SERBIA: EU Membership & more – 29th Oct 2024

Dobar dan from Keswick Village! This is the Rorshok Serbia Update from the 29th of October twenty twenty-four. A quick summary of what's going down in Serbia.

Last week, president Vucic met with several EU leaders, including Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission President, to speak about EU enlargement plans and Serbia’s EU accession status. After her meeting with Vucic on Friday the 25th, Von der Leyen said that she believed that the country’s future was in the EU, encouraging it to work on accession conditions. Vucic acknowledged the EU accession demands, including compliance with foreign policy goals and improving the judiciary and fundamental rights, but did not pledge further coordination.

Von der Leyen also praised the Serbian president for meeting her and other European leaders instead of attending the BRICS summit led by China and Russia. She noted that Vucic’s absence from the summit shows Serbia’s priorities, saying that they are not its relations with Russia, but the country’s EU accession plans.

One of the conditions for Serbia’s EU membership is the normalization of relations with Kosovo, so the representatives of the two are meeting up with EU officials to reach agreements on various topics. On Thursday the 24th, the chief negotiators of Serbia and Kosovo, Petkovic and Bislimi, met with Lajcak, the EU envoy for the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue, in Brussels. The meeting lasted seven hours and ended with no concrete agreements.

After the meeting, both sides blamed each other for not making progress in the dialogue, with Petkovic noting Kosovo’s lack of work towards forming the Community of Serbian Municipalities, or CSM, which has been Kosovo’s obligation since twenty fifteen, and would serve to protect Serbians in Kosovo. Bislimi said that Kosovo was ready to work on the CSM formation, but only when Serbia showed its commitment to fully implement the normalization agreement. One of the prerequisites Bislimi mentioned is the handing over of Milan Radoicic to the Kosovo authorities due to his involvement in the fatal Banjska attack that occurred last year.

Speaking of Kosovo, the Serbian government adopted a draft law on Monday the 28th related to judicial jurisdiction in Kosovo. The government announced that the new draft law guarantees the opening of a new prosecutor's office and court panel, which will work on prosecuting cases for crimes committed in Kosovo by Serbians. On the same day, the government adopted another draft law that declared Kosovo an area of ​​special social protection. In a press release, the officials said that the new bill aims to provide financial support for certain population categories to help them survive in Kosovo.

Going back to the EU, by the end of twenty twenty-seven, Serbia expects to receive around 180 billion dinars, which is around 1.7 billion dollars, from the Union. EU ambassador Giaufret said that one-half of the funds will go to infrastructure projects and the other half will go directly to the Serbian national budget. This deal comes after the Serbian Parliament adopted the Reform Agenda which aims to accelerate reforms, mostly in the rule of law area, including the proposal of a law on a unified voter register to encompass fair and free elections. Additionally, the reforms will focus on media freedom, and progress in the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue.

In other news, President Vucic confirmed last week that the state is working on several legislative solutions that will introduce measures to permanently protect citizens from high interest rates. In an interview with the Radio Television of Serbia, or RTS, the largest public broadcaster in Serbia, he said that the idea is to cap the effective interest rate to help citizens who have taken cash, personal, and mortgage loans. He said that the state would reduce the maximum effective interest rate from twenty-two percent to around eighteen on credit cards and around sixteen percent for cash loans.

Speaking of the economic effects on Serbian citizens, on Thursday the 24th, the State Statistical Office, or ZSO, published two reports.

The Statistical Yearbook for twenty twenty-three, which includes all of the trends related to household income and spending from last year., says that the average monthly income per household member amounted to nearly 35,000 dinars, which is around 320 dollars, marking an increase of around seventeen percent compared to twenty twenty-two.

The ZSO also wrote about salary trends for August twenty twenty-four, and reported that the average gross salary in August amounted to around 134,000 dinars, which is around 1,200 dollars, while the average net salary amounted to around 97,000 dinars, or 890 dollars.

Still on reports, on Monday the 28th, the NGO SHARE published a document on gender-based digital violence in Serbia. The report said that the target of gender-based violence on the Internet is mostly women, especially those who work in fields such as journalism, and politics. One of the main points was the lack of punishment the perpetrators of online violence face, since it is not recognized by law as a criminal offense. SHARE, along with other NGOs, has since requested the government to look into making digital gender-based violence illegal and punishable.

Next up, on Thursday the 24th, the city of Cacak in central Serbia held a protest against lithium mining in the country. Organized by the Alliance of Environmental Organizations of Serbia, the protest gathered citizens and environmental activists to jointly spread the message of disapproval for Rio Tinto’s mining operations in the Jadar valley, with participants carrying signs that read You will not dig and Serbia is not for sale.

Activists from the We will not give Jadar away or Ne damo Jadar - an association we reported on in previous shows - attended the protest and said that it is the citizens’ civic responsibility to defend Serbia’s land and water by protesting against ore exploitation, not only in the Jadar valley, but in the entire country.

Now for some cultural news, on Sunday the 27th, the Center for Cultural Decontamination in Belgrade held an exhibition titled Peace is Good or MIR IS MIRË —with MIR meaning peace in Serbian and MIRË good in Albanian, combining the languages to represent unity and friendliness. The exhibition featured works of twelve artists from cities in Serbia and Kosovo, all portraying the nineties Kosovo war and the nationalist propaganda both in Serbia and Kosovo.

The Serbian and Albanian artists of the exhibition said that they all wished to cooperate despite the tensions between the two nations. Prior to traveling, Albanian artists from Kosovo received warnings that it was dangerous to go to Serbia due to the bad relations between Serbia and Albania. The same happened to Serbian artists. However, they said that they had a nice time when they visited each other’s cities. As part of the interactive installation at the exhibition, visitors left the handprints on the canvas as a symbol of reconciliation.

On an unrelated note, on Wednesday the 23rd, archeologists from the Austrian Academy of Sciences discovered the remains of a prehistoric house that dates back to around 8,000 years ago located in Svinjaricka Cuka near the town of Lebane in southern Serbia. In a press release, the researchers said that the findings provided insights into the origins of sedentary communities in Europe and information about the continent's early agricultural societies. The unearthed dwelling was made up of wattle and daub, and it provided evidence that its inhabitants used to store food, such as grain and seeds, making them early agricultural pioneers of the Neolithic period.

In the following days, several Serbian cities will get a chance to hear Jovan Kolundzija, a Serbian violin maestro. Kolundzija will visit the northern city of Sremska Mitrovica, Kragujevac in central Serbia, and the western town of Uzice, and will perform compositions from Leclair, Kreisler, Saint-Saëns, among many others. His tour will feature students from music schools in the host cities in order to promote young talent in Serbia.

For more information, check out the link in the show notes!

Aaand that’s it for this week! Thank you for joining us!

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Do daljnjeg, zbogom!