This paper finds that the lack of a strategic approach to police reform in Serbia hinders both police reform and Serbian integration into Europe. The Stockholm Programme, a five-year European Union strategic plan for building and preserving the European Area of Freedom, Security and Justice, could be used as a starting point for a Serbian police reform strategy. The Stockholm Programme focuses on protecting citizens and their human rights, and on the deepening of regional police cooperation.
Police reform is needed in Serbia because of inadequate definition of priorities, inadequate internal controls, and police corruption. During the 1990s, the Serbian police cooperated with organised criminal groups, helping them to create criminal empires. In addition, Milosevic militarised the police and used them to protect his regime.
An incomplete process of police reform began following the democratic changes of 2000. The Ministry of the Interior (MoI) became solely a public security agency, and the Security Intelligence Agency became a state security agency. A new Law on Police (2005) included the separation of the operational and policy elements of the MoI – into the Police Directorate and the Minister of Interior.
However, the MoI has not yet formulated the strategic plan for police reform stipulated by the Law on Police. Instead, it announced in January 2009 that it is developing a new police reform strategy that will require amendments to the Law on Police. There are diverse sector strategies that affect the police – on money laundering, regulatory reform and organised crime – but these lack coherence.
The EU adopted the Stockholm Programme in December 2009. This aims to deepen cooperation in justice and home affairs. It affects Serbian police reform in many ways, and is closely connected to the European integration process. In order to join the EU, Serbia will have to meet EU criteria on justice and home affairs, especially in combating corruption and organised crime. While this will slow down police and judiciary reform, it also provides an opportunity to make reform substantial rather than superficial.
Serbia could speed up the police reform process, as well as the entire process of EU association, by following the solutions and EU trends identified in the Stockholm Programme. A Serbian police reform strategy should prioritise strengthened regional police cooperation (to address transnational organised crime, for example), improved implementation of the Law on Human Rights, and greater participation by citizens (in both making and implementing the policing strategy). It is also necessary to:
- Forbid discrimination, racism, anti-Semitism, xenophobia and homophobia and make clear that the police will fully protect the rights of children and minorities, particularly Roma
- Continue and expand anti-corruption training for all of the police (not just for the border police)
- Establish an evaluation system for the police to facilitate annual reporting
- Include civil society organisations, independent regulatory bodies, and the National Assembly and its Security and Defence Committee in the process of assessing reform
- Develop mechanisms for monitoring European programmes and trends in European legislation in order to react more efficiently to future developments in justice and home affairs.
