Kosovo 'Semi-Authoritarian', Freedom House Says

"Nations in Transition," a new report by Freedom House, which studies reform in the former communist states of Europe and Eurasia, has given Kosovo the lowest democracy score in the region, 5.14, putting into the category of "semi-consolidated authoritarian regimes".

"Countries receiving a Democracy Score of 5.00- 5.99 attempt to mask authoritarianism or rely on informal power structures with limited respect for the institutions and practices of democracy. They typically fail to meet even the minimum standards of self-governing, electoral democracy," the report said.

The cumulative "democracy scores" are based on a scale of 1 to 7, with one representing the highest level of democratic progress and 7 the lowest. This report covered the period from January 1 to December 31, 2014.

Kosovo has the lowest rating in the region, with Bosnia and Herzegovina coming in second place, with a score of 4.46.

The democracy score is an average of all other scores, including evaluations of media freedom, civil society and the judicial framework.

"Corruption remains a serious problem. A legislative framework to combat corruption is in place... However, implementation has been insufficient, and graft and misconduct remain widespread across many state institutions," the report said, referring to Kosovo's score on corruption, which at 6 is also the highest in the region.

While Kosovo has the most negative scores in the region on all indicators of the democracy, it also saw an additional drop in the "Judicial Framework and Independence Indicator," from 5.50 last year to 5.75.

"In October 2014, EULEX was accused of corruption and gross mishandling of its mandate. Whistleblowers reported bribery affecting prosecutorial decision making in 2014....