The goal of this publication is to provide an overview of the state of democracy in all four EU membership candidate countries in the Western Balkans – Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Albania. To achieve this, the publication presents a “shadow report” on some of the key Copenhagen criteria – democracy, freedom of expression and regional issues and international obligations, as presented within the original country reports.

The report covers the period from November 2016 to October 2017, with the exception of Montenegro, where October 2016 was also included due to the importance of the parliamentary elections and the consequences they had for democracy in the country.

This publication represents a cooperation between the Centre for Contemporary Politics from Belgrade and the Cooperation and Development Institute from Tirana, published with the support of the European Fund for the Balkans through the Think and Link Regional Policy Programme.

Tags: EU accession, European Union, Western Balkans