The World Bank presents this report for the WB6 to provide an evidence-based policy narrative to showcase the opportunities for the WB6 transport sector to contribute to the green, resilient, and inclusive economic development (GRID) agenda. It discusses both passenger and freight transport....

This paper examines the state of innovation in Central, Eastern, and South-Eastern EU countries. Despite increased innovation capacity, the region faces significant challenges threatening its growth and competitiveness, including severe skills shortages, uneven productivity, and barriers to...

This note examines the grants and loans provided by the European Union (EU) and China to the Western Balkan economies. The EU remains dominant in grant funding, with annual Instrument for Preaccession Assistance (IPA) grants averaging 0.8% of the region's GDP, far above the 0.02% of GDP from...

The enlargement of the European Union towards the Western Balkans is experiencing unprecedented dynamism, supported by the launch of a tailored Euro 6 billion growth plan. This renewed momentum offers an important opportunity for the Western Balkans to accelerate economic convergence with the...

EU enlargement rounds have always been driven by political will of the parties concerned and administered through a comprehensive legal-bureaucratic procedure. There is strong political determination to carry on the accession process involving Western Balkan countries as well as Ukraine, Georgia...

The countries of Central and Southeastern Europe (CSEE) are significant net recipients of remittances, primarily due to the intensive emigration trends that occurred after they transitioned to market economies. The fact that these countries are among the highest recipients of private remittances...

The network of Higher Education Reform Experts (HERE) has been in existence since 2007, when it was part of the TEMPUS programme. Its role is to help build the capacity of higher education institutions in third countries not associated to the Erasmus+ programme in four neighbourhood regions: the...

Smart Specialisation in the Western Balkans revealed that agri-food features as one of the most common priority areas in the region with the strongest potential for growth. Although the Smart Specialisation process revealed many strengths, the agri-food sector in the Western Balkans is still...

The Western Balkan region is in an advanced stage of the Smart Specialisation design process, with several economies deeply involved in its implementation. The commitment of these economies to adopt an EU-style, transformational innovation policy reflects a dedication to evidence-based and...

ECDC is helping countries in the Western Balkans and Türkiye to improve their infectious disease prevention and control systems and public health workforce to prepare them for their future participation in ECDC's work. Technical cooperation with Western Balkans and Türkiye aims to improve...

This analytical report provides an overview of cyber-enabled hybrid interference in the Western Balkans, along with recommendations on how to improve approaches to effectively counter these threats. To this end, the European Union Institute for Security Studies (EUISS) designed and conducted a...

To increase health security in the European Union (EU), ECDC provides national authorities in the Western Balkans1 with support to strengthen their infectious disease prevention and control systems and public health workforce. Since 2011, the Centre has undertaken several national technical...

This Synthesis Report is the third deliverable of the Evaluation of the implementation of EU Blending in the EU Neighbourhood and the Western Balkans regions in 2015-2021. The structure of the main report is the following: Chapter 1 presents the objectives, scope and management arrangements of...

This report provides an up-to-date overview of environment and climate in the Western Balkans (WB) highlighting existing gaps with respect to the EU acquis. The aim is to provide accurate and complete environmental information to monitor the progress in the accession process, as well as to...

The Central, Eastern and South-Eastern Europe (CESEE) Bank Lending Survey was developed in the context of the Vienna Initiative 2.0 and has been endorsed by the various participating institutions as an instrument for: monitoring cross-border banking activities and deleveraging in the region;...

Emigration from the Western Balkans (WB) to the European Union (EU) has long been a significant source of workers for the EU. In light of population ageing and the twin (digital and green) transitions in the EU, and as candidate countries for EU membership, their contribution may be more...

This paper revisits the external economic relations in the former command economies of Central, East and Southeast Europe (CESEE) by exploring historical trade data. It provides a descriptive analysis of foreign trade statistics, drawing on the newly introduced wiiw COMECON Dataset, which...

Soil contamination in the Western Balkans is a significant challenge, hampered by inadequate legal frameworks, lack of comprehensive field data, and insufficient site investigations. This report aims to support the JRC's efforts to fill information gaps on soil pollution across the Western...

