Freedom in Balkans

Different aspects of freedom are fundamental value of human rights in Balkans as well globally. While starting of a year it’s good time to check the near past and make some benchmarking. Rankings or ratings are one kind of (process) benchmarking in which organizations or in this case states evaluate various aspects of their processes in relation to best practice.

In 1^st part of my "Freedom in Balkans" serial I make a short update about political rights and civil liberties.

Part 1 - Political Rights and Civil liberties

In my article “Freedom in Balkans” On September 2008 I wrote about the freedom ratings with political rights, civil liberties, religious and press freedom in Balkans. Now Freedom House released the findings from the latest edition of Freedom in the World 2009, the annual survey of global political rights and civil liberties. The ratings reflect an overall judgment based on survey results and global events from Jan. 1^st through Dec. 31^st 2008. In my earlier article I had one year older survey.

The survey a year ago showed that only Kosovo province (as UN protectorate) fell to category not free; Albania, Macedonia (FRY), Bosnia-Herzegovina and Montenegro were partly free category and Serbia, Romania, Croatia, Bulgaria and Slovenia were in the best free category.

The situation remained the same during year 2008 so no state changed category. Inside the category occurred following two changes:

• Bulgaria’s political rights rating declined from 1 to 2 (1 represents the most free and 7 the least free rating) due to backsliding in the government’s efforts to combat corruption and organized crime, which prompted the European Union to suspend substantial aid payments in July.
• Macedonia had a downward trend –without number decline - due to increased harassment of and violence against political party members during the country’s June parliamentary elections, which domestic and international observers deemed the worst since independence.

So nothing radical happened during last year. The only peculiarity still is the result of Kosovo which is ranked as ‘not free’ and received scores the same as Sudan, Chad and Egypt in terms of political rights and civil liberties despite the fact that international community has been building democratic standards and human rights in its protectorate now over eight years. If the result is this I hope that new EULEX mission will apply some lessons learned in this case.

More about methodology and global results from web sites of Freedom House.

Part 2 - Democracy

World Audit Org has been conducting sc. Democracy Audit since 1997. Their survey is concerned only with the criteria of democracy – which they hold to be Human Rights; Political Rights; Free Speech and Absence of Corruption. 150 nations, all those with populations in excess of one million are included. Related to 1st part of my article serial Freedom in Balkans Democracy Audit gives an other point of view to the same topic.

World Audit brings together statistics and reports from respected agencies such as Freedom House, Transparency International, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and The International Commission of Jurists. From their work and data WorldAudit.Org present and update the World Democracy Audit.

With this background it is understandable that the results are quite comparable with those in my earlier articles - Part 1 and its earlier more comprehensive version .

As source I have used latest Democracy Audit of WorldAudit.Org. From there I have selected following countries:

• Balkan states
• Top 3 and Worst 3 in the world
• U.S. as old superpower
• BRIC countries as rising superpowers

And here is the table (more compact version here)

Country/ Rank	Democracy	Press Freedom	Corruption	Overall Category
Denmark	1	2	1	1
Sweden	2	4	1	1
Finland	3	1	5	1
United States	15	14	15	1
Slovenia	19	28	21	1
Bulgaria	36	45	56	2
Croatia	45	47	47	3
India	48	46	67	3
Serbia	50	50	67	3
Romania	52	59	54	3
Brazil	53	56	62	3
Macedonia	59	65	56	3
Albania	64	70	67	3
Bosnia and Herzegovina	81	62	73	4
China	120	138	56	4
Russia	133	127	117	4
Uzbekistan	147	144	136	4
Turkmenistan	149	148	136	4
Myanmar	150	149	147	4

In Balkans Slovenia is again on its own top class, Bosnia-Herzegovina is in the last shake of the bag - alone because disputed territories such as Kosovo were not included. The rest of the Balkan countries are between them. Of course one should remember limitations like overvaluation of western perspective with these kind of surveys but anyway from my point of view these survyes are good tools for benchmarking, future planning and debate.

