Monitoring and Evaluating the Rule of Law in the Western Balkans (MERLIN WB)

Project: Monitoring and Evaluating the Rule of Law in the Western Balkans (MERLIN WB)

Donor: European Fund for the Balkans

Project lead: European Policy Institute (EPI) – Skopje

Partners: Belgrade Centre for Security Policy, Institute Alternativa – Podgorica and GONG – Croatia

The objective of the project is to set up a regional coordinative mechanism for democracy and rule of law mirrored through the implementation of Chapter 23 – Judiciary and Fundamental Rights and Chapter 24 – Justice, Freedom and Security in Macedonia, Serbia and Montenegro.

The objective of the policy advocacy is to determine common framework of pending issues regarding democracy and rule of law in the region by engaging national authorities.

Expected results:

• Developed common framework for assessing regional priority issues in democracy and rule of law;
• Developed framework for regional exchange mechanism on the implementation of Chapter 23 and Chapter 24 through coordination of existing regional networks,
• Prepared policy options to advocate before national stakeholders.

The project builds upon the achieved with the project partner’s regular monitoring and evaluation of the public policies under Chapter 23 and 24. Added value element will be introduced through the coordinative mechanism, by which the capacities will be increased. The action, being implemented by four partners, will allow preparation of three national case studies and one policy brief as a comparative regional overview on the state-of-affairs regarding rule of law in the countries. All project outputs will be available electronically and disseminated on three policy events. Main activities are divided in three phases: preparatory, policy research and policy advocacy phase. Preparatory phase refers to identifying coordination mechanism between regional networks and organizing regional workshop to streamline coordination. Policy research phase is consisted of preparation of national case studies and a policy brief. Last phase will be realized through the dissemination of policy products on national events in a form of a press conference and final policy forum in Skopje.

Proposed project will be implemented in the period 01.01.2016-31.12.2016.