SERBIA: Pre-Election Campaigns & more – 21st May 2024

Dobar dan from BA! This is the Rorshok Serbia Update from the 21st of May twenty twenty-four. A quick summary of what's going down in Serbia.

Last week, the observation mission of the Center for Research, Transparency and Accountability, or CRTA, published the First Interim Report focusing on the pre-election process, ahead of the municipal and local polls set for the 2nd of June. In the report, the CRTA said that out of around 40,000 signatures endorsing election candidacies, more than 30,000 received verification from the municipal authorities. Even though this is legal, the CRTA says that the inclusion of municipal administrations can lead to illegal political influence in elections, because local governments are susceptible to it, since their officials are often the target of political pressure and clientelism.

The CRTA said it would have preferred the candidates to receive signature verification from notaries public because instances of signature falsification during the twenty twenty-three parliamentary elections showed links to municipal offices.

The CRTA also mentioned the media bias of national television, since around ninety percent of central news coverage has been focused on the ruling Serbian Progressive Party, or SNS, and featured smear campaigns, which target the opposition.

On Wednesday the 15th, Miroslav Lajcak, the EU Special Representative for the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue hosted the Chief negotiators of Kosovo and Serbia in a meeting about the ban of the Serbian dinar in Kosovo. After the meeting, Lajcak wrote on Twitter that the seventh meeting on this topic did not make any progress. The meeting lasted for seven hours, where most of Serbia’s proposals focused on Serbian banks in Kosovo to continue operating in dinars. However, Kosovo rejected all of them. Lajcak said that he is ready to host both parties again, but only if they show readiness to compromise and reach an agreement.

Recall that in February, Kosovo changed its official currency from the Serbian dinar to the Euro, which made the dinar invalid for payment transactions.

Another issue Kosovo is facing is the formation of the Community of Serbian Municipalities, or CSM, as the Council of Europe is making it a condition for Kosovo’s membership. On Thursday the 16th, Donika Gervalla-Schwarz, Kosovo’s Foreign Minister, sent a letter to the Council president, saying that Kosovo will present a draft statute for the CSM in the Constitutional Court by the end of May. However, the German embassy in Kosovo said that this move was not enough, adding that it should have been done way earlier. Germany was one of the countries to request that the CSM be added as a requirement for Kosovo’s membership in the Council, prolonging its accession process. Since Serbia does not recognize Kosovo’s independence, it does not support its Council of Europe membership.

In other news, on Wednesday the 16th, the High Council of the Prosecution announced that they had appointed a new acting chief of the institution, since the mandate of Snezana Stanojkovic came to an end. The decision comes a week after the Belgrade NGO Humanitarian Law Center urged the High Council to replace Stanojkovic as soon as possible because they didn’t want her to serve for another mandate. The NGO explained that Stanojkovic’s seven-year-long mandate was marked by a number of indictments, the absence of communication with the public and the non-transparent work of the Prosecutor’s Office, among other issues. They labeled her as unprofessional, adding that public prosecutors often faced unsolvable problems due to her decisions and instructions.

In the past, the War Crimes Prosecution Office faced accusations of making slow progress on the most important cases, such as those concerning the nineteen ninety-nine Kosovo war, during which many Serbian politicians committed war crimes.

Speaking of nineteen ninety-nine, Goran Vesic, the Minister of Construction, announced on Wednesday the 15th that he had signed a contract with the investment company Affinity Global Development, to revitalize the former military Headquarters after its demolition during the NATO bombing in nineteen ninety-nine. Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law, owns the company. The contract will allow an overhaul of two buildings that housed the headquarters of the former Yugoslav People's Army. The investors also planned to build a memorial complex dedicated to the victims of the bombing.

The two buildings damaged during NATO’s bombing campaign on Serbia were meant to resemble a canyon of the Sutjeska River in Eastern Bosnia, where one of the major battles of World War II against the Germans in the Balkans took place.

On that note about campaigns against Serbia, Croatia’s conservative Homeland Movement party called for their government to cut off funding for Novosti, a weekly newspaper published by the Serbian National Council, the official body of the Serbian national minority in the country. The Croatian Journalists’ Association, or HND, reported that the Homeland party threatened many media organizations with attacks, including the Novosti journalists, calling the news outlet “the enemy of the state'' due to their liberal orientation. The HND called on the Croatian prime minister to condemn all threats against journalists. Andrea Radak, Novosti’s editor-in-chief, said that the Homeland party’s calls are discriminatory, adding that the party is promoting anti-Serbism.

There will be major construction projects in Belgrade under the Expo twenty twenty-seven exhibition event. The construction features a residential complex, which will span over 160,000 square meters, or around forty acres, and will consist of residential apartments and houses, along with offices. Expo twenty twenty-seven also envisions a new National Stadium, a new aquatic center for water sports, and a complex where the exhibition itself will take place.

The exhibition under the theme Play for Humanity: Sport and Music for All, will take place in twenty twenty-seven, hosting more than 120 countries, with the aim to promote cooperation and boost the economy.

With the preparations for Expo twenty twenty-seven gaining momentum, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, or EBRD, predicts that the economy in Serbia will grow. They predicted that the country’s GDP would increase from around three percent to four percent by the end of twenty twenty-four, adding that they based their assumptions on Serbia’s investments in industrial production and tourism. EBRD also predicted a drop in inflation, which will further help to increase the GDP.

Still in economic news, the statistical office reported last week that the year-on-year inflation amounted to five percent in April, which is a drop of around two percent compared to March. In terms of monthly inflation, the consumer price index was around one percent higher in April compared to March. The biggest price increases from April twenty twenty-three to April twenty twenty-four amounted to around ten percent and were seen in restaurants and hotels. Following closely were the housing, utilities, and energy sectors, with prices rising by around eight percent.

Last week, the Center for World University Rankings made a list of around 20,000 universities worldwide, ranking them from best to worst performing. The center evaluated the universities’ quality of education and faculty, employability, and research. The University of Belgrade ranked 376, which puts it in the top 2% worldwide. Its overall score amounted to seventy-five. The best-ranked university was Harvard with 100 points, and the lowest one was the Yunnan Agricultural University in China, with a score of sixty-six.

And to close this edition, some news on cultural events. From the 22nd to the 29th of May, several venues in Belgrade will host the 17th annual Beldocs International Documentary Film Festival. It will feature premieres of award-winning documentaries as well as the latest Serbian documentary films. As part of the festival, the organizers announced the Beldocs Industry Days program, which will feature a series of workshops, masterclasses, pitching sessions, and other activities aimed at developing new movies and networking with film experts. Tickets for each night will be around four dollars, and they are available for purchase online or at the ticket offices of the cinema halls. 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!