CRM Documents and Publications
Assesment Report on the training needs of parliamentary staff in the Western Balkans on Common Regional Market
21 JUNE 2024 | REPORT
The Common Regional Market (CRM) initiative in the Western Balkans aims to enhance regional competitiveness, reduce the gap with EU markets, and promote economic integration and job creation. Its success relies also on well-informed parliamentary staff adequately prepared to play a constructive role in supporting policymakers and enabling the advancement of regional cooperation and integration efforts in the Western Balkans.
Recognizing this, the Group for Integration and Democracy (GID) assessed the knowledge and awareness of parliamentary staff regarding the CRM to identify capacity building needs. The report highlights existing capabilities and gaps, suggesting the tailored training programs that the Regional Cooperation Council (RCC) should develop to enhance understanding of the CRM and its benefits.
This assessment was commissioned by the Regional Cooperation Council in the framework of continuous assistance provided to support the efforts towards strengthening parliamentary cooperation within the Berlin Process.
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Annual Report of the Secretary General of the Regional Cooperation Council 2023-2024
13 JUNE 2024 | REPORT
The Annual Report of the Secretary General of the Regional Cooperation Council (RCC) covers the period May 2023 – May 2024. It outlines main RCC activities and achievements in the past year. It also lays out the overall background and crucial developments impacting and shaping the activities of the RCC and the region of South East Europe in the reporting period.
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REPORT ON THE ACTIVITIES OF THE REGIONAL COOPERATION COUNCIL SECRETARIAT For the period 1 November 2023 – 1 February 2024
18 MARCH 2024 | REPORT
Report on the activities of the Regional Cooperation Council Secretariat for the period 1 November 2023 – 1 February 2024 was presented by the RCC Secretary General Majlinda Bregu at the 51st RCC Board meeting on 18 March 2024.
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WESTERN BALKANS DIGITAL ECONOMY SOCIETY INDEX • WB DESI 2022 Report
25 MAY 2023 | REPORT
The first Western Balkan Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI) 2022 Report was developed under the RCC umbrella, and provides DESI calculation for 2021 and 2022. The methodology used for WB DESI calculation is based on the EU DESI 2022 Methodology and allows comparison with the EU DESI.
In addition, the Report helps setting the framework for permanent monitoring of digital developments on economy and regional level, as well as monitoring the progress towards digital strategy objectives and identifying areas that require relevant policy actions.
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Women entrepreneurship in the Western Balkans: Stocktaking on constraints and good practices
19 MAY 2023 | REPORT
This document provides a state of play of women entrepreneurship in the Western Balkans economies, aiming to provide key findings and recommendations through an actionable roadmap for each economy. While the analysis is conducted separately, there are striking similarities, both on key positive developments as well as challenges faced by women entrepreneurs. Therefore, the report takes both a comparative perspective and an economy specific one.
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Common Regional Market Report on Implementation for 2022
17 MAY 2023 | REPORT
The Leaders’ Declaration on Common Regional Market (CRM) and its Action Plan, endorsed at the Berlin Process Summit in November 2020, ushered a qualitatively new framework for regional cooperation in the Western Balkans that puts regional cooperation and EU standards at the centre. Hailed as a decisive and all-inclusive process for the WB region, together with the Green Agenda for WB, it sets out the main cooperation framework and represents the backbone of the region’s socio-economic recovery and twin transition.
The report takes stock of the implementation track record and state of play, providing a resume of the second year of implementation of the CRM agenda starting with an overview of achievements reached at a regional level. The majority of measures are well on track in line with the CRM Action Plan. The second section of the report provides a list of key achievements under each of the four CRM policy areas, specifically Regional Trade Area (including the Four Freedoms of the EU), Regional Digital Area, Regional Investment Area, Regional Industrial and Innovation Area at an economy level. In line with the principle of regional ownership that underpins the implementation of CRM agenda, this section is drafted from the contributions of the responsible line ministries/agencies in each of the WB economies.
This regional overview is compiled jointly by the lead organisations, the Regional Cooperation Council (RCC) and Central European Free Trade Agreement (CEFTA) Secretariats, based on their specific areas of responsibility, while the Transport Community Treaty (TCT) Secretariat and WB6 Chamber Investment Forum (WB6 CIF) provided contributions relevant to their respective policy areas.
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REPORT ON THE ACTIVITIES OF THE REGIONAL COOPERATION COUNCIL SECRETARIAT for the period 1 November 2022 – 1 March 2023
15 MARCH 2023 | REPORT
Report on the activities of the Regional Cooperation Council Secretariat for the period 1 November 2022 – 1 March 2023 was presented by the RCC Secretary General Majlinda Bregu at the 48th RCC Board meeting on 15 March 2023 in Sarajevo.
