SERBIA: No Dinars & more – 6th Feb 2024

Dobar dan from Keswick Village! This is the Rorshok Serbia Update from the 6th of February twenty twenty-four A quick summary of what's going down in Serbia.

The regulation of the Central Bank of Kosovo that bans the use of Serbian dinars and declares the euro as the only valid currency in Kosovo came into effect on Thursday the 1st, despite numerous requests from international officials to postpone the ban.

Responding to the bank's move, on Friday the 2nd, president Vucic said that Serbia would continue to pay Serbians living in Kosovo their public-sector salaries, social help, and pensions in dinars.

On the same day, one European Commission spokesperson voiced Brussels’ concerns about the ban, adding that Kosovo did not priorly consult with the EU.

Speaking of Kosovo, their police closed three Serbian institutions on Friday the 2nd, on suspicion that the authorities in these institutions committed forgery and false content. Serbian temporary authorities work in these institutions, which are located in Kosovo municipalities but are Serbia-run and funded. They operate simultaneously with Kosovo’s official institutions, and their purpose is to serve the Serbian minority.

Kosovo officials praised the closing of the three institutions, and their Minister of Internal Affairs said that the only Serbian institution in Kosovo will be the Serbian embassy. The Serbian Office for Kosovo, however, said that Kosovo’s decision to close the three structures is violent since there were reports of Kosovo authorities invading peaceful Serbian institutions, such as health centers, clinics, and pharmacies. On Sunday the 4th, the EU condemned Kosovo’s decision to close the three institutions, advising Kosovo to refrain from unilateral actions and instead engage in a constructive dialogue with Serbia.

On Friday the 2nd, Belgrade’s Court of Appeals announced it reversed the verdict that convicted four Serbian state security officers for their involvement in the assassination of Slavko Curuvija.

Curuvija was a journalist famous for opposing the ruling regime during the nineteen nineties. During NATO’s bombing of Yugoslavia in nineteen ninety-nine, Curuvija was shot dead in front of his home. After nearly twenty-five years and several trials, the defendants were acquitted on appeal, which many journalists, opposition politicians, and the Slavko Curuvija Foundation heavily condemned. The US ambassador to Serbia also commented on the court’s acquittal, saying that the decision was disheartening and that it marked a sad day for journalism.

While on the topic of foreign officials, Mikhail Murashkov, Russia’s Health Minister and his Serbian counterpart signed a memorandum of understanding on Tuesday the 30th. After meeting with Murashkov, the Serbian Health Minister said that they will work hard to implement the Russian health system’s best practices in Serbia. Murashkov said that Russia aims to exchange experiences in the field of health and technologies with Serbia. Aside from the memorandum, other Serbian officials have been meeting with Russian officials this past week. On Thursday the 1st, Vucic met with Russian Ambassador Aleksandar Bocan-Kharchenko to discuss bilateral relations, cooperation, and other regional issues.

International organizations and many countries worldwide have sanctioned Murashkov, along with many other Russian officials. Still, Serbia remains the only country in Europe that has refused to sanction Russia.

On Tuesday the 30th, Transparency International, a global civil society organization that leads the fight against corruption, published its annual global Corruption Perception Index, or CPI, for twenty twenty-three. Out of 180 countries, Serbia ended up in the 104th place, which is a drop of three places compared to the twenty twenty-two CPI score. Serbia received thirty-six points out of one hundred on the CPI scale, where zero means that a country is highly corrupt, and 100 means that there is no corruption. Transparency International said that the Serbian government is using special laws to limit transparency in large-scale projects, and added that the executive is highly autocratic. They said that Serbia’s ranking on the CPI scale is also the result of December's parliamentary elections, which were allegedly marred with irregularities.

The top-scoring country on the CPI list was Denmark, with ninety points, and the lowest-scoring country was Somalia, with eleven points out of 100.

In other news, on Friday the 2nd, the Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office in the town of Zrenjanin launched an investigation into human trafficking and exploitation of Indian workers in a Chinese construction company called China Energy Engineering Group Tianjin Electric Power Construction or CEEG.

The investigation started after Astra, a human trafficking NGO, filed a complaint on Tuesday the 30th, alleging that CEEG trafficked Indian workers. In the complaint, they also described all the suspicious activities of the construction company. Astra said that CEEG owed their workers 1,400 dollars worth of salaries and withheld their passports. Astra also reported that CEEG was forcing their employees to work over the legal maximum of twelve hours per day, along with dire living conditions, where the workers’ basic needs weren’t met.

On that note about labor, Coming Computer Engineering, the Information and Communication Technology, or ICT system, announced they will introduce electric agricultural robots in April. The robots will focus on labor-intensive tasks, particularly on smaller farms, and they will increase production efficiency.

The development of these robots started in February twenty twenty-two as a joint project called AgAR between the ICT system and the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Nis. The robot they developed will be able to perform traditional agricultural tasks, such as picking, spraying, and planting, but it will also be able to use attachments for precision agriculture, such as vineyard pruning and laser weeding.

The BioSense Institute in Novi Sad, which works on projects that span bio systems and IT, reported that the farmers are already seeing the change in production due to the agriculture digitization trend.

Since we mentioned Information technologies, the Information Ministry filed several complaints on Tuesday the 30th against a racist Instagram account targeting black people spotted in Serbia. The account featured photos of black people with their current locations in the captions and encouraged its followers to send more photos, with the admin labeling the contents of the page as satire. Despite the numerous reports from Instagram users, the social network failed to take action against the racist page, saying that the account did not violate the app’s rules and regulations.

The Ministry of Information, however, addressed the admins of the profile, telling them that racism and hate speech are prohibited by law. They also said that posting images of adults and minors without the permission of parents or guardians is illegal. The ministry then told the admins that if they did not delete the page, they would be reported to the authorities.

On Thursday the 1st, the Serbian government adopted a Regulation on the methods of implementing subsidies on the purchases of electric vehicles or EVs. This measure, which aims to improve air quality by promoting the use of EVs, will allow individuals, legal entities, and small business owners to subsidize the purchase of electric cars. The government announced that the deadline to submit the subsidy application is the 31st of October. The Environmental Protection Minister said that the government allocated around 1.5 million dollars for the subsidies, adding that they will provide more funds if the people show more interest in buying EVs.

Speaking of the environment, last week the State Auditing Institution, or DRI, published a report on measures to prevent water pollution in Serbia. In their report, the DRI stated that around seventy percent of settlements in Serbia do not treat wastewater adequately. This means that the water released to sewers is not previously treated in order to prevent further water pollution. They said there was no comprehensive water treatment plan because of a lack of funds and failure to introduce laws and regulations. They also advised the Environmental Protection Ministry and the Waters Directorate to define the necessary measures and deadlines in order to achieve the state's goals for water protection against pollution.

Aand that is for this week.

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