The countries of the Western Balkans and Eastern Europe have been facing several different crises in recent years, which lead to, in some countries, the phenomenon of shrinking space for civil society, populist policies and authoritarian leaders. All this is interconnected with the raising the level of corruption, which is further related to the weakening of democracies, and as a consequence, we have reduced trust of citizens, non-functional and non-transparent public administrations and captured states. Setting the principle of citizens’ trust and the supreme value of democracy as the best path that humanity has discovered for building a successful society that has citizens in the focus, and which never reaches the goal but is constantly improving, Mr Ruslan Stefanov, Director of the Economics Program of the Center for the Study of Democracy (CSD) and manager of the CSD’s SELDI network reminds civil society that it is necessary to have responsible leaders at the top, independent institutions that control them, and governments willing to cooperate with civil society and experts.