No Progress in the Belgrade-Pristina Dialogue & more –19th Sep 2023

Dobar dan from Keswick Village! This is the Rorshok Serbia Update from the 19th of September twenty twenty-three A quick summary of what's going down in Serbia.

On Thursday the 14th, President Vucic and Kosovo’s PM Albin Kurti attended a meeting in Brussels as part of the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue. After the meeting, Josep Borrell, the EU’s foreign policy chief, said that there was no progress in the normalization of relations between Kosovo and Serbia. He accused Kosovo of stalling the process by not setting up an association of Serb-majority municipalities, among other things.

Borrell had proposed that launching a municipalities association in Kosovo, which is Serbia’s priority, be taken in parallel with Serbia’s de facto recognition of Kosovo — Kosovo’s priority in the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue. Vucic accepted the proposal, but Kurti rejected it. He has also accused the EU of being biased and favoring Serbia’s side, adding that the Union is putting Serbia’s conditions before Kosovo’s. Still, Vucic said that the talks will continue.

After Serbian and Kosovo leaders failed to make progress during their meeting in Brussels, Borrell warned both parties that the lack of progress in the normalization process could risk their candidacy to the EU. Currently, Serbia enjoys EU candidate status, while the EU is still considering Kosovo as a potential candidate. However, the EU is requesting both Serbia and Kosovo to progress in the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue in order to move forward in their path to EU accession.

On Thursday the 14th, Borrell said that both Kosovo and Serbia must come to an understanding as soon as possible, referring to the conditions both parties agreed upon in order to reduce mutual tensions. These conditions include the creation of the Association of Serb-Majority Municipalities, the holding of the new elections in Kosovo’s north, among others.

Let’s go back to Kurti for a second, as he wasn’t pleased with the outcome of the meeting in Brussels.

He countered Borrell’s statements saying that Kosovo is stalling the Belgrade-Kosovo dialogue. He went on to say that Kosovo does not want to implement the Community of Serb-majority Municipalities before Serbia works on Kosovo’s conditions for normalization of relations, such as the de-facto recognition of Kosovo. Kurti also said that he is not going to ask the heavily protested mayors elected in May to resign, despite “their weak legitimacy”. He accused the Serbian List, a Serbian party in Kosovo, of trying to impose a dictatorial mentality by forcing the mayors to resign, adding that they will “suffer and pay for the mistakes they have made.” Kurti also included Serbs in Kosovo, indirectly threatening their quality of life if they keep protesting against ethnic Albanian politicians and Kosovo’s independence.

Speaking of ethnic Albanians…

Gary C. Peters and Joni K. Ernst, two US senators, sent a letter to Anthony Blinken, the American Secretary of State, about the discrimination against ethnic Albanians in the Presevo Valley, a Serbian province. Many researchers and human rights groups raised concerns over the removal of ethnic Albanian citizens in Serbia from the Serbian civil registry in the Presevo Valley. This illegal removal meant that ethnic Albanians in the Presevo Valley lost their right to vote, access healthcare and education, and buy and sell property. They said that such a move was “an administrative method of ethnic cleansing”. According to affected residents, authorities said they would send state officials to verify residents’ addresses, but that those officials would never show up, and instead would register their homes as empty, removing entire families from the civil registry. This removal affected around six thousand Albanians.

Peters and Ernst told Blinken to deal with this issue as soon as possible and to address it with Serbian authorities. The former mayor of Presevo said that Albanians in Serbia must have the same rights as Serbs in Kosovo, adding that Serbs in Kosovo have more rights than any minority group in Europe.

In other news…

Serbia is still having issues with illegal migrants entering the country in order to reach the EU. On Wednesday the 13th, special forces arrived at the border with Hungary to stop the hundreds of refugees from Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. Around fifteen hundred migrants try to enter Hungary in an attempt to venture further into the EU. The Center for Asylum Seekers, a Serbian NGO, reported that many of these migrants are smuggling money and people. They also said that the incidents between migrants and the police are increasing, adding that some of the migrants belong to various criminal groups.

The EU has repeatedly warned Serbia about this situation, labeling it as one of the highest security risks to the EU.

The 20th Serbia Against Violence protest took place in Belgrade on Saturday the 16th, with hundreds of attendees marching from the city center to the headquarters of Radio Television of Serbia, better known as RTS. The protesters focused on RTS, condemning them for their bias towards the ruling Serbian Progressive Party, or SNS. They held banners that promoted objective journalism and that called on the government to fulfill the protest’s demands. The mediator of the protest addressed RTS journalists and urged them to speak up about the corruption within the company. He said that a small portion of their journalists completely put RTS at the service of the government, adding that such behavior is against the Serbian constitution.

Recall that the series of Serbia Against Violence protests took off after two mass shootings in May. The organizers, who are mostly anti-government, demanded the resignation of several state officials, one of them being the Director of the Security Information Agency, as well as some of the board members of the Regulatory Body for Electronic Media and the RTS.

Furthermore, the ousting of Aleksandar Vulin, the Security Information Agency director, might soon ensue. The news outlet Danas shared information from their government sources that announced the replacement of Vulin with someone from the ruling SNS party. Apart from Serbia Against Violence protests accusing Vulin of corruption, the finance ministry of the USA also targeted Vulin for his participation in corrupt activities, sanctioning him just a couple of months ago. The US Department also accused Vulin of being involved in international organized crime, drug-trafficking operations, and abuse of public office.

On a more positive note…

Igor Juric, from the Center for Missing and Abused Children, announced that Amber Alert will be implemented in Serbia on the 1st of November. Its name will be Find Me, and it will assist in the search for and the safe recovery of a missing or abducted child. When a child goes missing, the system will send out text messages to the citizens, providing them with the link where they can access the information about the missing child. TV channels will have to broadcast the missing children’s reports every thirty minutes on the first day of their disappearance. Juric said that the Center for Missing and Abused Children will work on educating the citizens about the Find Me system, in order to avoid the spread of false information.

In the last couple of weeks, we mentioned the efforts of several NGOs to increase the minimum wage in Serbia. On Thursday the 14th, the government passed the decision to increase the minimum wage by almost eighteen percent for twenty twenty-four. After the hike, the minimum wage will be around four hundred dollars a month. The government also stated that this increase is significantly above the twenty twenty-four expected average inflation of around five percent.

In some health-related news…

Last week, the Institute for Public Health confirmed around fifteen hundred COVID-19 cases, with zero deaths. Compared to last week, the number of confirmed cases has increased by around 500. Doctors in Serbia said that the current COVID variant called Eris is easily spreadable, advising citizens to wear masks, especially in health facilities.

And that’s it for this week! Thank you for joining us! Before we leave, we wanted to thank everyone who has been listening to us, and welcome all the new subscribers! We are happy the Rorshok Serbia community is growing!

However, we are also sad because we had to cancel our update about Venezuela, due to a lack of audience and revenue. So please, if you enjoy the Rorshok Serbia Update, share it with your friends, or on social media or message us if you have any ideas on how to keep growing, without including ads.

Also, if you are feeling super generous today, you can financially support us with the link in the show notes.

Do daljnjeg, zbogom!