BalkanInsight.com - Why We Aren’t Free Yet

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Why We Aren’t Free Yet - by Natasha Srdoc

Few citizens in southeast Europe would be surprised to hear that economic freedom in their countries is “repressed”. Whether or not this state of affairs is addressed head-on in diplomatically-tweaked reports from Brussels, it is common knowledge, muttered about in cafes across the region – even where statistics show that economic growth is brisk.

In contrast with the narrative on reform preferred by the EU, which focuses mostly on governmental compatibility with EU norms – which in some cases actually hinder economic freedom rather than enabling it – this index seeks to answer the questions of essential interest to the average person. Does the government let me keep my money, or does it confiscate a lot of it as taxes? Is private property protected in general? Can I get a job easily? If I run a business, can I hire and fire easily when I need to? Can I buy and sell easily within the country, and across its borders? Does the government compete against private businesses, or does it want them to thrive? How important is corruption in this picture? The index grades countries on questions like these. It is along such lines that its authors have once again, as in years past, graded as “repressed” all the countries of southeast Europe. Overall scores were better, with Albania, Bulgaria, Romania and Macedonia deemed “moderately free” and Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina “mostly unfree”. (The index’s one drawback is that it does not grade Serbia and Montenegro, owing to what the authors say was a lack of reliable data. However, both countries are none the less examined, along with all others.)

In order to beat back the scourge of corruption we need both to help ourselves, most importantly to be helped by outside forces. Citizens can exert a certain degree of pressure, by resolving not to accept endemic corruption. However, they would benefit greatly from more immediate and more robust support from international partners. This is why, contrary to conventional wisdom, many citizens of the countries of southeast Europe would be grateful to the EU and NATO if these organisations would more explicitly pressure governments in the region to curb corruption.

Note EU-Digest: Ms.Natasha Srdoc who is president of the Adriatic Institute for Public Policy, a free-market think tank, certainly has a point here. The EU must must make more of an effort to curb this rampant corruption which one finds in both the Public and Private Sector. If it takes sanctions to do so let it be sanctions. Corruption is like a cancer and will spread also into Western Europe if it is not eradicated.