Is an Independent Europe Possible?

theduran.com

Is an Independent Europe Possible? - The Duran

I’m not only referring to the possible long-term consequences for U.S.-European relations in the wake of Britain’s decision to leave the European Union, but the unlikely blow against Washington’s information war on Moscow delivered by Germany’s foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who a week ago shockingly accused the North Atlantic Treaty Organization of “war-mongering” against Russia.

Since the Bush administration’s twisting of events in the 2008 Russia-Georgia war, which the EU blamed on Georgia, Western populations have been subjected to the steady message that Russia is a “threat” to the West and is guilty of “aggression.” This reached a peak with the false narrative of events in Ukraine, in which blatant evidence of the West’s complicity in a violent coups d’état was omitted from corporate media accounts, while Russia’s assistance to eastern Ukrainians resisting the coup has been framed as a Russian “invasion.”

The disinformation campaign has reached the depths of popular culture, including the EuroVision song contest and sports doping scandals, to ensure widespread popular support for U.S. intentions against Russia.

The Russian “aggression” narrative, based largely on lies of omission, has prepared the way for the U.S. to install a missile-shield in Romania with offensive capabilities and to stage significant NATO war games with 31,000 troops on Russia’s borders. For the first time in 75 years, German troops retraced the steps of the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union.

U.S. Designs on Russia

The U.S. is eyeing a post-Putin Russia in which a Wall Street-friendly leader like Boris Yeltsin can be restored to reopen the country to Western exploitation. But Vladimir Putin is no Yeltsin and has proven a tough nut for the U.S. to crack. Washington’s modus operandi is to continually provoke and blame an opponent until it stands up for itself, as Putin’s Russia has done, then accuse it of “aggression” and attack in “self-defense.”

In this way Washington builds popular support and resistance to the other side of the story. Unfortunately it is not a new trick in the U.S. playbook. “The statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception,” wrote Mark Twain.

So suddenly, after many years of an air-tight, anti-Russia campaign believed unquestioningly by hundreds of millions of Westerners, comes Steinmeier last week blurting out the most significant truth about Russia uttered by a Western official perhaps in decades.

“What we shouldn’t do now is inflame the situation further through saber-rattling and warmongering,” Steinmeier stunningly told Bild am Sontag newspaper. “Whoever believes that a symbolic tank parade on the alliance’s eastern border will bring security is mistaken.”

Instead Steinmeier called for dialogue with Moscow. “We are well-advised to not create pretexts to renew an old confrontation,” he said, saying it would be “fatal to search only for military solutions and a policy of deterrence.”

In keeping with the strategy, the U.S. corporate media virtually ignored remarks that should have been front-page news. The New York Times did not report Steinmeier’s statement, but two days later ran a Reuter’s story only online leading with the U.S. military’s rejection of his remarks.

NATO General: Russia is No Threat

Just a day after Steinmeier was quoted in Bild, General Petr Pavel, chairman of NATO’s military committee, dropped another bombshell. Pavel told a Brussels press conference flat out that Russia was not at a threat to the West. “It is not the aim of NATO to create a military barrier against broad-scale Russian aggression, because such aggression is not on the agenda and no intelligence assessment suggests such a thing,” he said.

What? What happened to Russian “aggression” and the Russian “threat?” What is the meaning then of the fear of Russia pounded every day into the heads of Western citizens? Is it all a lie? Two extraordinary on-the-record admissions by two men, Steinmeier, the foreign minister of Europe’s most powerful nation, and an active NATO general in charge of the military committee, both revealing that what Western officials repeat every day is indeed a lie, a lie they talk about in private but would never before utter in public.

Two years ago I was in a background briefing with a senior European ambassador at his country’s U.N. mission in New York and could hardly believe my ears when he said talk about Russia’s threat to Eastern Europe was “all hype” designed to give NATO “a reason to exist.” Yet this same ambassador in public Security Council meetings would viciously attack Russia. But the hype is about more than just saving NATO. The fear campaign feeds the American and European military industries and most importantly puts pressure on the Russian government, which the U.S. wants overthrown.

Were these remarks made out of the exasperation of knowing all along that the Russian threat is hype? Were they made out of genuine concern that things could get out of hand under reckless and delusional leaders in Washington leading to a hot war with Russia?

Neither man has been disciplined for speaking out. Does this signal a change in official German thinking? Will German businessmen who deal with Russia and have opposed sanctions against Moscow over Ukraine, which were forced on Germany by the U.S., be listened to?