Part 3: Economy

Economic freedom is highly valued element especially in U.S. society and its imitators. Conservative politics claims that greater economic freedom generates opportunities for people, creates wealth and respect for human rights. In Nordic countries the approach is different and the economic freedom of one individual – human or company – can be limited if it limits other peoples freedom. However this study is based to traditional American conservative formula and everybody can value the output against that background.

The Heritage Foundation is a research and educational institute - a think tank - whose mission is to formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defence. For over a decade this Washington’s preeminent think tank has tracked economic freedom around the world with its main publication The Index of Economic Freedom.

The Heritage Foundation defines economic freedom as follows:

The highest form of economic freedom provides an absolute right of property ownership, fully realized freedoms of movement for labour, capital, and goods, and an absolute absence of coercion or constraint of economic liberty beyond the extent necessary for citizens to protect and maintain liberty itself. In other words, individuals are free to work, produce, consume, and invest in any way they please, and that freedom is both protected by the state and unconstrained by the state.

The 2009 Index of Economic Freedom covers 183 countries and measures 10 separate components of economic freedom. To table below I have picked the Balkan countries and their scores with each of those measures and the picture is following:

Name	World Rank	O- ver- all Sco- re	Busi- ness Free- dom	Tra- de Free- dom	Fis- cal Free- dom	Go- vern- ment Size	Mone- tary Free- dom	In- vest- ment Free- dom	Fi- nan- cial Free- dom	Pro- perty Ri- ghts	Free- dom From Cor- rup- tion	La- bour Free- dom
Albania	62	63.7	67.0	75.8	92.8	75.6	79.6	70.0	70.0	30.0	29.0	47.2
Bosnia -Herze-govina	134	53.1	59.9	77.2	71.8	37.6	79.0	50.0	60.0	10.0	33.0	52.2
Bulgaria	56	64.6	73.5	85.8	86.2	58.7	72.8	60.0	60.0	30.0	41.0	78.4
Croatia	116	55.1	59.9	87.6	68.7	31.7	79.0	50.0	60.0	30.0	41.0	43.4
Greece	81	60.8	78.7	80.8	66.5	46.3	78.8	50.0	50.0	50.0	46.0	61.2
Macedo- nia FRY	78	61.2	58.2	81.6	89.4	65.1	85.4	50.0	60.0	30.0	33.0	59.8
Monte- negro	94	58.2	68.7	80.2	89.1	45.3	78.9	40.0	50.0	40.0	33.0	57.2
Romania	65	63.2	74.9	85.8	87.0	70.0	75.0	60.0	50.0	35.0	37.0	57.1
Serbia	109	56.6	56.0	78.0	85.9	46.3	65.8	40.0	50.0	40.0	34.0	70.0
Slovenia	68	62.9	84.4	85.8	62.9	38.4	78.6	60.0	50.0	60.0	66.0	42.8

If the Overall score were 100-80 the country was defined to be Free, countries with score 79.9-70 were Mostly free, countries with score 69.9-60 Moderately free, countries with score 59.9-50 Mostly unfree and countries with score between 49.9-0 were defined as Repressed. So according The 2009 Index of Economic Freedom Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, Macedonia, Romania and Slovenia were Moderately free and the rest of Balkan countries were Mostly unfree.

Last autumn I wrote about competitiveness of Balkans referring “ Global Economic Competitiveness Report 2008-2009” of The World Economic Forum, which approaches economic freedom a bit wider angle. Their measures include e.g. health, education, public and private institutions, infrastructure and innovations so perspective is a bit more social than that of hard line conservatives. Anyway in report mentioned Slovenia was ranked as the most competitive economy in the Balkans with rank 42 out of 134 countries polled followed Croatia (61), Greece (67), Romania (68), Bulgaria (76), Serbia (85), Macedonia (89), Bosnia-Herzegovina (107) and Albania (108).

If compared the order between economic freedom and competitiveness the biggest difference are ranks of Croatia and Albania – almost opposite positions – so one could say that free economy does not necessary create high competitiveness and mostly unfree economy can sometimes be very competitive.

