The wishes of the citizens and the will of the authorities

Everything, and if it were true that the citizens had given the ruler full confidence, yes leads the country as he judged at that moment that fair elections and free will are the best (which, for a solidly large number of voters, is questionable), there is absolutely no basis to conclude that they agreed even with the key moves that the government intended to undertake.

Let's take the example of today's Serbia. Various election lists, whose name always started with the same name and continued with the slogans "for our children", "future", "tomorrow", "must stop" and the like, received between 1,6 and 2 million votes, and as the main argument in their favor they presented maps of Serbia networked with roads and railways and dotted with various economic facilities. Some of them were public investments, others private projects subsidized by the state budget. The "actions speak" map is in the meantime left the internet, while the current non-existent project, worth 17,8 billion (perhaps existing) euros, "Leap into the future - Serbia 2027" still keep it visible on the Government website.

Where projects exist and are implemented, the Government does so in one of two ways. The first is that it concludes interstate agreements, which exclude the application of the Law on Public Procurement, and then awards a contract to a company from that state without competition or bidding. The price we pay for such works, by definition, cannot be more favorable than what we would have paid if there had been a tender. And how and to what extent the state tries to ensure compliance with the rules from contracts with contractors, we have seen in a sad way after the publication of the documents about the reconstruction of the railway station in Novi Sad, and even more from what has not been published.

Another, equally frequently applied mechanism is the adoption of special laws for one or a group of projects. It's a more elegant solution, because the collapse of the legal system seems less arrogant. In addition, when a special law is already passed, it can exclude, in addition to competition in public procurement, anything else that can hinder a "project of national importance" - for example, some obligations regarding environmental protection or planning and construction. And for procurement, the exclusion of the application of the law is masked by some ad hoc procedure, only for that project (eg EXPO, the Moravian Corridor or Belgrade on the Water - the latter is provided twice through an intergovernmental agreement and through the "lex specialis").

This is how the "tender specialis" is organized, which, with the application of the regular Law on Public Procurement, would be dismissed as a joke due to discrimination or violation of the rules. The catch is that the legal means from the Law on Public Procurement cannot be used here. Who cares that the Government has decided to score companies according to previous experience, but only on the condition that it was acquired in the Balkans, or that the deadline for submitting a bid is only seven days, or if someone finds it strange that the financial part of the bid is not scored among the criteria, they can complain to the "water supply management".

So, if we start from the favorable assumption that (some) citizens, voting for the ruling party, voted for all those outlined projects and investments, can it also be said that they agreed to build and invest all of it at any price and in any way? Certainly not, if they weren't asked that way. And they didn't.

And what do citizens really think?

That's why we asked the citizens for their opinion - whether the Government should publish contracts concerning the spending of public money, regardless of whether the publication would be to the liking of its foreign partner. Such a question arises from the frequent practice of justifying the non-disclosure of contracts by real or alleged demands of companies with which the state does business. We will remember, after the tragedy in Novi Sad, while the government still did not enter the "all student demands are fulfilled" mode, witness was different - that the contracts are secret, because the "Chinese side" is allegedly asking for it. Not this, of course first government which contracts huge payments from the budget without the intention of presenting complete information to those who will pay for it all. Be that as it may, and when secrecy is unfounded, contracts are simply not published with surprising ease of irresponsibility. Currently, the "tariff" for publishing documentation about one project is sixteen dead passengers and several hundred thousand persistent protesters.

How much do you agree with the statement - The government should publish an agreement concerning the spending of money from the budget, even if its private partner from abroad asks it not to do so, in %

Source: Public opinion survey report, "Attitude of Serbian citizens towards corruption", CESID, March 2025. Research on a nationally representative sample of 1000 adult citizens of Serbia, conducted from March 13 to 24, using the CATI and CAPI techniques, based on a questionnaire created by CESID doo and Transparency Serbia, for the needs of TS.