Were Steinmeier’s remarks a one-off act of rebellion, or is Germany indeed considering defying Washington on sanctions and regime change in Moscow? Is the German government finally going to act in Germany’s own interests? Such a move would spark a European defiance of the United States not seen since the days when Charles de Gaulle pulled France out of NATO in 1966 to preserve French independence.

The last time European governments broke with Washington on a major issue was the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. Then France and Germany joined Russia on the U.N. Security Council in blocking its authorization. Britain backed it. But France and Germany then voted for a resolution several months later that essentially condoned the invasion.

It is Up to the European Public

One has to ask whether a conditioned German public is ready to see through the lies about Russia. Last November I flew from St. Petersburg to Berlin and discussed this very question with a number of well-educated Germans.

I had visited Russia for the first time since 1995, 20 years before to the month. Those were the days of the Yeltsin-Jeffery Sachs Russia, of the unbridled neo-liberal capitalism of the Wall Street-oligarch alliance that plundered the country leaving millions of Russians destitute. Outside train stations I saw homeless encampments replete with campfires. Policemen were stopping motorists for bribes. I ran from two men intent on robbing me until I lost them in a Metro station. That’s the Russia the neocons in Washington and the knaves and buccaneers on Wall Street want to see again.

The Russia I saw in St. Petersburg and Moscow, 20 years later, was orderly and prosperous, as modern as any European city. It is a testament to Russia’s resistance to American attempts to restore its political and financial control. Russia is a capitalist country. But on its own terms. It is fully aware of American machinations to undermine it.

In Berlin I met several Germans, educated, liberal and completely aware, unlike most Americans, of how the United States has abused its post-World War II power. And yet when I asked them all why there are still U.S. military bases in Germany 70 years after the war and 25 years after the Cold War ended, and who the Americans were protecting them from, the universal answer was: Russia.

History shows European fears of Russia to be completely overblown. Germany and other Western powers have invaded Russia three times in the last 200 years: France in 1812, U.S., Britain and France in the 1918 Russian Civil War and Germany again in 1941. Except for Imperial Russia’s incursion into East Prussia after war was declared on it in 1914, the reverse has never been true.

In his memoirs Harry Truman admitted that false fear of Russia was the “tragedy and shame of our time” during the Cold War that he had much to do with in part to revive the U.S. post-war economy with military spending. George Kennan, the State Department official who advised a non-military containment of the Soviet Union, conceded as early as 1947 that Soviet moves in Eastern Europe were defensive and constituted no threat. In the 1990s Kennan also decried NATO’s expansion towards Russia’s borders.

With its vast natural resources, Russia has been the big prize for the West for centuries, and is still today in neocon-driven Washington. But Germany, especially, has benefited from trade with Russia and has no need to join the U.S. imperial project.

The British voters’ decision, days after Steinmeier’s extraordinary remark, could herald significant change in Europe, which may be approaching an historical junction in its relationship with the United States. Growing anti-EU sentiment has spread across the continent, including calls for similar referenda in several countries.

Britain has been called Washington’s trojan horse in the EU. The thinking is that without Britain, the EU would be freer to chart its own course. But as Alexander Mercouris explained here, Obama bypasses London to call Merkel directly with his demands. Still, removing Britain’s voice from the EU, though more crucially not from NATO, opens space for more independent voices in Europe to emerge.

“I worry that we will have less clout on our own: In the future we won’t have as much influence on Europe’s response to Putin’s transgressions, Iran’s nuclear ambitions, or the E.U.’s foreign and security policy,” Peter Westmacott, until January Britain’s ambassador to the United States told The New York Times. “And we will be less able to ensure it is U.S.-friendly.”

If German leaders conclude the United States is pushing Europe into a disastrous war with Russia, could we see a Charles de Gaulle moment in Berlin? Merkel doesn’t seem to have it in her. Three days after Steinmeier’s remarks she told a news conference she favored increased German spending for NATO to counter Russian “threats.”

Instead it will require a revolt by an awakened citizenry against the EU and elected European governments that refuse to stand up to Washington, mostly because it benefits their own class interests, to the detriment of the majority.

The Future of the EU

European social democracy had been probably the best social and political system ever devised on earth, maybe the best that is humanly possible. Europe could have been a model for the world as a neutral power committed to social justice. As late as 1988, then President of the European Commission, Jacques Delors promised the British Trades Union Congress that the EU would be a “social market.”

