President Vucic Met with Miroslav Lajcak for the Kosovo-Serbia Dialogue & more –5th Sep 2023

Dobar dan from Keswick Village! This is the Rorshok Serbia Update from the 5th of September twenty twenty-three A quick summary of what's going down in Serbia.

On Wednesday the 30th, President Vucic met with Miroslav Lajcak, the special EU envoy for the Kosovo-Serbia dialogue, in Belgrade to discuss the relations between Serbia and Kosovo. The EU had already asked Kosovo and Serbia to continue their dialogue on the normalization of relations. Lajcak explained that their meeting was “substantive” and that its focus was the implementation of the agreements reached within the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue, and the holding of new elections in the Serb-majority Kosovo north.

After the meeting, Vucic said that he and Lajcak spoke about the everlong list of issues between Kosovo and Serbia, but failed to point out the clear solutions to those problems. Vucic accused Kosovo of trying to find ways to provoke a conflict against Serbia. He added that this way the conversations about de-escalation are set to fail. He also mentioned the still pending formation of Serb-majority municipalities in Kosovo, which Kosovo agreed to do in twenty thirteen as a part of the Brussels Agreement between Kosovo and Serbia.

Speaking of Serbia-Kosovo relations…

Viola von Cramon, the European Parliament’s Kosovo rapporteur, stated on Friday the 1st that the EU should not link the Serbia-Kosovo dialogue process to the process of visa liberalization for citizens of Kosovo, which would allow them to travel to the EU countries visa-free. She wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that Kosovo deserves the visa liberalization that it has waited for so long, pointing out that the EU promised Kosovo citizens to travel freely as of twenty twenty-four.

Cramon’s statements came after French President Emmanuel Macron said that the EU could suspend the decision on visa liberalization if Kosovo and Serbia do not behave responsibly, addressing the recent deadlock in the dialogue. Kosovo’s president Vjosa Osmani reacted to Macron’s statements and said that any suspension of visa-free travel to the EU for Kosovo would instantly end the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue.

Another thing that happened on Friday the 1st was the rally that Bosnian Serbs held at the unmarked internal border in Bosnia that separates the Republic of Srpska and the Bosniak-Croat federation. Hundreds of Bosnian Serbs gathered, waving flags of Serbia and Russia while chanting supporting messages to the Republic of Srpska’s leader Milorad Dodik, who aims to unite the Republic of Srpska with Serbia and has close ties to Putin.

The aim of the rally was to show support for Dodik since the Bosnian prosecutors are currently in the process of filing charges against him. The reason for those charges is Dodik’s actions that defied numerous decisions of international officials overseeing peace in the country. One Bosnia-Serb official said that the Republic of Srpska was always on the side of freedom, explaining the good relationship they have with the Russian Federation and the Russian people.

On that note about the Serbia-Russia friendship…

The EU Commission has raised concerns over Serbia granting citizenship to Russians. Recently, a high number of Russians have been requesting Serbian citizenship in order to enter the Schengen area without a visa. The commission said that Serbia should prevent this from happening, by aligning its visa policy to that of the EU. They also noted that Serbia, as a candidate country for the EU, should impose stricter rules against Russia, adding that the EU authorities are currently monitoring the citizenship-granting procedure.

Still, the Commission did not specify the exact measures they will impose if Serbia does not take their advice in aligning its policy with the EU’s. This is the second time the EU expressed concern over the citizenship granting procedure, and when they first spoke about the issue, the commission warned Serbia that it was risking its visa-free regime.

But what about Serbia’s relationship with Ukraine?

On Wednesday the 30th, Serbia sent a new contingent of fourteen humanitarian aid trucks to Ukraine in the hopes of sending a message of help to the Ukrainian people. PM Brnabic was one of the attendees and she pointed out that there are more than 43,000 refugees from Ukraine in Serbia, adding that Serbia will try to support them with the help of the EU. She said that the aid sent to Ukraine contained medicines and goods for the most vulnerable. Alongside PM Brnabic, others who attended the sending of the new shipment were the Minister for European Integration, the Ambassador of Ukraine to Serbia, and the Delegation of the EU to Serbia.

On the same day, the Russian Democratic Society reported that one Russian anti-war activist had been ordered to leave Serbia. Yevgeniy Irzhanski, the promoter of concerts by anti-war Russian musicians in Belgrade, was ordered to leave Serbia and was banned from re-entering the country for a year alongside his wife. Upon asking the government for the reasoning, the Russian Democratic Society was told that Irzhanski and his wife were a security concern.

Society founder Peter Nikitin said the explanation from the government was hard to believe. Instead, Nikitin suspects that Serbian authorities, specifically Serbia's top security agency BIA, are trying to silence anti-war concerts of contemporary Russian music in Belgrade because most of them openly oppose Putin’s regime and the aggression on Ukraine.

Speaking of rallies…

The organizers of Belgrade Pride, an annual pride parade celebrating the LGBTQ+ community and their allies, expressed their concerns about the lack of progress on the law protecting the LGBTQ+ community. They also pointed out that the security of the community is worsening every year. However, the Director of Belgrade Pride said that the twenty twenty-three edition of the Belgrade Pride parade will be absolutely safe, adding that there are no hints that anyone will organize any counter rallies, as was the case during Europride last year. Recall that in twenty twenty-two, several conservative parties held a violent anti-Pride demonstration in Belgrade at the same time as Europride.

This year’s pride will put the emphasis on the Law of Gender Identity, which allows a person to modify their personal data in the National Registry. The bureaucratic procedure for this modification is very long, and it should be simplified.

On Saturday the 2nd, a day after the start of the new school year, the 18th Serbia against violence protest took place in Belgrade. The series of protests started in May after a school shooting that left more than a dozen pupils dead in the Vladislav Ribnikar elementary school in Belgrade. The protesters and organizers demanded that the state create a safe environment for children in schools, a ban on broadcasting violent content on TV, the ousting of several state officials, and that the ruling party stop silencing anti-regime content on TV.

The protesters gathered at the Serbian Parliament and walked to the Ministry of Justice. Thousands marched, a lot of whom were students, who carried white roses to commemorate the slain children.

Regarding the safety of children…

On Wednesday the 30th, the Minister of Education, the Minister of the Interior, and the Head of the Organization for Security and Co-operation Mission to Serbia, or OSCE, signed a Protocol on the implementation of the project Together and Safely Through Childhood. This protocol aims to raise awareness of the consequences of violent behavior and to teach children how to protect themselves in various dangerous situations. These ministers explained that all classes of all elementary schools in Serbia will implement the project through educational and informative workshops. The head of OSCE said that the project will focus on the prevention of peer and digital violence through safety education using various teaching materials and workshops.

However, not all citizens' concerns are worked on.

On Thursday the 31st, Vida Petrovic Skero, the former Serbian Supreme Court President talked about the media and the stories they continue to put out about the mass killings that occurred in May. She said that many media are fabricating news with impunity just four months after the killing, posting images that should not be in newspapers and glorifying people who commit crimes. Skero added that the tone in which these media outlets represent the killings might lead to similar events.

That’s it for this week! Thanks for joining us!

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Do daljnjeg, zbogom!