Photo illustration Pixabay/Engin_Akyurt.
Freedom of Information requests have increased throughout the Western Balkans and “transparency may be improving in formal terms” but institutions have found new ways of denying public access to information in practice, warns a new report, launched on Tuesday, based on BIRN journalists’ work during 2025.
“Delayed responses, administrative barriers, limited enforcement and different institutional practices continue to affect the public’s right to know at the same time,” Gentiana Murati, deputy regional director of BIRN, told the launch event.
The report analysed 1,740 FoI requests submitted by BIRN journalists in 2025 in six Western Balkan countries – Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Kosovo and Serbia.
“BIRN’s FoI request data from 2022 to 2025 shows a clear surge in journalistic use across the region, accompanied by gradual gains in approval rates [for FoI requests] (from 38.03 per cent in 2022 to 58.22 per cent in 2025). But this upward trend masks a stubborn structural reality: information may be requested more often and granted more frequently, yet access is still routinely disrupted.
“Administrative silence [non-responsiveness to FoI requests] continues to affect a substantial share of requests (28.16 per cent in 2025), while unreasoned refusals, non-responses, lengthy appeals procedures, and poor implementation of binding decisions continue to undermine the effectiveness of access-to-information regimes,” the report explains.
According to the report, “despite generally robust legal frameworks, regulatory ambiguity, the expansive use of exceptions, and the risk of legislative backsliding threaten to weaken transparency safeguards and limit effective public access to information”, adding that there were also attempts to make legal amendments that would “expand exemptions, strengthen restrictions related to data protection, and introduce potential procedural obstacles that may hinder access to information in practice.
“At the same time, journalists across the region report that existing exemptions are often interpreted broadly or applied selectively to deny access to information, particularly in politically sensitive cases, while public-interest tests and proportionality assessments are frequently disregarded,” the report adds.
For example, in Kosovo “in several cases, institutions justified refusals by claiming that the requested documentation was part of ongoing investigations by the Prosecutor’s Office” or was “state information”.
In Montenegro, BIRN journalists were often denied access by claims lack of administrative capacity. There were also cases where the Agency for Personal Data Protection and Free Access to Information upheld BIRN Montenegro’s complaints in full, but when access was still denied by the institution.
In North Macedonia, according to the report, “the State Commission for Prevention of Corruption denied requests related to alleged wrongful certification of a public official, citing personal data protection and ongoing prosecutorial proceedings. The information was provided after appeal.”
Megi Reci, author of the report, said it “reveals a paradox: while information is being requested more often and granted more frequently than ever before, institutional silence, delays, and widespread disregard for legal obligations continue to undermine the very purpose of transparency”.
Reci noted that the investigations featured in the report “show how access to information is directly connected to public safety, environmental protection, public spending, and democratic oversight. Secrecy does not merely obstruct journalism, it weakens society’s ability to prevent harm and hold power to account.
“When institutions can disregard legally binding decisions with virtually no consequences, oversight mechanisms lose their authority and public trust erodes,” she said.