Instead the EU allowed itself to be sold out to unelected and unaccountable neoliberal technocrats now in charge in Brussels. European voters, perhaps not fully understanding the consequences, elected neoliberal national governments slavishly taking Washington’s foreign policy orders. But Brexit shows those voters are getting educated. Unity is a great ideal but EU leaders have refused to accept that it has to benefit all Europeans.

The EU’s Lisbon Treaty is the only constitution in the world that has neoliberal policies written into it. If it won’t reform—and the arrogance of the EU’s leaders tells us it won’t—it will be up to the people of Europe to diminish or dismantle the EU through additional referenda. That would give liberated European nations the chance to elect anti-neoliberal national governments, accountable to the voters, which can also chart foreign policies independent of Washington.

The danger is that the right-wing sentiment that has driven a large part of the anti-Establishment movements in Europe (and the U.S.) may elect governments that grow even closer to Washington and impose even harsher neoliberal policies.

That is a risk that may need to be taken in the hope that the anti-Establishment left and right can coalesce around shared interests to put an end to the elitist European project.

 

theguardian.com

Brexit won’t shield Britain from the horror of a disintegrating EU | Yanis Varoufakis

Yanis Varoufakis

Leave won because too many British voters identified the EU with authoritarianism, irrationality and contempt for parliamentary democracy while too few believed those of us who claimed that another EU was possible.

Follow live developments as Britain votes to leave the European Union

I campaigned for a radical remain vote reflecting the values of our pan-European Democracy in Europe Movement (DiEM25). I visited towns in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, seeking to convince progressives that dissolving the EU was not the solution. I argued that its disintegration would unleash deflationary forces of the type that predictably tighten the screws of austerity everywhere and end up favouring the establishment and its xenophobic sidekicks. Alongside John McDonnell, Caroline Lucas, Owen Jones, Paul Mason and others, I argued for a strategy of remaining in but against Europe’s established order and institutions. Against us was an alliance of David Cameron (whose Brussels’ fudge reminded Britons of what they despise about the EU), the Treasury (and its ludicrous pseudo-econometric scare-mongering), the City (whose insufferable self-absorbed arrogance put millions of voters off the EU), Brussels (busily applying its latest treatment of fiscal waterboarding to the European periphery), Germany’s finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble (whose threats against British voters galvanised anti-German sentiment), France’s pitiable socialist government, Hillary Clinton and her merry Atlanticists (portraying the EU as part of another dangerous “coalition of the willing") and the Greek government (whose permanent surrender to punitive EU austerity made it so hard to convince the British working class that their rights were protected by Brussels).

Insidious forces will be activated under the surface with a terrible capacity to inflict damage on Europe and Britain

The repercussions of the vote will be dire, albeit not the ones Cameron and Brussels had warned of. The markets will soon settle down, and negotiations will probably lead to something like a Norwegian solution that allows the next British parliament to carve out a path toward some mutually agreed arrangement. Schäuble and Brussels will huff and puff but they will, inevitably, seek such a settlement with London. The Tories will hang together, as they always do, guided by their powerful instinct of class interest. However, despite the relative tranquillity that will follow on from the current shock, insidious forces will be activated under the surface with a terrible capacity for inflicting damage on Europe and on Britain.

Italy, Finland, Spain, France, and certainly Greece, are unsustainable under the present arrangements. The architecture of the euro is a guarantee of stagnation and is deepening the debt-deflationary spiral that strengthens the xenophobic right. Populists in Italy and Finland, possibly in France, will demand referendums or other ways to disengage.

London’s Evening Standard. ‘The markets will soon settle down, and negotiations will probably lead to something like a Norwegian solution that allows the next British parliament to carve out a path toward some mutually agreed arrangement.’ Photograph: Leon Neal/AFP/Getty Images

The only man with a plan is Germany’s finance minister. Schäuble recognises in the post-Brexit fear his great opportunity to implement a permanent austerity union. Under his plan, eurozone states will be offered some carrots and a huge stick. The carrots will come in the form of a small eurozone budget to cover, in some part, unemployment benefits and bank deposit insurance. The stick will be a veto over national budgets.

If I am right, and Brexit leads to the construction of a permanent austerian iron cage for the remaining EU member states, there are two possible outcomes: One is that the cage will hold, in which case the institutionalised austerity will export deflation to Britain but also to China (whose further destabilisation will have secondary negative effects on Britain and the EU).

Another possibility is that the cage will be breached (by Italy or Finland leaving, for instance), the result being Germany’s own departure from the collapsing eurozone. But this will turn the new Deutschmark zone, which will probably end at the Ukrainian border, into a huge engine of deflation (as the new currency goes through the roof and German factories lose international markets). Britain and China had better brace themselves for an even greater deflation shock wave under this scenario.

