ ultimate goal is to bring the enormous income back into the legal ‘white’ circulation. And after realizing this fact, the combating of money laundering was organized and the money laundering activity was incriminated to attack the results of illegal activity.
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As a result of the analysis of the situation of the Republic of Moldova, based on the vulnerabilities of the private sector but also of the state institutions, 13 principles to be followed were developed for the realization of a balanced and rational system for preventing and combating money laundering and terrorist financing. The established principles take into account the requirements of EU Directive 2015/849, the money laundering risks specific to the environment in the Republic of Moldova, as well as the limited resources of the business environment and those of public authorities. Also, these principles focus on the critical risks of money laundering and elimination of vulnerabilities within state institutions, the risks of abusive applicability and susceptibility to corruption.
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