This article examines the relationship between corruption, the dynamics of European Union accession, and societal attitudes in the Western Balkans. The analysis focuses on Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia, while including Romania and Bulgaria as comparative benchmarks. The study integrates institutional indicators with survey data, drawing on Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index, European Commission Progress Reports, and the 2024 Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung Youth Study. The findings indicate that higher levels of perceived corruption are associated with slower accession progress, reduced institutional credibility, and lower confidence in the enlargement process. At the societal level, stronger perceptions of corruption are linked to higher migration intentions among youth and lower trust in domestic institutions, even in contexts where support for EU membership remains relatively high. The article argues that effective anti-corruption reforms are essential not only for advancing accession negotiations but also for sustaining the social legitimacy of European integration and public confidence in the European Union’s transformative capacity.
The article examines the digital transformation of public administration and the development of e-government in the Republic of Moldova from a legal and institutional perspective. The study analyzes the main theoretical approaches to the concept of e-government, highlighting its evolution from the digitalization of administrative procedures to broader models of digital government based on the integration of information systems and the use of data in decision-making processes. It also reviews international trends in the digitalization of public administration and the role of information technologies in increasing the efficiency of public institutions, improving government transparency, and facilitating citizens’ access to public services. A significant part of the study is devoted to the analysis of the legal framework regulating digital governance in the Republic of Moldova, including legislation on informatization, public services, electronic identification, data exchange between governmental information systems, and personal data protection. The article further examines the main legal and institutional challenges affecting the development of digital governance, such as fragmented regulation, limited interoperability of information systems, and digital inequality. The study highlights the prospects for the development of electronic public services and emphasizes the importance of strengthening the legal and institutional framework supporting the digital transformation of public administration in the Republic of Moldova.
Through the present study, attention is drawn to those obligations of citizens which the people, as the holder of sovereignty, regard as essential for the achievement of the general interest and for the proper functioning of the constitutional order, namely the fundamental duties. Accordingly, the study examines the duty of loyalty to the country, the duty to defend the homeland, the duty to contribute to public expenditures, and the duty to exercise rights and freedoms in good faith while respecting the rights and freedoms of others. Fundamental duties constitute the cornerstone of the state’s civic edifice – unseen threads that bind the destiny of each citizen to the fate of the nation – transforming freedom into responsibility and rights into obligations, and rendering membership in the political community not a mere legal status, but a covenant of loyalty and devotion.
The energy efficiency of public buildings is increasingly becoming a matter of local administrative capacity rather than merely a technical objective. This paper analyses how territorial administrative units can transform energy-efficiency measures into a coherent public management function. The research is qualitative and applied, drawing on an analysis of the European and national regulatory frameworks, a selective review of the international literature on municipal energy management, and the development of an operational model applicable to local public administration. The paper proposes the Integrated Energy Management System for Territorial Administrative Units-SIMEn-UAT-as a model linking strategic planning, operational procedures, and technical tools. The model integrates energy inventories, the establishment of energy consumption baselines, the prioritization of public buildings, building management systems (BMS), photovoltaic generation, local energy storage, heat pumps, and performance indicator-based reporting. The main conclusion is that energy technologies generate sustainable public value only when integrated into clear administrative procedures, well-defined institutional responsibilities, measurable indicators, and periodic reporting. The proposed model supports a gradual transition from isolated energy investments to integrated local energy governance focused on budgetary efficiency, self-consumption, resilience, and enhanced administrative capacity.
This article examines the anticipated social impact of the STARHAUS project, a Horizon Europe initiative embodying the principles of the New European Bauhaus: beauty, sustainability and inclusion. Unlike projects focused on the built environment, STARHAUS targets the transformation of production and consumption models for fast-moving consumer goods through small-scale factories that produce customized goods like pet food, fertilizers, beverages and breakfast cereals, with pilot locations in Cluj-Napoca (Romania) and the Coimbra Region (Portugal). Drawing on the secondary analysis of official Eurostat and OECD statistics, the study maps the social context onto which this impact is projected, across three dimensions relevant to the project’s mission: access to quality food, material circularity and food waste, and social cohesion. A comparative analysis of the 27 member states reveals pronounced structural disparities, particularly among the consortium countries. The findings suggest that the social impact of a circular consumer-goods intervention cannot be assumed to be uniform but is strongly conditioned by the degree of material deprivation and the consumption culture of each national context.