The horror of these developments, from which Britain cannot be shielded by Brexit, is the main reason why I, and other members of DiEM25, tried to save the EU from the establishment that is driving Europeanism into the ground. I very much doubt that, despite their panic in Brexit’s aftermath, EU leaders will learn their lesson. They will continue to throttle voices calling for the EU’s democratisation and they will continue to rule through fear. Is it any wonder that many progressive Britons turned their back on this EU?

Britain has voted to leave the European Union, by 52% to 48%, but Scotland, London and Northern Ireland all had a majority for remain. Find out how each local authority voted

While I remain convinced that leave was the wrong choice, I welcome the British people’s determination to tackle the diminution of democratic sovereignty caused by the democratic deficit in the EU. And I refuse to be downcast, even though I count myself on the losing side of the referendum.

As of today, British and European democrats must seize on this vote to confront the establishment in London and Brussels more powerfully than before. The EU’s disintegration is now running at full speed. Building bridges across Europe, bringing democrats together across borders and political parties, is what Europe needs more than ever to avoid a slide into a xenophobic, deflationary, 1930s-like abyss.

 

The REAL Story Behind the Balkans … Precursor to 9/11 and ISIS

Jun 22, 2016

Throughout Visas for Al Qaeda:  CIA Handouts That Rocked The World, we’ve seen how the US government, which increasingly resembles a terrorist organization, worked with extremists, including its then–asset Osama bin Laden, to destabilize and then destroy Serbia. According to John Schindler, professor of strategy at the US Naval War College, the American Department of State and President Clinton sought to bomb the Serbs to help the Muslims, “following the lead of progressive opinion on Bosnia.” Thousands of Arab-Afghans (Saudis, Yemenis, Algerians, Egyptians, Tunisians, Iraqis, Libyans, Jordanians, and others), with extensive combat experience gained fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan on behalf of the Americans, opened a new front in the Balkans.

For more, go to:  http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2016/06/58763.html

 

blogs.lse.ac.uk

Croatia’s blocking of Serbia’s EU integration: Another case of bilateral conditionality in the Balkans

Croatia, which joined the EU in July 2013, is currently blocking Serbia’s EU accession process by raising complaints over progress made in the two negotiation chapters linked to the rule of law. Marko Kmezić points out that Croatia is alone among EU member states in raising these issues, but suggests that Serbia should quickly address Croatia’s concerns so the accession process can continue.  

The European Council has once again postponed the opening of negotiations with Serbia on two crucial chapters of EU legislation, following complaints by the Croatian government. The newest EU member state refused to endorse the European Commission’s opinion, which saw Serbia as ready to open talks on Chapter 23 (judiciary and fundamental rights) and Chapter 24 (justice, freedom and security).

Croatia expressed its doubts about Serbia’s commitment to the rule of law based on three concerns: the lack of Serbian cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY); the mistreatment of the Croatian minority in Serbia; and the universal jurisdiction of Serbian courts over war crimes committed in other parts of the former Yugoslavia. The fact that Croatia remains alone among 28 EU member states to express its doubts over Serbia’s commitment to the rule of law provides a reason to look deeper into this ongoing issue.

In terms of the collaboration with the ICTY, the Tribunal accused Belgrade in early 2016 of failing to cooperate because it hadn’t arrested and delivered three officials from the Serbian Radical Party charged with contempt of court. In the meantime, the Serbian Government was ordered to submit a report every two weeks describing in detail the actions undertaken in order to fulfill its obligations and arrest the accused. Serbia has answered positively to this demand, and according to the latest report the case is now under review of the relevant domestic court.

Second, with regard to the concerns related to the respect of the Croatian minority in Serbia, it is curious to observe that not even the European Commission itself had any major objections to account in its latest Progress Report. Moreover, the text of the report reads that in Vojvodina, the region where most of the Croatian minority members are located, there is a high degree of protection for minorities. Finally, a dedicated action plan on the protection of national minorities throughout the country has already been produced by the Serbian government, as requested in the framework of chapter 23 negotiations.

While some argue that with these complaints Croatia is aiming to secure guaranteed parliamentary seats for representatives of ethnic Croats, it should not be excluded that in fact the new centre right Croatian government will attempt to decrease the number of guaranteed seats for Serb minorities in the Croatian Parliament.

