SERBIA: Amendments & more – 30th Apr 2024

Dobar dan from BA! This is the Rorshok Serbia Update from the 30th of April twenty twenty-four. A quick summary of what's going down in Serbia.

The parliament adopted amendments to the Law on Local Elections on Wednesday the 24th. Politicians should now announce the election date at least 150 days in advance (previously they were 120) and within thirty days before the end of the councilor's mandate (before the amendments, it was forty-five days.) Out of the 250 MPs, 204 voted at the session, with 168 MPs in favor of the amendments, twenty-six against, and eleven abstaining. The parliament amended the law upon the opposition’s request.

On that note, Ana Brnabic, the parliament speaker, announced that the local elections and the Belgrade municipal elections would take place on the same day - on the 2nd of June - because the Law on Local Elections sets that the latest date for the Belgrade elections is on the 2nd, and the earliest is on the 8th.

Recall that the opposition proposed that the polls be held on the same day in order to prevent the ruling Serbian Progressive Party or SNS from bussing people who have already voted in one municipality, to vote again in Belgrade.

However, the SNS did not agree with this election schedule.

Miroslav Lajcak, the EU Special Envoy for the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue, held a meeting with the Serbian and Kosovar delegations on Thursday the 25th to resolve the conflict the two sides have due to the ban of the Serbian dinar in Kosovo. However, the delegations failed to reach an agreement. Petar Petkovic, the Director of the Office for Kosovo and Serbia’s chief negotiator, argued that Serbian banks in Kosovo should continue operating in dinars. However,, Kosovo’s representatives are not willing to budge from the ban on the dinar, advising Kosovo Serbians to simply exchange Dinars for Euros. At the end of the meeting, Lajcak announced that the next round of talks will take place on the 13th of May.

In February, Kosovo decided to change its official currency from the Serbian dinar to the Euro, making the dinar invalid for payment transactions.

Since we mentioned Serbians in Kosovo, on Tuesday the 23rd the European Parliament voted in favor of a visa-free regime that will allow them to stay in the EU for up to ninety days. In a press release, MEPs said that with this decision, they ensured that the entire Western Balkans region had the same visa regime when traveling to the EU. Rapporteur Matjaz Nemec said that Serbians living in Kosovo were the only group of people in the Western Balkans who required a visa to travel to the EU, and added that the abolishing of such a requirement ensures equal treatment for all residents in the region.

Speaking of equality, last week the US State Department published a Report on Human Rights Practices in Serbia for twenty twenty-three. The document says that Serbia made no significant changes to improve the state of human rights. The report included significant issues, such as the lack of free speech in the media, violence against journalists, government corruption, and crimes targeting individuals in the LGBT+ community. The Department said that the Serbian government failed to tackle these issues, leaving those who have committed human rights abuses unpunished.

On that note about the LGBT+ targeted violence, individuals from that community reported discrimination in the job market, involving frequent insulting and inappropriate remarks. According to a survey by the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network, where all the respondents belonged to the LGTB+ community, more than seventy percent of participants said that they fear attending job interviews due to possible discrimination. More than half of the participants said that they face some form of discrimination in the workplace. The majority of the respondents said that they tend not to report discrimination at work, because their supervisors would often disregard their issues, sometimes acting in discriminatory ways themselves.

Moving on, the state-owned broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia, or RTS, held a memorial service on Tuesday the 23rd for their workers who were killed during NATO’s nineteen ninety-nine bombing of Yugoslavia. Exactly twenty-five years after the air campaign against the former country, the relatives and colleagues of the deceased gathered in front of the RTS building in order to commemorate the victims, but also denounce NATO’s brutal aggression. The attendees pointed out the criminal background of the attack, adding that the alliance did not give out any clear warning to the employees, and purposefully struck RTS’s building, which was full of civilians.

Back In nineteen ninety-nine, NATO started a seventy-eight-day-long bombing campaign in Yugoslavia to end the repression against ethnic Albanians in Kosovo.

Up next, the State Statistics Office, or the RZS, reported that the average gross salary in February amounted to around 1,200 dollars, while the average net salary stood at around 850 dollars. They said that compared to the same period last year, both the average gross and net salaries increased by around ten percent in real terms. The RZS said that the median net salary for February this year amounted to around 650 dollars.

More on the economy as last week UNICEF reported that around twelve percent of people in Serbia lived in extreme poverty in twenty twenty-three. They said that the country has been lacking poverty eradication and social protection strategy for the past decade. Additionally, UNICEF highlighted that the social welfare amount, which is around a hundred dollars, was smaller than the absolute poverty threshold for an individual, which is around 150 dollars.

In some news on energy, the government announced it would be working together with universities and scientific institutes in order to use nuclear energy in Serbia. Dubravka Đedović Handanović, the Minister of Mining and Energy, said that her ministry intends to openly introduce this kind of energy into the country by consulting with the public and professionals. She said that they aim to provide information to the citizens so that people won’t worry about using nuclear energy.

The introduction of nuclear energy is part of Serbia’s energy transition efforts to comply with the EU’s standard of low-carbon technologies.

Last week, the Ministry of Public Investment awarded a group of bidders the contract for the construction of the University Children’s Clinic Tirsova 2, worth around one million dollars. The awarded bidders received a deadline of three years to build the clinic, which will include five basement levels and six floors, with a capacity of around 200 beds. The clinic will be located in Belgrade, in the Dedinje municipality.

The government has been actively announcing the construction of Tirsova 2 since twenty seventeen. However, they kept postponing the completion of the tendering procedures.

And to close this edition, something that will delight French literature fans. From the 8th to the 11th of May, the 16th edition of Moliere's Days will take place in Belgrade, Novi Sad and Kragujevac. On the first day of the event, students from universities in Belgrade, Novi Sad, Nis and Kragujevac will vote for the best French novel out of four, and the winning book will be translated into Serbian. The novels competing are Watch Over Her; Humus; Sarah, Susanne and the Writer; and Triste Tigre. The event will take place at the French Institute in Belgrade, at the Matica Srpska library in Novi Sad, and at the Student Cultural Center in Kragujevac. The even will be free of charge in all three cities. To know more about the event, follow the link in the show notes!

And that’s it for this week! Thanks your joining us!

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Do daljnjeg, zbogom!