One of the key missions of a think tank in a country
in transition is to anticipate the rising challenges to society and
to work with the stakeholders to develop and advocate solutions.
National and global developments in 2001 - some of them
unfortunately tragic - have shown that CSD is addressing issues
that are at the forefront of the Bulgarian and international
agenda. In particular, these include coalition building in
anti-corruption and the impact of the new soft security risks on
democracy and the rule of law.
For Bulgaria, 2001 was the year of parliamentary
elections that brought to power a new coalition government. One of
its main stated intentions was to prioritize anti-corruption in its
reform policies. This came at a time when CSD, and its partners
under Coalition 2000, had built up a significant capacity in
establishing partnerships among public and non-governmental
institutions in the various areas of combating corruption -
monitoring, awareness, legislative and judicial reforms, etc. For
almost four years, the Center has been advocating that integrity
and good governance are the keys to successful reforms, and that
rooting out corruption could only be achieved by combining
commitment at the policy level, participation and watchdog at the
civic, and international assistance which supports both. Time has
vindicated this vision and the coalition building approach -
particularly in anti-corruption - is now widely appreciated
internationally. It is also growingly accepted as indispensable by
politicians and foreign development agencies in Bulgaria as
well.
Among the key benefits of the public-private
partnership approach is the sustain-ability it provides to reform
efforts. Most of the policy areas of transition - anti-corruption
in particular - are susceptible to being used by political parties
for short term advantages that could compromise the long term
objectives; they could also be heavily influenced by the election
cycle. It is only the institutionalized involvement of civil
society in the process of reforms that guarantees its
sustainability. This was exemplified by the change of government in
Bulgaria in 2001 when the anti-corruption expertise accumulated in
the framework of Coalition 2000 allowed the government to
tap into a considerable expert resource to be used in designing
anti-corruption programs. Thus the efforts which CSD has been
making over the years to ensure its institutional capacity and
viability as a non-governmental institution promoting reforms in
Bulgaria have proven crucial to fulfilling its main mission
-building bridges between scholars and policy makers.
Over 12 years of experience in working in various
policy areas have allowed CSD to develop the expertise to develop
new pieces of legislation in areas that had not been regulated
before and to advocate for their adoption by Parliament.
As Bulgaria is among the few European countries
without an ombudsman institution, CSD has been promoting the
concept of the ombudsman for four years now. Having developed a
draft law which was introduced to Parliament in 2000, in 2001 the
Center put a lot of effort into popularizing the institution and
its benefits to society, including through a number of
international discussions. In 2001, the draft was developed
further, with the latest version highly evaluated by the ombudsman
institutions of a number of European countries and the European
Ombudsman as following the European standards in this area.
Another law drafted by a CSD expert team was the Law
on Electronic Document and Electronic Signature. The drafting
process was initiated by the CSD in early 1999 with a comprehensive
research of the most important foreign and international
instruments already adopted or in process of preparation. The law
was elaborated through a number of consultations and discussions
held with representatives of the stakeholders, lawyers and IT
experts and takes into consideration most of the opinions,
suggestions and recommendations made. It is based on the main
principles of EU law and on a number of international acts and
successfully implemented national provisions in other countries.
After the National Assembly - Bulgaria's Parliament - adopted the
law in March 2001, CSD continued its work with the State
Telecommunications Commission on developing the secondary
legislation required by the law.
CSD's has been concerned with the new risks that
soft security issues place for the emerging institutions in
transition countries for two years now. The ability of organized
crime to smuggle large quantities of drugs and commercial goods
across the Balkan borders depends on a corrupt law enforcement in
these countries. CSD's work in this area started with the
development of methodology for assessing the link between smuggling
and corruption in Bulgaria. In 2001, it expanded to include a
regional approach making a connection between the developments in
all Southeast European countries.
Another major regional initiative of CSD in 2001 was
the introduction of a Regional Corruption Monitoring System (RCMS)
in Southeast Europe. The first ever region-wide corruption
diagnostics were carried out in Albania, Bosnia & Herzegovina,
Bulgaria, Croatia, Macedonia, Romania, and Yugoslavia. The main
goal of the comparative analysis contained in the RCMS is to show
the public significance of the problem of corruption and the extent
to which corruption has penetrated into the various sections of
these societies. The RCMS is a unique effort which has not been
undertaken in the region before as it measures both public
attitudes as well as the actual spread of corruption in the
countries. It allows a comparison of the public sectors most
affected by corruption thus providing objective data for the design
of regional anti-corruption policy instruments.
In summary, the year 2001 was another step in
fulfilling CSD's mission of building bridges - this time between
the problems of security and the issues of democracy.
Dr. Ognian Shentov CSD President,
Sofia, February 2002
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