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Western Balkans Roaming Report 2022
25 JANUARY 2023 | REPORT
Western Balkans Roaming Report 2022 aims to provide information about the consumption and price developments of the roaming services in the region, thus supporting WB economies in the efficient monitoring of Regional Roaming Agreement implementation.
On the other hand, in order to determine key challenges and priority objectives in the process of reducing roaming prices between WB and EU, all important findings and trends in roaming users’ patterns, traffic volumes and costs of international roaming services between WB and EU operators have been assessed, analysed and presented herein.
Reporting period is the full year 2021.
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Annual Report of the Secretary General of the Regional Cooperation Council 2021-2022
10 JUNE 2022 | REPORT
The Annual Report of the Secretary General of the Regional Cooperation Council (RCC) covers the period April 2021 – April 2022. It outlines main RCC activities and achievements in the past year. It also lays out the overall background and crucial developments impacting and shaping the activities of the RCC and the region of South East Europe in the reporting period.
Download: EN
Common Regional Market Report on Implementation for 2021
31 MAY 2022 | REPORT
The Western Balkans (WB) leaders endorsed the Common Regional Market (CRM) 2021-2024 agenda at the Western Balkans Sofia Summit in November 2020. Being firmly anchored in EU recovery efforts, the CRM agenda aims at reducing the gaps with the EU Single Market and diversifying supplies to create jobs and offer greater choice at lower prices, and at enabling people to work throughout the region.
This report provides an overview of both regional and the achievements accomplished at the level of each Western Balkan economy per key CRM policy areas, namely Regional Trade Area (including EU
Four Freedoms), Regional Digital Area, Regional Investment Area, Regional Industrial and Innovation Area. The overview of key results in the regional area was drafted by RCC and CEFTA Secretariats,
each of them being in charge of their respective areas of expertise, whereas Transport Community Secretariat and WB6 Chamber Investment Forum (CIF) contributed to the regional overview with
their inputs in their respective areas of expertise.
Taking into consideration the regional ownership of the CRM agenda, this report also includes the contributions from the region’s economies, particularly in the Section II of the report Key Achievements
in CRM – Economy Level. The report covers the period from December 2020 – November 2021.
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REPORT ON THE ACTIVITIES OF THE REGIONAL COOPERATION COUNCIL SECRETARIAT for the period 1 October 2021 – 1 March 2022
11 APRIL 2022 | REPORT
Report on the activities of the Regional Cooperation Council Secretariat for the period 1 October 2021 – 1 March 2022 by the Secretary General of the Regional Cooperation Council, presented at the 45th Meeting of the RCC Board on 16 March 2022.
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Western Balkans-European Union Roaming Data Report
06 OCTOBER 2021 | REPORT
The overall objective of the assignment is to provide support to Western Balkan Six economies to further advance in the process of harmonisation of roaming policy with that of the EU and providing expert inputs on the approach and the steps that Western Balkan economies and telecom operators need to take towards reducing the roaming prices between the Western Balkan region and the EU, building on the successful implementation of the Regional Roaming Agreement and the start of the free roaming regime in the Western Balkans as of 1 July 2021.
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Report on the State of Application of Digital Economy Society Index (DESI) in Western Balkan Economies
21 JULY 2021 | REPORT
The objective of the report is to provide an overview of the state of application of the Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI) methodology in Western Balkans, the availability of datasets for calculating all DESI indicators and identify the responsible institutions for data collection.
All with the aim is to identify gaps and needs and to provide short-term recommendations to harmonise the domestic methodologies with the DESI and European Union (EU) methodologies.
DESI measures five key areas: connectivity, human capital, use of internet by individuals, integration of digital technologies by the business sector and digital public services. As candidates or potential candidates for EU membership, the Western Balkan (WB) economies are required to use DESI indicators for measurement of the progress made.
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Study on Youth Employment in the Western Balkans
08 JULY 2021 | REPORT
Youth employment is an important policy priority for all governments in the Western Balkans. Along with general economic development, all economies have experienced a positive trend in youth employment creation in recent years. However, youth unemployment remains stubbornly high, while activity and employment rates are far below the levels seen in the EU, with a strong gender bias.
This Study presents a comparative analysis of the region’s youth labour markets.
The Appendices to the Study analyse the youth labour markets and the policy responses in each of the Western Balkan economies.
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Report on the Activities of the Regional Cooperation Council Secretariat for the period 1 October 2020 – 1 March 2021
29 MARCH 2021 | REPORT
The Report on the activities of the Regional Cooperation Council (RCC) Secretariat is submitted by the RCC Secretary General to the RCC Board in line with Article 15 of the Statute of the RCC. It covers the period between 1 October 2020 – 1 March 2021.
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