The third concern relates to Serbia’s self-proclaimed jurisdiction over war crimes. Universal jurisdiction is a special exception to the rule that some link of territory or nationality to a crime serves as the basis for a state’s exercise of criminal jurisdiction. This is a well known principle of international law, and traditionally it is applicable to crimes hostes humani generis, which even according to the narrowest definitions include genocide, war crimes and torture.

Eleven EU member states recognise universal criminal jurisdiction, while France has even declared its jurisdiction for war crimes perpetrated in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. In its latest Progress Report, the European Commission praised the results of the Belgrade special court acting upon the contested law when in March last year eight former members of the Special police Brigade in the Ministry of Interior of the Republika Srpska suspected of committing war crimes against civilians in Srebrenica were arrested.

The question here is seemingly not about the legality, but rather the legitimacy of Croatia’s decision to block the opening of Serbia’s accession chapters. Although Croatia claims that the above-mentioned issues are related to core European values, Serbia sees them as Croatia’s attempt to gain concessions on bilateral matters. Similar concerns have also been expressed by European Commissioner for Enlargement and Neighbourhood Policy Johannes Hahn and Austria’s Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz.

Croatia’s veto not only weakens the credibility of the accession process, but also reduces the EU’s leverage over crucial domestic reforms in Serbia. This is why it is important for the EU to intervene before further escalation of this matter leads to democratic backsliding and the opening of new regional tensions in the Balkans. As elaborated in a recent BiEPAG study, the EU should address bilateral issues involving a member state openly and seek to facilitate negotiations primarily through the Commission.

This needs to be done as early as possible in the integration process in order to prevent one party to the dispute from gaining asymmetric power over the other. However, as seen in the case of Macedonia, where the country’s EU accession has been blocked for almost a decade as a consequence of the acrimonious name dispute with Greece, the EU is institutionally restrained when it comes to mediating a settlement that involves an EU membership candidate and a member state.

The Macedonian lesson should be taken on board in the case of Serbia. Despite a predictably furious response from Belgrade, the Serbian government should nevertheless act as quickly as possible to address Croatia’s concerns while these are not the focus of a heated domestic debate.

This will mean abolishing its law on universal jurisdiction for war crimes committed in the former Yugoslavia, particularly keeping in mind that established cooperation between regional public prosecutor offices has the same effect in practice when it comes to war crimes prosecution. This simple and relatively low cost political action should then be recognised by the EU as a way of opening up the contested negotiating chapters.

Please read our comments policy before commenting.

Note: This article gives the views of the author, and not the position of EUROPP – European Politics and Policy, nor of the London School of Economics. Featured image from slobodnadalmacija.hr.

Shortened URL for this post: http://bit.ly/1TViHQI

 _________________________________

About the author

Marko Kmezić – University of Graz
Dr Marko Kmezić is lecturer and senior researcher at the Centre for Southeast European Studies at the University of Graz, Austria.

 

"Bulgaria and Romania could join Croatia in blocking Serbia" -

b92.net

"Bulgaria and Romania could join Croatia in blocking Serbia" - - on B92.net

Bulgaria and Romania "could soon deliver their demands in order to approve the opening of chapter 23" in Serbia's EU accession talks, writes a Belgrade daily.

Source: Vecernje novosti Friday, May 6, 2016 | 14:13

According to Vecernje Novosti, these two countries will in this way join Croatia, which is already blocking this chapter.

Bulgarian and Romanian demands will concern "improving the rights of their ethnic minorities in Serbia" - while Bucharest also wants "the Vlach issue" solved, and guaranteed seats in parliament for their representatives.

The newspaper said it learned that these two countries are the only EU members who have "quietly backed" Croatia's policy toward Serbia.

Croatia's envoys have been lobbying in European capitals for weeks, seeking support for their decision to block the chapter until Belgrade fulfills Zagreb's demands, related to the position of ethnic Croats in Serbia, the country's cooperation with the Hague Tribunal, and its jurisdiction in prosecuting war crimes committed in the former Yugoslavia.

Bulgaria and Romania are now revisiting their old demands, "above all, increased participation of their (ethnic minorities') representatives in all state administration organs in Serbia," according to the article.

But unlike Croatia - "they are willing to compromise," writes the daily, adding that, "in case of great pressure from EU's most powerful members, they will after all vote in favor of opening chapter 23, but ask that their demands be built into the transitional criteria and fulfilled during the negotiating process."

Officials in Belgrade are saying that Serbia will continue with its good-neighborly policy and try to solve all open issues with neighboring countries through bilateral discussions, the article concluded.

