The Special Investigation Service of the Republic of Lithuania (STT), as the Project Leader, together with Police Department under the Ministry of Interior of the Republic of Lithuania, Central Project Management Agency and several Romanian law enforcement agencies, as well as Romanian Anti-Corruption General Directorate, as Junior partner, successfully implemented European Union Twinning Project in Serbia "Strengthening capacities of internal control in the fight against corruption within the Ministry of Interior".
The overall objective of the Project was to support the Republic of Serbia in its fight against corruption in line with the recommendations from Chapter 23 and Chapter 24 action plans, the specific and concrete project activities sought to build and strengthen the existing capacities of Internal Affairs Sector with a focus on corruption prevention mechanisms, investigation skills, property declaration checks, necessary data gathering and processing, IT system upgrading, etc.
The project was implemented through a Twinning Contract estimated at a maximum of EUR 1,000,000. Duration – 18 months. The project implementation commenced on 01 March 2019 and should have lasted 18 months, until 31 August 2020. Taken into consideration that the entire world, including the Republic of Serbia, was severely impacted by the SARS-CoV-2 virus and the resulting COVID-19 pandemic, the project implementation was suspended during the summer 2020. It restarted in the fall, until its official end on 20 December 2020.
„Taking in to account the practice of European Union countries and recommendation of European Union experts, this Project is an opportunity for the Lithuanian and Romanian authorities to share the long-standing experience which will allow Internal Affairs Sector of Serbia to strengthen anti-corruption environment and to choose the most appropriate model for combating corruption.” says Dr. Egidijus Radzevičius, deputy director of Special Investigation Service of the Republic of Lithuania (the Project leader).
The Project achieved the following results:
1. Enhanced capacity of IAS to efficiently use investigative techniques in proactive investigations of corruption and integrity testing.
2. Improved IT systems of IAS to protect and manage data during investigations.
3. Enhanced internal investigation capacity of the IAS and enforced asset/property declaration checks of employees of MoI.
4. Established capacities of IAS to process intelligence and operational data as well as to conduct corruption risk analysis.
During the implementation of this project, 50 Lithuanian and Romanian experts took part in the implementation, prepared 14 drafts of internal legal acts and more than 150 Serbian police officers attended to the training courses. Study visit for Serbian officials were organized to Lithuania and Romania as well.
The EU Twinning Project is one of EU instruments to help candidate countries and new Member States to integrate into the EU. These projects bring together institutions from different countries to help the newcomers to take over the experience from the old EU Member States.
This is already the 5th EU Twinning Project, implemented by the Special Investigation Service of the Republic of Lithuania. STT also implemented EU Twinning Projects in Azerbaijan, Croatia, North Macedonia and Moldova.
Brochure - Serbia and EU - Integrity against corruption
