Observation Group for the Elections & more – 12th Dec 2023

Dobar dan from Keswick Village! This is the Rorshok Serbia Update from the 12th of December twenty twenty-three A quick summary of what's going down in Serbia.

Upon the request of Vladimir Orlic, the president of the National Assembly, the European Parliament announced on Tuesday the 5th its plan to send a group of observers to supervise the parliamentary elections that will take place on the 17th of December. The group will consist of six European Parliament members who will be in Serbia from the 14th to the 19th of December. During that period they will be meeting with various groups, such as the Council of Europe officials, local civil society organizations, and media representatives. The observers will monitor the voting on the entire territory of Serbia.

The European Parliament's decision came amid pressures from the EU toward Serbia regarding its accession to the Union, as well as the tensions in the north of Kosovo and citizens’ general dissatisfaction with Serbia’s ruling regime.

In more news about the EU…

Christopher Hill, the US Ambassador to Serbia, spoke to the news outlet Euractiv and said that the EU is ready for a new enlargement phase, adding that he hopes Serbia will be part of it. However, the popularity of the EU is very low amongst Serbians. Currently, only thirty-three percent of citizens want the nation to join the EU, despite Serbia having candidate status. This is mostly due to the EU's pressures on Serbia regarding the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue and Serbia’s lack of sanctions against Russia. Hill said that the nation needs to tackle what the EU requests from Serbia, such as the signing of agreements with Kosovo and the condemnation of Russia, regardless of its EU accession progress.

Additionally, on Thursday the 7th, Miroslav Lajcak, the EU Special Representative for the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue, said there has been significant progress in the implementation of oral agreements between Kosovo and Serbia.

On that note about the Serbia-Kosovo relations…

On Friday the 8th, Kosovo’s Special Prosecution announced that they were charging fifty-three ex-members of Serbia’s military and police forces for participating in the Meja village massacre in nineteen ninety-nine, which left 377 Albanians dead. Aside from the massacre, the prosecution also accused the suspects of deporting Albanian civilians from Kosovo while destroying their homes. Prosecutor Drita Hajdari added that the Pristina court has filed an international arrest warrant against all of them.

Speaking of prosecution…

Zeljka Nikolaidis, a prosecutor for organized crime in the Higher Public Prosecution, has called out Serbia’s Higher Prosecution Office for not preventing the forging and publishing of her statement used in a disciplinary complaint against her superior and his deputy. Nikolaidis explained that someone submitted her statement when she was on vacation without notifying her or requesting her signature. She added the submitted statement was changed and that it is mostly inaccurate, adding that this type of forgery is a criminal offense. Nikolaidis called on the Higher Prosecution Office to react and find the perpetrators.

In other news…

The Serbian Coalition for Media Freedom condemned Olivera Zekic, the head of the Regulatory Body for Electronic Media, or REM, for posting an edited image of her in a Nazi uniform on social media. Zekic said that she did it to "provoke" people. The Coalition called on the authorities to react to Zekic’s post and to work on a law that would ban the use of neo-Nazi and Fascist symbols. They added that “all system institutions and public figures should react as well” in order to prevent the spreading of the narrative that Serbian institutions support Nazi ideas.

What makes Zekic’s post even more problematic is her position as the head of REM, which is supposed to enforce appropriate laws regarding the media. In the past, both the opposition and independent media have criticized Zekic for being openly pro-regime, despite the law obliging REM to be an independent body promoting equality and diversity in electronic media.

On the economic front…

The Republic Institute of Statistics published its latest data on inflation for October and noted that the inflation in Serbia is declining. In October, the year-on-year inflation stood at around eight percent, which is a drop from September’s ten percent. For December, the International Monetary Fund, or IMF, predicted that the inflation would stay at around eight percent. The IMF stated that the inflation in Serbia is high— the National Bank targets the year-on-year inflation to be between one and four percent. They explained that the high inflation in Serbia is mostly due to this year’s increase in energy prices.

Serbia has made progress in other fields, such as in The Program for International Student Assessment, or PISA. These tests examine fifteen-year-old students’ reading, mathematics, and science literacy. According to the results, which were published on Tuesday the 5th, students in Serbia ranked 40th in reading and science, and 42nd in math. In twenty twenty-two, PISA tested students from eighty-one countries. In Serbia, they tested more than 6,400 students from around 180 schools, and they did better compared to twenty eighteen.

However, the results of the Serbian students are below the average scores that the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, or OECD established. The government said that in all the fields, Serbian students scored around thirty points lower than the OECD’s average.

Still in education…

On Saturday the 9th, Mihailo Jovanovic, the Minister of Information and Telecommunications, signed a memorandum of understanding with the Information Technology Department of the European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN. The memorandum signing made Serbia a part of the Global Computer Network of CERN. The Head of CERN’s Information Technology Department announced they would establish a hub in Kragujevac. The hub will store, process, and analyze scientific data from the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. Jovanovic added that the hub in Kragujevac will allow Serbian scientists who want to work with nuclear research data to collaborate with professionals from CERN easily.

In some health-related updates…

Last week, the Institute for Public Health confirmed around 4,800 COVID-19 cases, with zero deaths. Compared to the previous week, the number of confirmed cases has increased by around 300.

On Tuesday the 5th, the Central Medical Commission of the State Healthcare Fund announced that they have added twenty-two new drugs to the list of prescription drugs that are used to treat cancer. Sixteen of the drugs from the list are the current most popular drugs prescribed in cancer treatments, specifically for the treatments of breast, lung and prostate cancer. The Director of the State Healthcare Fund noted that Serbia is one of the countries with the highest number of deaths from malignant cancers. However, she highlighted that the country is currently procuring the diagnostic equipment that the doctors will use to detect cancers in the early stages, reducing the risk of complications.

To end this edition on a festive note…

On Friday the 8th, the city of Belgrade opened the Winter Fairytale festival under the slogan Magic is here. The festival will last until the 8th of January and will feature a variety of winter activities, such as an outdoor ice skating rink, live music, food stalls, and the screening of various festive movies for all ages. There will be a big Christmas tree to hang out with Santa. The festival is open every day from noon to 10 PM and is located in Belgrade’s Sava Park. For more information about the festival’s program, check out the link in the show notes.

Aaand that's it for this week! So here's to a bit of holiday spirit. We wanted to thank you for listening, learning, thinking, and for joining us on this new thing called Rorshok we're all doing together. Really. Thank you.

Do daljnjeg, zbogom!