SERBIA: Nis’ New Mayor & more – 20th Aug 2024

Dobar dan from Keswick Village! This is the Rorshok Serbia Update from the 20th of August twenty twenty-four. A quick summary of what's going down in Serbia.

On Tuesday the 13th, the city assembly of Nis, in southern Serbia, elected a mayor from the ruling Serbian Progressive Party, or SNS, more than two months after the local elections in the country. Due to the opposition and the ruling party winning an equal number of seats, it was up to one party to decide which side it was going to be on. The party decided to side with the SNS, giving them the majority.

After an eighteen-hour-long session, the assembly elected Dragoslav Pavlovic, a former director of Nis’s communal company, as mayor with thirty-one votes out of sixty-one. Prior to the mayor’s election, Nis remained the only city whose council did not have a definite majority. However, after the SNS win the opposition started a legal battle to dispute the results, but without any success. Many opposition parties believe that the election process in Nis suffered many irregularities Some members of the opposition coalition We Choose Nis said that SNS’s ruling councilors voted publicly rather than secretly, as the law envisages. Additionally, one SNS councilor was not present at the session and was replaced by a stand-in SNS councilor. The opposition coalition protested this, and said that they did not count the stand-in councilor’s vote, which meant that the ruling party did not have enough votes in the assembly.

In other news, Kosovo authorities have rejected a request from Serbia’s prosecution to provide information about the investigation of the armed attack in Banjska which took place last September. The attack was carried out in the Serbian-majority north, and was led by Milan Radoicic, the former deputy leader of the Belgrade-backed Serbian party in Kosovo Serbian List. Local authorities have been investigating the attack, specifically Radoicic’s involvement in it, and have requested on many occasions that Serbia hand him over to Banjska authorities, but Serbian authorities have refused to do so. On the other hand, the same authorities have been trying to gain insight into Kosovo’s investigation, but the Ministry of Justice said that such requests contradict the Law on International Judicial Cooperation in criminal matters.

Speaking of Kosovo, last week we mentioned that their government was planning to reopen the main bridge in Mitrovica which divides the majorly Serbian north and the Albanian south of the city. However, several parties protested this decision, but also Serbia, the US, and the EU, due to safety concerns, as the two nationalities in the city do not foster the greatest of relations. The EU condemned Kosovo’s announcement and called them out for making a unilateral move without any prior consultation. An EU spokesperson said on Friday the 16th that they plan to put the reopening of the bridge on the agenda for the next round of the Kosovo-Serbia dialogue.

On an unrelated note, on Tuesday the 13th, Belgrade’s Misdemeanor Appeal Court revoked a verdict convicting three activists who were arrested during environmental protests against lithium mining in the country. In a press release, the court said they revoked the verdict due to certain violations in the misdemeanor procedure. Initially, the three activists faced sentences of up to forty days in prison, due to what the authorities labeled as reckless behavior and the disturbing of public order and peace.

Recall that last week, several cities in Serbia held environmental protests against Rio Tinto’s Jadar project aimed at lithium mining, with Belgrade blocking the entire railway station to send a message to the government.

Moving on, on Monday the 19th, the conservative Movement for the Restoration of the Kingdom of Serbia party, or POKS, announced that the drinking water, which the Public Utility Company for Waterworks and Sewage distributed to Novi Sad was unsafe to drink. POKS revealed that the director of the utility company confirmed in a Viber group chat that the water in Novi Sad tested positive for Nematode roundworms. The party then called for the resignation of the utility company’s director, as well as the scheduling of a session of the city assembly due to the discovery of parasites in the water. The mayor of Novi Sad has since ordered an urgent examination of the quality of drinking water from the city's water supply.

On that note about the environment, farmers from the Stig Farmers’ Association shared that the extreme temperatures in Serbia, paired with the lack of rain, will affect crops. One of the farmers said that the drought significantly lowered the yields of crops, and he believes he will face a loss of around 500 dollars per hectare of land. Miroslav Matkovic from the association of crop producers from the northern Backa region, said that the farmers’ biggest concern, aside from the smaller yield of crops, is that the government is not helping them overcome these losses. Markovic said that his association has reached out to the local government on many occasions, trying to negotiate some level of tax relief. However, they have received no answer for a third year in a row.

As the farmers struggle to produce enough crops, the food market in Serbia has seen an increase in prices. Economists argue that even though salaries increased, the excessively high prices negate wage growth in real terms. The consumer association Efektiva pointed out that food prices in Serbia are noticeably higher than in neighboring countries, sometimes even doubled. Efektiva also highlighted that these neighboring countries usually have higher average salaries than Serbia. Efektiva said they believe one of the mechanisms to combat unjustified food price hikes is the promotion of new food suppliers and free trade.

Since we mentioned price increases,. The State Statistical Office reported that in July, consumer prices rose by more than four percent compared to the same period last year. The rise in consumer prices was seen in sectors such as recreation and culture, whose consumer prices increased by three percent year-on-year, in transport, with one percent, and communications with a little less than one percent. Only two sectors, clothing and footwear and utility, had a slight decrease in prices with a drop of less than one percent compared to the same period last year.

Still in the economy, the Ministry of Information and Telecommunications reported on Thursday the 15th that the export of products from the IT sector amounted to over 1.7 billion dollars in the first five months of twenty twenty-four. Compared to the same period in twenty twenty-three, the export increased by around twenty percent. The Ministry underlined that the IT sector is the fastest growing one in Serbia, and estimated that the export figures for twenty twenty-four will exceed four billion dollars.

st and: 1000

And to wrap up this edition, Belgrade’s Silos will host a Gala concert titled Alliances on Sunday the 25th, at 9 PM, as part of the OperArt opera event. Some of the tracks the artists will perform include opera literature by Verdi, Puccini, Mascagni, Bizet, Giordano, and Offenbach. Ticket prices range from 1,700 to 3,500 dinars, or around sixteen to about thirty-three dollars. They are available for purchase at Ticket Vision stands in Belgrade and online, with discounts for students and pensioners. 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!