This article examines the recent trends in whistleblowing regulation, analysing the issue of financial rewards as one of the key distinctions between the legislative solutions on the matter in the United States as compared to European jurisdictions. Using the lens of corruption theories, the article concludes that the usage of financial rewards increases the overall regulatory capacity of the state to reduce corruption and fraud and reduce the emerging, largely anonymous digital whistleblowing. The financial rewards are also, due to the peculiar nature of both corruption and whistleblowing, an adequate tool to help to quantify the effects of whistleblowing. The article argues that the introduction of financial rewards should not be viewed as dependent on the differences in the legal traditions or culture but on the quality of the institutions and their ability to assess the reports of the whistleblowers. The article offers considerations concerning the conditions for the introduction of financial rewards.

This article evaluates the role that the economic conditionality of the European Union (EU) toward the six Western Balkan countries may play in the transformation of these countries as a part of their EU accession process. The article is a case study of a temporary policy shift that occurred in 2014 in relation to conditions that Bosnia and Herzegovina must fulfill to qualify for opening negotiations on EU membership. It also aims to address what this shift has achieved for the Europeanization of Bosnia and Herzegovina and its progress towards EU accession. The shift, implemented via an economic plan called the Reform Agenda, was an attempt at Europeanization of the country’s economic policies that temporarily put aside the constitutional reform demands that had previously dominated the Europeanization discourse. After the first five years of the Reform Agenda, moderate gains primarily in the domain of economic development and fiscal stability were made; however, political fragmentation and nationalistic and secessionist ideas have prevented the reforms from making a stronger impact. Additionally, the lack of a defined desired outcome in terms of measurable economic reforms and the inadequate planning by the EU were not conducive to a more transformative impact.

This paper deals with the failures in the promotion of the rule of law in the six countries of the Western Balkans that are in different stages of their EU accession process. Drawing on concrete examples from more than two decades of rule of law promotion through the enlargement circles, the paper identifies the different evolutionary stages of this undertaking. It finds that the current dominant paradigm of rule of law conditionality concerning the benchmarking of progress in the areas of Chapters 23 and 24 of the acquis fails to tackle state capture as the main structural obstacle to the rule of law in the Western Balkans. The paper proposes that this situation is to be improved by re-imagining rule of law promotion as an effort focused not merely on standards but on building a rule of law constituency. Four different approaches to rule of law promotion that have been less frequently used so far are offered: legal mobilisation, institutional strengthening, the politicisation of anti-corruption, and economic development. The paper concludes with reflections on the realistic reach of the proposed interventions into efforts to promote the rule of law, arguing that while imperfect they remain necessary in order for the project to succeed. Keywords: European Union, rule of law promotion, Western Balkans, corruption, economic development.   This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution − Non-Commercial − No Derivatives 4.0 International License.   Suggested citation: N Hogic, ‘The European Union’s Rule of Law Promotion in the Western Balkans: Building a Rule of Law Constituency’ (2020) 16 CYELP 197.

In this national report, the author presents an overview of the measures enacted to support the economy and govern the labour relations in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Measures are briefly discussed; the main findings are that they are skewed toward employers with the potential to erode employees’ rights and bargaining power.