almanac on security sector oversight in the Western Balkans

esources is a fact of life in all transitional countries, how they approach the task of an
ever growing need to upgrade and raise the expertise of their personnel shows quite
confidently the path they have undertaken in building more capable societies.
The level of expertise among personnel inherited from previous state structures at
the beginning of independent Croatia was reasonable, considering underlying circumstances,
but as in most of the reviewed processes and development of their dynamics,
the period until 1999 was lost time. Only after the SDP coalition won elections, and especially
after joining PfP, and undertaking programmes like Membership Action Plan
(MAP, Planning and Review Process), Individual Partnership Program, and later starting
cooperation with the CoE and signing Stabilisation and Association Process it became
a norm to increase seriously the quality of personnel in the state administration.
This trend has continued and represents one of the two most important processes for
successful reform.
All of this not only helped build and internalise democratic and professional values
among personnel of state institutions but also helped societal acceptance of these
values. For a long time it seemed that internalisation of values was a task too big for
anyone. At the beginning, society and state institutions were committed to democratic
values as a point of departure from the communist regime. During the war and
especially in the first post war period these values were mostly forgotten; what happened
was a closing of society and self-sufficiency of political views among elites. Even
the 2000 change of government did not alter this trend because of a strong resistance
among conservative elements of politics and society. So, only during the last five years
did the stance toward accepting democratic, balanced civilian and professional values
and ethics become prominent and start to reap benefits for all of society.
5 . Selected aspects of security sector oversight
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5.1. Budgetary aspects
Budgetary appropriation and spending along with procurement of goods, services,
equipment and personnel for government are probably two of the most sensitive issues
today. This is due to scarcity of financial resources and many irregularities that
happened too often to be accidental. Regarding the annual procedure of proposing,
passing and executing the budget, its transparency and incremental improvements,
implemented as a result of the lessons learned from previous cycles, seem to have
paramount importance.
5.1.1. Budgetary transparency
Control and oversight competences for budgetary planning and spending are regulated,
harmonised vertically and horizontally and in line with international standards.
Oversight and control over implementation of government financial policy is regulat-