the 2019 inter-party dialogue was the introduction, for the first time, of a clear definition of what a ‘public resource’ was: ‘“Public resource” means real estate, movable property, or any other property that is owned publicly or otherwise and is used by a public authority of the Republic of Serbia, an autonomous province, local government, public enterprise, business, institution, or other organization owned or managed by the Republic of Serbia, an autonomous province, or a local government’.62 Regardless of these changes, a segment of the public and some opposition groups have persisted in their criticisms even after the new provisions were used in the 2020 election, which suggests that additional review is needed of the statutory framework designed to prevent abuse of public resources. Amendments to the Public Enterprises Law made after agreement was reached in the 2019 talks between the government and opposition envisage that a managing director of a public company is to be dismissed if they 1) use the resources of the public company, in particular its premises, vehicles, and fixtures, without consideration, to promote a political party or political group; (2) take actions to promote political parties or political groups or participate in an election campaign during working hours; (3) exerts pressure on employees of or staff otherwise engaged by the public company to support a political group or candidate in an election; or (4) are aware that employees of or staff otherwise engaged by the public company are using resources of the public company to promote a political party or political group or exerting pressure on other employees of or staff otherwise engaged by the public company to support a political group or candidate in an election and do not take actions they are required to in order to prevent such behavior. Submitting reports, control, and legal remedies In general terms, complaints about political organizations’ financial reporting and misuse of administrative resources are submitted to the ACA and this institution can act sua sponte, since it has its own field monitoring capacity, amounting to 120 observers in the 2020 election. Thereby in 2020, the ACA - acting sua sponte in a case against a political organization - initiated a procedure to verify a breach of regulations and submitted a request to initiate misdemeanor proceedings, as this political organization undertook activities in the course of their electoral campaign that cannot be considered campaigning. Furthermore, the ACA can issue warnings and initiate misdemeanor and criminal proceedings for violations of the Law on Financing Political Activities, although ACA does not prosecute directly in line with Article 7 of the Law on Prevention of Corruption, stipulating that the law regulating general administrative procedure shall apply accordingly to any procedure enforced by the ACA. ACA’s decisions can be appealed to the Administrative Court that then takes an executive (final) decision. The participants in an election are expected to submit annual financial reports to the ACA (for regular operation) and within 30 days after verifying final results for an election campaign. Both foreign and local observers list two flaws of existing regulations: firstly, there is no deadline for the ACA to publish its report on campaign financing (hence the ACA published its last 62 Law on Prevention of Corruption, Official Gazette of the Republic of Serbia, Nos. 35/2019 and 88/2019. 41