Balkan Barometer 2023: Corruption increases, the region empties

2023-07-22 16:05:00, Kosova & Bota CNA

Corruption and depopulation of the Western Balkans are among the most worrying problems of the citizens of the region.

The Balkan Barometer 2023 for the first six months of this year, recently published by the Regional Cooperation Council, brings public opinion through a survey of about 60 thousand citizens and 12 thousand businesses in the Western Balkans regarding their expectations for life and work, trends in the political, socio-economic situation of the region, their attitudes towards regional cooperation and the integration of the Western Balkans into the EU.

In the six countries of the region - Serbia, Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Kosovo - 27 percent of the surveyed citizens think that the level of corruption has increased. According to them, corruption is the biggest worrying problem for the development of the region and the fulfillment of their aspirations.

Albania the country with the highest corruption in the region

According to the public perception of 38 percent of Albanian citizens surveyed, Albania is the country with the highest corruption in the region. In second place come Bosnia-Herzegovina and North Macedonia with 26 percent, followed by Montenegro and Serbia with 25 percent. Kosovo has the lowest level in the Western Balkans regarding the public perception of corruption with 22 percent of its citizens surveyed.

Following the consequences of corruption, 69 percent of citizens surveyed at the regional level think that the law does not apply equally to everyone, a level that is 7 percent more than a year ago.

Low trust in political parties

The vast majority of surveyed citizens of the region, 75 percent of them, do not trust political parties. Meanwhile, 45 percent feel threatened by the illegal possession and misuse of weapons.

Depopulation of the region - 71 percent of youth want to emigrate

Emigration and brain drain from the six countries of the Western Balkans is a worrying problem for the region. At the regional level, 44 percent of respondents want to leave their country, a figure that is 5 percent higher than last year.

The perspective of young people's lives in six countries of the region is alarming: 71 percent of young people project a life in emigration, away from their country of origin.

Kosovo leads in the desire for emigration

According to the data published by the Balkan Barometer 2023, at the head of the region's countries regarding emigration is Kosovo with 57 percent of its surveyed citizens, followed by Montenegro with 45 percent, Albania with 44 and Serbia with 41. The lowest level in the region is Bosnia-Herzegovina, where only 38 percent of its surveyed citizens project their lives by leaving the country.

The EU has reduced support for the region

The data of the Balkan Barometer 2023 show that 59 percent of the citizens surveyed in the six countries think that there is a decrease in the support of the region from the EU, a figure that constitutes a public perception of 3 percent more compared to last year.

At the head of the region's countries for this perception is Albania with 92 percent of its citizens surveyed, followed by Kosovo with 66 percent, North Macedonia with 60, Bosnia-Herzegovina with 52 and Serbia with 34 percent.

The regional public perception in the Balkan Barometer 2023 for the decline of the EU's support for the region is published three months before the next Berlin Process Summit takes place on October 16, in Tirana. This process started in 2014, in the framework of the 100th anniversary of the end of the First World War, as a diplomatic initiative of the former German Chancellor Angela Merkel, to give new impulses to EU integration by promoting dialogue and regional cooperation of the Balkan countries before their integration into the EU.

According to the data of the Balkan Barometer 2023, the six countries of the region positively evaluate regional cooperation: 76 percent of the surveyed citizens think that regional cooperation is good for their economies, 69 percent think that the things that unite the citizens of the Balkans are more important than what divides them./ DW