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economist.com

A pro-Europe prime minister wins a second term in Serbia

Democracy in America | Apr 25th, 19:07

All latest updates

A pro-Europe prime minister wins a second term in Serbia

 

WITH most of the votes from Serbia's general election on April 24th counted, it is clear that Aleksandar Vucic, the prime minister (pictured), has won another four-year term. From Brussels and other Western capitals, congratulations have been rolling in. Mr Vucic's foreign partners want nothing more than stability in the Balkans, and Mr Vucic can deliver it. Whether he can deliver growth, or help develop Serbia's flawed democracy into a transparent and competitive one, is more doubtful.

Mr Vucic called the election two years earlier than necessary, and his Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) won roughly half of the vote, as it did two years ago. Because more parties will enter parliament this time, the SNS will have at least 20 fewer seats, though still a majority in the 250-seat chamber. The Socialists came second with 11%, while the radical nationalists of Vojislav Seselj, who failed in 2014 to clear the minimum for representation in parliament, will now be the third-largest party, with almost 8%.

Mr Seselj's return to parliament is the second bit of good news he has received this month. On March 31st he was acquitted on war-crimes charges by the UN tribunal on the former Yugoslavia in The Hague. His electoral success means Serbia's parliament will once again include an extreme nationalist party advocating closer ties with Russia. "Russia will be pleased," says Milos Damnjanovic, an analyst at the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network. Mr Seselj's influence, however, will be limited.

Mr Vucic and Ivica Dacic, the leader of the Socialists and foreign minister in the outgoing government, are both ardent exponents of maintaining friendly regional relations and of joining the European Union. This is a dramatic transformation. During the Balkan wars of the 1990s, Mr Vucic was a protégé of Mr Seselj and Mr Dacic was a spokesman for Slobodan Milosevic, Serbia's rabidly nationalist leader at the time. With the SNS, the Socialists and Mr Seselj's party getting most of the vote, the vast majority of deputies in the new parliament will have been hardline nationalists or supporters of Mr Milosevic in the past. The once-mighty Democratic Party, which came to power after Mr Milosevic's fall in 2000, only just scraped into parliament, as liberal Serbs scattered their votes between the Democrats and a number of small parties.

Under Mr Vucic, Serbia is likely to continue gradually to implement the reforms demanded as part of its EU accession process. It will also continue its EU-led talks on normalising relations with Kosovo, which declared independence from Serbia in 2008. Although relations with Bosnia and Croatia are sometimes bad-tempered, no serious ructions are likely.

But Serbia's biggest issues are domestic. In 2015 its economy grew by an anaemic 0.7%. Serbs are scraping by on an average salary of €351 ($395) a month. Many voted for Mr Vucic because he sounds convincing. But unless he can raise living standards, says one Serbian politician, this is the last time he will be chosen to lead the country.

Mr Vucic has projected himself as a strongman who can defend Serbian interests. He has long promised to fight corruption, and claims to be devoted to democracy. In fact, despite many high-profile arrests (especially of politicians connected to the Democratic Party), there have been few convictions for high-level corruption. The media is largely weak and cowed by government pressure; state television unfailingly reflects the government's point of view. Stevan Dojcinovic, a prominent investigative journalist who recently began investigating Mr Vucic's family wealth, found himself attacked in the tabloid press as a "French spy".

Florian Bieber, a professor at Graz University, says Mr Vucic is one of a generation of Balkan leaders with no ideological underpinning, who run their countries through informal networks, by telephone, rather than via proper institutions. "It is all about personal power," says Mr Bieber. As one Serbian official puts it: "The West has been primarily interested in whether these guys are nationalists in an explosive region. They have somehow lost interest in whether they are democrats." 

 

Three years since Brussels Agreement: Everything is even worse

kossev.info

Three years since Brussels Agreement: Everything is even worse | KoSSev

Četvrtak 21. april 2016, 11:55

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Izvor: KoSSev

Autor: Gyorgy Kakuk

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Op-ed: Gyorgy Kakuk

During the hot and eventful summer of 1999, a few Serbs from the town of Mitrovica stood next to the highway that leads to Serbia. They stopped all the cars of fleeing Serbs and begged them not to leave. They told them if they leave, the entire Kosovo Serb community will be extinguished in a matter months. These ordinary citizens had all the reason in the world to be concerned. Within a few weeks after the arrival of international forces in Kosovo almost the entire Serbian community of Western Kosovo had disappeared, the Serbs of Pristina fled, and members of the biggest urban Roma community of the Balkans, on the southern shore of the river Ibar in Mitrovica was chased away and their settlement torched. All this happened under the watch of the more than hundred thousand strong NATO forces, the who came into Kosovo to provide a safe and secure environment for all. Ethnic violence was rampant. No one who belonged to a community other than the majority Albanians were safe. 