The CESEE Bank Lending Survey is a unique instrument developed in the context of the Vienna Initiative to monitor cross-border banking activities and deleveraging in Central, Eastern and South-Eastern Europe. It serves to better understand the determinants/constraints influencing credit growth...

The project's main aim is to strengthen cooperation within the Western Balkans and between the region and the EU on fighting organised crime and terrorism using modern tools and instruments. This will lead to an enhanced level of interaction and integration between the EU and the Western Balkan...

The project's main aim is to strengthen cooperation within the Western Balkans and between the region and the EU on fighting organised crime and terrorism using modern tools and instruments. This will lead to an enhanced level of interaction and integration between the EU and the Western Balkan...

This paper presents a detailed analysis of fiscal frameworks across the six Western Balkan economies utilizing a newly compiled dataset based on the European Commission's Fiscal Governance Database. The analysis reveals that although all six Western Balkan countries have implemented some form of...

Transparency in the work of central banks has become one of the key features of monetary policy. Because of this, many economists have diverted to finding the most suitable way to measure it. Although a unique method of measurement has yet to be achieved, there are various studies in the...

The Vienna Initiative's working group on climate change and financial stability enhanced cross-border cooperation on climate risk assessment in Central, Eastern, and South-Eastern Europe. Between 2021-2023, the group focused on data quality, regulatory challenges, and transition pathways for...

By considering the expansion of the timber trade in southeast Europe as a resource frontier, this article explores the relationships between the transformation of the technical and material conditions of forest exploitation and the development of its labour force. Previous studies have...

This study seeks to examine pull factors of capital inflows, offering an empirical analysis based on a panel study of eleven Southeast European countries (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Kosovo, Romania, Serbia, and Türkiye) over the...

This report describes the external quality assessment (EQA) scheme for the European Legionnaires' disease Surveillance network, for the detection, isolation, identification, and enumeration of Legionella species. The EQA schemes provide an outbreak scenario with packages of clinical and...

This paper examines the impact of labour shortages on migration aspirations and destination preferences among individuals from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Serbia. Using a two-stage Heckman selection model, we analyse data from the OeNB Euro Survey and the World Bank's STEP Measurement...

In knowledge-intensive economies, skills emerged as crucial resources, determining economic development. Thus, in the post-pandemic, digital world, digital skills gain new ground, attracting the interest of researchers and practitioners. As one of the first studies on the topic in the region,...

This research aims to investigate the impact of remittances on economic growth in Central and Southeastern Europe by employing panel unobserved effects methodology across twelve selected countries within the region (CSEE-12). Our motivation arises from the fact that these countries are among the...

Reforming social protection systems has become more important recently due to various global crises, drawing attention to this unfinished agenda in the Western Balkans. The six Western Balkan countries, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia, need social...

Economic growth in the Western Balkans slowed to 2.6 percent in 2023, from the 3.4 percent reached in 2022, reflecting the impact of a weak European economy weighed down by sequential shocks. Overall, the WB6 region has experienced a rise in total hours worked driven by employment growth and...

This abstract presents the methodological approach employed in a comprehensive study focusing on decision making in a collaborative manner in disaster management, with a specific emphasis on cross-border disasters in the Balkan region. Disasters, characterized by their sudden and profound...

The Western Balkan countries and the countries of the Eastern Partnership are moving towards European Union accession at different speeds. We explore whether and how the variable speed towards EU accession can be traced to different legal regimes governing European integration: Stabilisation and...

The Western Balkan (WB) countries, with the exception of Albania, generate most of their energy from lignite, which contributes to the highest levels of air pollution in Europe. Energy shortages and high electricity costs are major issues in the WB region, with significant political...

The Western Balkans is experiencing an ongoing inflow of foreign direct investments (FDI) in the information and communications technology (ICT) industry as several European enterprises have already established their presence in the region. These inflows have generated large-scale ICT...

Integration into the global economy can cause shifts in industries and decrease the industrial sector's share. Deindustrialization, which refers to declining industry share, is commonly observed in developed countries. However, many developing countries have also experienced deindustrialization...