55% of citizens are in favor of the Government's unconditional transparency regarding the publication of contracts that lead to the spending of money from the budget, and another 22% of respondents give priority to the publication of contracts in relation to possible contrary demands of the Government's foreign partners. The opposite point of view is taken by only 17% of those surveyed, of which only 6% are those who are inclined to fully support the confidentiality of the arrangement. Within the demographic categories, such attitudes are present above average among citizens who are over 60 years old, who have completed only primary school or have no formal education, as well as women.

There is an even greater number of citizens (75%) who fully agree with the statement that there should always be as much competition as possible when choosing the contractor of the most valuable public works (eg highways, power plants, we deliberately did not mention railway infrastructure). In addition, another 14% of respondents expressed partial agreement with this attitude.

On the opposite side, citizens were offered the answer: "It is justified for the Government to directly award work to companies from another country without competition due to the political support of that country, even if we will pay a higher price". This position was supported by only 9% of the surveyed citizens. In the absence of other arguments that could be presented in favor of direct agreements versus tenders, we stated something that could really be an argument in favor of the authorities when entering into such arrangements. Looking at today's Serbia, if nothing else, the authorities cannot really be criticized for being selective - instead of applying the Law on Public Procurement, they entered into direct agreements for valuable works with companies from China, Russia, Turkey, as well as the USA and France, to we do not mention Azerbaijan and of course companies registered in the United Arab Emirates.Tenders remain for small purchases and for some project that comes from various EU funds.

Which of these two statements is closer to you?  , in %

Source: same.

The story is rounded off by the views of citizens regarding special laws. As we can see, citizens do not justify this type of violation of the legal order. On the contrary, 78% of respondents were explicit that regular rules on procurement, construction and environmental protection should be applied to all projects. Only every tenth citizen finds some justification that the biggest projects are implemented on the basis of special laws, although this is exactly the case in reality (including the most current EXPO).

Source: same.

Among the respondents who are opposed to the main modalities of the government's work in Serbia, there are certainly many who have repeatedly rounded up the promoters of such practices in elections. This, of course, may mean that transparency, legality and competition that brings savings are not the most important things for them when making a decision, but it is even more likely that they have had little access to information that illuminates the other side of the glittering presentations of government projects.

How can citizens have an impact?

If appealing to the will of the citizens is not a valid argument for all these bizarre government practices, does that mean that all these issues should be decided through some form of popular declaration? The elections in Serbia are not the happiest moment for that. To begin with, parties are under no obligation to present programs at all. If such an obligation existed, it would be good if their economic foundation was checked by someone independent and expert, such as our Fiscal Council.

A better option is to give citizens the opportunity to express themselves directly on the most important issues, in a referendum, when it comes to large borrowing. There is no fundamental difference in whether the inhabitants of a village will decide to allocate 3-4 thousand euros each for a village road through self-contribution (on which a referendum is mandatory) from a situation when the Ministry of Finance, the Government and the Parliament (or one person instead of all of them) decide to charge that much on average to every adult citizen for the construction of several highways (where not only is there no referendum, but also no public consultation on what the priorities are).

And since it has been shown that there is no effective remedy in the legal system against special laws, especially interstate agreements, the only solution can be sought by amending the Constitution. This is also one of the things for which Transparency Serbia stands pledges - that the highest legal act should set obstacles to excessive borrowing and violation of financial regulations, which currently do not exist. And if the citizens also care about it, as it seems to be the case these months, then one of the activities of the existing citizens' assemblies, whose legal powers are minimal (proposals and requests), can be precisely the collection of signatures for such a constitutional popular initiative.

Note: The survey of public opinion, "Attitude of citizens of Serbia towards corruption" was carried out within the project "EU for the rule of law: Engaging citizens for public integrity in the Western Balkans and Turkey", which is implemented with the support of the European Union. Transparency Serbia is solely responsible for the views expressed. The views expressed cannot be considered in any way to reflect the views of the European Union.

The author is the program director of the organization "Transparency Serbia"