These people, who tried to convince their fellow Serbs to stay, understood something well: if they do not stick together they will be lost. This is how it started. The unbelievable resistance of the Northern Kosovo Serbs who went against all odds, with one and only one aim: to remain where they belong. 

During all of those years, these people were mistreated by the international community, persecuted, betrayed by their own in Belgrade, but they are still there. No wonder that the Serbs of Northern Kosovo do not believe in the mantras and slogans that the international tried to teach them on the creation of a multi-ethnic society. They not only saw but also felt it in their skin that the international organizations responsible for running Kosovo clearly used double standards. 

The best example of that are the events of March 2004 when Albanian mobs, in a very well organized fashion torched Serbian villages, churches, desecrated Serbian cemeteries on an industrial scale. And at the end of the day they were rewarded. The process to independence was quickened. And the message from the international community was clear; if we consider you our friend you can go and do ethnic cleansing, you have impunity.

Now, after three years of the Belgrade - Pristina deal in Brussels nothing has changed. Actually, this is not really true, it’s gotten worse. The European Union who became the main international actor in Kosovo, after the unilateral declaration of independence, is in worse shape then it was three years ago. The so called refugee crisis gathered dark clouds over the Union, which shows the same symptoms as in the case of Kosovo for years before. A lack of courage, vision, leadership, political innovation. Those who followed the EU's performance in Kosovo are, not really surprised how it acts, when the refugee crisis sweeps the center all over Europe, and pushes the continent towards the far right. In Kosovo nothing demonstrates this better then the verdict given by an EU judge in the case of a Kosovo Serbs politician.

Oliver Ivanovic (I would never hide that he is a friend of mine), was one of the rare Serbian politicians in Kosovo, who could have helped all, the Albanians, the internationals and his own community to bring the situation of the Serbs to a mutually beneficial solution. He was someone who understood that playing zero sum games are never the real deal. He was charged with committing war crimes and got nine years after a dubious trial. (Just remember that the Hague Tribunal acquitted Vojislav Seselj.). If the Oliver Ivanovic case is the biggest achievement of the Brussels process, then I think it is better to start something different.

Unfortunately the prospects are not good. As long as the acting Minister of Foreign Affairs of Kosovo, proudly sends messages around on Twitter that he bans Serbian politicians from entering Kosovo, while members of the radical movement, Vetevendosje can turn trucks transporting Serbian goods to Kosovo (to Albanian customers), while the most expensive mission of the European Union, EULEX, is unable to stand on its feet, the future I as I see it is grim.

And do not forget, the refugee crises which greased the wheels on the so called Balkan route started in early 2014 by Kosovo Albanians fleeing economic hardship. What is happening in Kosovo, driven by all political actors is actually hurting them the most. If anyone could lose all that , its that Albanians of Kosovo and not the Serbs. 

Gyorgy Kakuk
author, journalist
former UNMIK Spokesperson of Mitrovica

 

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Preuzimanje i objavljivanje tekstova sa portala "KoSSev" nije dozvoljeno bez navođenja izvora. Hvala na poštovanju etike novinarske profesije.

IZ UGLA ANALITIČARA

 

chicagotribune.com

Russian influence on the rise in Serbia

Bloomberg

At the end of a busy street an hour from Belgrade, past outdoor cafes, discount clothing stores and second-hand mobile phone outlets, artists at a tiny wax museum worked day and night for two months to complete a tribute to Vladimir Putin.

The figure stands alongside a Yugoslav communist party flag and a panoply of such local luminaries as late strongmen Slobodan Milosevic and Josip Broz Tito, thanks for Putin's support of Serbia's opposition to the Kosovo's independence.

"Around 75 percent of Serb citizens respect Putin and Russia, so we decided to let Putin be the first foreigner," said Dragan Markovic Palma, the mayor of Jagodina, which unveiled the statue last month. "Russia has helped a lot."

As Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic campaigns before April 24 general elections, his bid to prepare the country for European Union membership is facing a lurch to nationalism. It includes throw-back sentiment for Russia in the country of 7.2 million people as the EU is itself shaking under doubts about its future and resentment lingers over the bloody breakup of Yugoslavia. One of the beneficiaries has been the Radical Party, which wants to end talks to join the trading bloc.

