TRANSPARENCY AND CITIZEN PARTICIPATION IN THE PARLIAMENT

Open Data Kosovo presented the analysis of “Parliamentary openness in Kosovo and in the region” analyzing the transparency, openness, and accountability of the legislative power in the Western Balkans region. The analysis is based on the annual Regional Openness Index where all public institutions are part of the measurement. 117 indicators divided into four components measured institutional openness. These four components are – Accessibility, Awareness, Integrity and Transparency. The survey of 2018 on parliamentary openness ranks Montenegro in the first place with a score of 79%. Kosovo occupies the second place with a score of 73%, and Albania ranks third with a score of 71% in the Western Balkans. Research findings show that the openness in the domain of Transparency increased at the level of the whole region, with the exception of the Parliament of Albania with a decline of 9% since 2017. Accessibility to citizens, however, is in stagnation, scoring regional average of 61% since 2016. The parliament of Kosovo scored 80% on Awareness securing second place, 82% on Integrity, sharing second place with Albania, 78% on Transparency, surpassed only by Montenegro, and 55% on Accessibility. The low score on the latter principle paved the way for this to be the focal point of the panel discussion, in an attempt to strengthen the Parliaments weakest link. The Kosovar Parliament with its relatively low score on Accessibility places Kosovo on the bottom of the list compared to the other regional countries in the Western Balkans, surpassing only Bosnia and Herzegovina. The opening speech was delivered by Secretary General of the Assembly of Kosovo, Ismet Krasniqi. Subsequently, a presentation of the strategy for Communication and Information was delivered by Musli Kranisiqi – Director of the Office for Media and Public Relations at the Kosovo Assembly. Thereafter, the project coordinator of ActionSEE, Blerina Ramaj, presented the findings of the analysis concerning openness and accessibility of the Kosovo Parliament in comparison to the region. Lastly, the event culminated with talks about Transparency and Communication by Alexander Chavarria – Director of National Democracy Institute, Besnik Vasolli – Communications Component Manager at GIZ, BnS Europe&KLSC and Jetmir Bakija – Program Manager at Democracy+. The Strategic Planning and Coordination Officer of the Assembly of Kosovo, Shqipe Krasniqi, moderated the panel discussion. The event’s participants consisted of NGO representatives from Transparency Forum of the Assembly, media, journalist, and international organizations This analysis is the third of its kind, and part of the project “Transparency, Technology and Institutional Openness in the South East Europe Region” – ActionSEE, implemented in the Western Balkans and funded by the European Union.

Date: 16 September 2019