SERBIA: New Declaration & more – 11th Jun 2024

Dobar dan from BA! This is the Rorshok Serbia Update from the 11th of June twenty twenty-four. A quick summary of what's going down in Serbia.

On Saturday the 8th, the governments of Serbia and the Republic of Srpska, or RS, adopted a Declaration on the Protection of National and Political Rights and the Joint Future of the Serbian People. RS is one of the two entities of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

During a session in Belgrade, president Vucic said that this declaration aims to deepen the relations between Serbia and the RS, but that it also addresses relations with Kosovo. In the declaration, the assembly denied Kosovo’s independence, and added that they are devoted to protecting Serbian people in Kosovo. Vucic asked Milorad Dodik, the RS’s president, to maintain peace with the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the other entity of Bosnia, while resolving mutual issues.

The cooperation between the two entities is weak because Milorad Dodik is a polarizing figure as he is extremely conservative, pro-Russian, and anti-West.

Moving on, the election observation mission OSCE reported concerns about potential election fraud during the voting process in municipalities all over Serbia. They stated that the voting was well-administered, but noted several procedural problems, claims of pressure and vote buying, and isolated instances of violence. Lamberto Zannier, the head of the OSCE, said that in around ten percent of polling stations that the mission observed, there were reports of frequent breaches of vote secrecy. Zannier also alleged that there were cases of votes from the deceased recorded in the Unified Voter Register.

On Thursday the 6th, the opposition Go-Change Movement announced that they would protest against the preliminary results of last week’s local elections due to vote rigging. Savo Manojlovic, the movement’s leader, said on the same day that the elections saw “a complete violation of the constitution and democracy” and added that his movement decided to walk out of the Belgrade City Assembly and the New Belgrade municipal assembly. Manojlovic also called for all opposition parties to walk out of the parliaments in the city of Nis and the municipality of New Belgrade due to reported manipulation of votes and changes to polling station records in those places.

Speaking of elections, on Friday the 7th, Belgrade’s University of Political Sciences held elections for its new dean. However, several faculty members opposed the results once they found out that the newly elected dean was Professor Slavisa Orlovic, whose students accused him of sexual harassment. On the same day, students from the Women’s Solidarity organization protested in front of the faculty against Orlovic’s election, carrying a banner saying “We believe the women.” Moreover, five professors from that faculty resigned from the Faculty Council, saying that the elections were rigged. However, Orlovic has denied both the sexual harassment, and the faulty election accusations.

In other news, on Thursday the 6th, the Council of Europe published research on the prison populations and incarceration rates in the Balkans conducted by the SPACE research team in Switzerland. Between twenty twenty-two and twenty twenty-three, the council said that the number of inmates in the whole region grew significantly, on top of the prison populations already being too high. Balkan states are among the highest in Europe for incarceration rates, with Serbia having around 160 inmates per 100,000 citizens. However, Serbia did not have the worst results, as Albania and Hungary’s numbers were around 200 hundred per 100,000 citizens. The countries with the highest number of convicts per 100,000 individuals were Croatia, North Macedonia, and Turkey.

The head of the SPACE research team from the University of Lausanne said that the growing number of inmates could be a bounce-back effect from the reduction seen during the pandemic.

In the city of Leskovac, employees of the Yura factory announced protests due to poor working conditions. Employees said that the company’s management has been ignoring their calls for a meeting to address their demands such as higher wages, higher meal allowances, and improved health conditions at the factory.

Yura workers also reported numerous cases of the management mistreating employees and using outright violence, including physical and mental abuse, along with forced labor. The management allegedly beat the workers with metal poles when they took a break. The employees also said they were forced to wear diapers, instead of going to the toilet, in order not to waste time.

In some news on the economy, the State Statistical Office, or RZS, reported that the list of Serbia’s largest trading partners is changing. Prior to twenty twenty-four, Russia was high up on the list, mostly due to Serbia’s import of their gas. However, in the first quarter of this year, Germany topped the list as the country’s largest trade partner in both exports and imports. Following Germany were Bosnia, Italy, China, and Hungary. The RZS said that the exclusion of Russia from this list might indicate changes in Serbia’s relations with the country.

On Thursday the 6th, The National Bank of Serbia, or NBS, announced that the country issued ten-year sustainability euro bonds in dollars to fund projects promoting sustainability and environmental protection. By issuing these bonds, Serbia borrowed around 1.5 billion dollars, despite the investors’ offers exceeding 6.5 billion dollars. The NBS said that investors' huge demand for Serbia’s euro bonds means that the country’s economy is stable and that the investors believe in Serbia’s green agenda.

Speaking of the country’s green plans, part of it aims to align environmental regulations with the EU standards. However, the lack of laws preventing the import of cars with outdated combustion engines might pose a problem. The EU has been vocal about its plan to ban the production of cars with outdated engines in ten years. They plan to introduce the 7 Euro standard in twenty twenty-six, which will enforce stricter emission limits for vehicles. Right now, the countries can import Euro 6 standard vehicles. Serbia, however, still allows imports of vehicles with engines satisfying the Euro 3 standard, which is very outdated. So the country has become the last one in Europe to support the import of such vehicles. Even though the government adopted the air protection program, which stipulates a ban on the import of these vehicles, they never implemented it.

On an unrelated note, the EU’s statistical office Eurostat published an article featuring data from twenty twenty-three on the use of AI in companies. Serbia was on the lower end of the list, with around two percent of its companies using AI for business purposes. The only country behind Serbia was Romania with 1.5 percent. On the other hand, Denmark, Finland and Luxemburg topped the list, with their percentages being around fifteen percent. Eurostat said that the main reason for using AI in businesses was the automation of repetitive or routine tasks.

The Ministry of Tourism reported that the tourism revenue growth amounted to around 130 percent in the last five years. The World Tourism Organization said that Serbia was the only country in the world to achieve triple-digit growth in tourism revenue in terms of receipts. In the first quarter of twenty twenty-four, Serbia earned around 600 million dollars from tourism, which is a notable increase from the same period in twenty nineteen, when the revenue amounted to around 250 million dollars.

More on tourism, as Belgrade’s garden venue Dorcol Platz will hold the city’s GastroFest, a festival focused on gastronomy and Serbian cuisine. On the 15th and 16th of June, GastroFest will offer visitors a variety of meals from the northern region of Vojvodina. Present at the festival will be local producers who will talk about domestic food production while displaying their products. The individual daily ticket for the festival costs 500 dinars, or around four dollars. 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!