Part 4 - Poverty

Poverty stricken Bosnian Muslims search a garbage dump near their village of Visca. The extreme winter low temperatures force people who live in poverty to resort to desperate measures to scrape a living.

One can dispute which level of economic freedom can increase or decrease common welfare for all population but the fact is that poverty sure limits individuals political and human rights as well use of civil liberties."Poverty" defined as an economic condition of lacking both money and basic necessities needed to successfully live, such as food, water, education, health care or shelter. The table lists countries by the percentage of the population living below the national poverty line — the poverty line deemed appropriate for a country by its authorities.

While studying poverty in Balkans I have used as source UNDP report accessed on Feb. 3rd 2008 and CIA's The World Factbook, updated on July 24th 2008. From there I have picked Balkan countries and Kosovo province figures and the outcome is here:

Country	UNDP	CIA	Year	Other	Year
Albania	25.4	25	2004 est.	25	2002
Bosnia-Herzegovina	19.5	25	2004 est.	20	2002
Bulgaria	12.8	14.1	2003 est.	13	2001
Croatia	N/A	11	2003	N/A	N/A
Macedonia FRY	21.7	29.8	2006	29.4	2007
Montenegro	N/A	7	2007 est.	N/A	N/A
Romania	21.5	25	2005 est.	N/A	N/A
Serbia	N/A	6.5	2007 est.	N/A	N/A
Province of Kosovo	N/A	37	2007 est.	N/A	N/A
Slovenia	N/A	12.9	2004	N/A	N/A

National estimates are based on population-weighted subgroup estimates from household surveys. Definitions of the poverty line may vary considerably among nations. Thus, the numbers are not strictly comparable among countries. However one could size up that poverty is serious problem in Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia, Romania and Kosovo province (UNSC 1244 protectorate).

Bigger image from link

Part 5: Movement

Freedom of movement including traveling abroad or in one’s own country and selecting locations to live has also its own limitations in Balkans. If we exclude such restrictive factors as money, handicaps or imprisonment I could find three main categories for limited freedom of movement in Balkans. They are

• Restricted moving back to original dwelling place
• Restricted moving out from place of residence
• Traveling abroad

Refugees and IDPs

This theme is of paramount importance in Balkans. Beginning 1991, political upheavals - such as the breakup of Yugoslavia - displaced millions of people. Officially one part of these people are refugees meaning that they have escaped to other country, one part is “internally displaced persons” (IDPs) meaning that they have escaped from their home village/-town but still are in the same country than before.

This kind of restricted moving back to original dwelling place is still – 10-16 years after Balkan Wars – biggest problem in Serbia with 326,853 refugees and IDPs. Bosnia-Herzegovina has 146,586 mostly IDPs, Greece 30,799 (mostly asylum seekers), Montenegro 24,822, Bulgaria 5,848, Croatia 7,826, Slovenia 4,408 (mostly stateless persons), Macedonia (FYR) 2,397, Romania 2,180 and Albania 101 (situation 31^st March 2008). (Source UNCHR statistics 3rd June 2008).

From this link you can have full-scale of figure above.

Restricted moving out from place of residence

Limited moving out from home in one’s own country is usually not restricted by law or regulations – the limitations are real or fancied fears in one’s head. In Balkans this problem occurs most in Kosovo province. Albanians in Kosovo’s middle and southern parts are not familiar to travel northern Kosovo, Serbs in their enclaves are afraid to go outside of their enclave.

Outside Kosovo this kind of fears are in smaller scale and they maybe occur only when ethnic tensions for some reasons are rising e.g. between Croats and Bosnian Muslims in Bosnia-Herzegovina, between Albanians and Macedonians in Macedonia (FYROM) etc.

Travelling abroad

To travel from one country to other is a fundamental freedom restricted however more or less depending about which passport the traveller holds. Visa restrictions play an important role in controlling the movement of foreign nationals across borders. This topic I treated already in my previous article “Visa rank and the western Balkans” and to that I do not have anything new to add now as I do not have any new data available.