This brief is based on a compilation of views, opinions, insights, and conclusions on fostering talent in security and law enforcement institutions and countering terrorism and violent extremism in the Western Balkans (WB) region contributed by the civil society organizations and key stakeholders active in the region and compiled from reports, publications and articles listed in the Bibliography section of this document. Most of law enforcement agencies in the region have undertaken steps in last few years to establish professional HR management systems that will introduce transparent and merit-based recruitment and career development which is a precondition for fostering talent and professional leadership in these important public services. The major challenges in current HR practices across the region are: over-burdened police structure with overlapping functions, too many management levels without clear lines of accountability, lack of standard procedures for human resources management and capacity of HR departments, the hiring and promotion procedures are not competitive and are often justified on the ground of “urgent needs” and there is great turn-over and weak retention of most experienced officers with integrity. The biggest obstacle to introducing functioning merit-based HR in law enforcement is deep politicization of human resources management. Formal introduction of merit-based system of HR management in professional police service is hampered by informal influence of ruling parties on employment, promotion and demotion of professionals at the key posts. Moreover, politicization of HR has facilitated opening of police services to the people with links to the crime or even to those who have committed crimes. Politicization of HR management has also led to loosing talent of experienced law enforcement officers with integrity through transfers, demotions without clear criteria or retirements at earliest stage in line with laws. Therefore, the core to developing professionalism and nurturing talent in security and law enforcement institutions is to limit political interference in recruitment, selection, development and promotions of professional staff, introduction of merit-based and equal opportunities HR management practices, and strengthening of internal affairs and external oversight over both political and professional leadership of law enforcement institutions.

Due to increased focus of international community on Islamic extremism primarily, all Western Balkan governments focussed their response almost exclusively to confronting this type of extremism without taking into consideration other forms of home-grown extremism that are heritage of inter-ethnic conflicts and unfinished state-building in the region. When it comes to the Islamic extremism, the region could be divided in two camps based on the language barrier: Albanian speaking communities in Kosovo, Macedonia, Albania and South-East part of Serbia, and Serbo-Croatian speaking Muslim communities in Sandzak region of Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina. The biggest challenge for all governments in the region is to develop capacity to determine the difference between the non-violent and not-violent extremists (Schmidt), first being the group of potentially conservative believers but with “firm and absolute” rejection of violence and the second

being the group that has opted for non-violence as ‘pragmatic and temporal avoidance to resort or advocate violence’.

Several societal groups that are at particular risk of becoming radicalized and potentially violent: young people in twenties and thirties as a way to prove themselves (search for identity), the relatively poor and deprived, those who turned Salafi “overnight” are in greater risk of becoming violent extremists, than those who were religious for longer period of time, those who went to study abroad in the Middle East. Specific to the region is radicalisation of Roma in Serbia and Montenegro and Macedonia. Salafi groups in the region have links with traditional diaspora, mainly in Austria, Sweden, Germany, Switzerland and more recently in the Netherlands and Luxembourg. The most important European and transnational link the extreme Salafi groups had was with Austria. All countries in the region have established legal and strategic framework which is largely in line with

international standards and the EU approach to countering terrorism. The biggest challenge has been the prevention of radicalisation, as well as inter-agency coordination at the national level. There is systematic support in place for developing intra-regional cooperation, as well as operational cooperation and exchange of information with relevant EU agencies.