More than two decades after the fall of communism, Russia is once again courting the countries over which it once held sway. In Hungary, Prime Minister Viktor Orban has forged a $11 billion nuclear deal with Putin's government and tried to emulate his model in pursuing an "illiberal democracy." Czech President Milos Zeman and Slovak Premier Robert Fico have said EU relations should not come at the expense of Russia.

In Serbia, only 11 percent of voters said they believed joining the EU and NATO -- which bombed Serbs twice in the 1990s -- is good, while 72 percent saw it as bad, according to an April 10 opinion poll conducted by B92 TV and the Center for Free Elections and Democracy. That's far more pessimistic than the 48 percent for EU entry in a state poll by Serbia's European Integration Office, which doesn't measure backing for NATO entry. Meanwhile, eight of the 18 parties running for parliament are pro-Russian.

What's more, the pressure to veer Serbia's foreign-policy goals eastward comes alongside the creation of a slew of Russian-Serbian friendship societies such as the Association of Russian Descendants and the Strategic Culture Fund, a Russian-Serbian Internet site reporting on events in Serbia, Russia, Balkans and the former Soviet Union.

"A further increase in Russian sentiment is possible," said Jovo Bakic, a sociology professor at the Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade. "And I wouldn't be surprised to see Vucic, after two or three years, changing his rhetoric if he sees that Russia, and not the EU, is what people want."

Still, with 3 billion euros ($3.42 billion) already allocated from EU coffers, Vucic has made readying Serbia for accession by 2020 his chief foreign-policy goal. Many Serbs see the EU, and not Russia, as a path to raising living standards like former federation partners Slovenia and Croatia, which joined the bloc in 2004 and 2013.

"We want good relations with Russia and we have them," Vucic said in an interview to local TV broadcaster Happy TV on March 21. "But we want and we are heading toward the European Union."

That approach is backed by foreign direct investment, mostly from the EU, which has steadily risen in Serbia over the past five years.

"The EU has been committed in enabling Serbia not only to eventually join the EU, but to make a real difference for its citizens," Michael Davenport, the head of the EU Delegation to Serbia, said in a statement on April 8.

Even so, there is still strong cultural affinity among Serbs with Russia, which helped communists win power under Tito after World War II. Both countries are Orthodox Christian and share the Cyrillic alphabet, unlike most other Slavic nations in the region.

For Russia's part, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said EU talks are the "absolutely the sovereign choice" for Serbia, but he rejected a "destructive either-or logic," which he blamed for "the profound crisis of Ukrainian statehood." The Kremlin denies accusations from the EU and the U.S. that it has backed insurgents with troops and arms to prevent Ukraine from shifting out of its sphere of influence.

Vucic maintains a strong lead in polls, with his Progressive Party showing support of 50.9 percent at end-March, according to a survey by Belgrade-based Faktor Plus published April 11. Still, he's warned that the acquittal of Radical Party leader Vojislav Seselj of war crimes by the United Nations Hague Tribunal last month may undermine his ability to form a government.

Seselj is in third with 7.8 percent in the poll and says he said he may end up with more than a quarter of the vote following his acquittal. Deputy president under Milosevic when NATO bombing helped drive Serb forces out of Kosovo, he's calling for an end to EU talks.

"Our friends can only be those who didn't bomb us," he said at a news conference after his acquittal.

But he and other pro-Russian figures are running out of time to capitalize on feelings of Slavic friendship, especially among those who have suffered hardship since war devastated the economy two decades ago.

"We've got nothing in common with Russia," Aleksandar Radojkovic, a 38-year-old unemployed carpenter, said before jumping on a beat-up yellow bicycle in Jagodina. "Most things that come to Serbia come from the West, and if when we try to run away from here and find work somewhere, it's the West again, not Russia."

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Henry Meyer and Peter Laca contributed.

 

foreignpolicy.com

The Budding Autocrats of the Balkans

John Hudson | 2 days ago

At first glance, especially compared to other parts of the world, the Balkans seem to be in great shape.

The last few years, in particular, appear to have been good for the region’s ambitions to integrate with the West. In 2013, Croatia formally joined the European Union, after nine years as a candidate state. The year before, Serbia became an official candidate for membership in the union. And in 2014 Albania joined the ranks of Montenegro and Macedonia, which have been candidate states for several years. Even Kosovo, whose independence is unrecognized by five EU members, signed a Stabilization and Association Agreement with the EU, paving the way for potential future membership.

Meanwhile, NATO extended an official invitation for membership to Montenegro last December; one month later, without much fanfare, the Serbian government signed an Individual Partnership Action Plan with NATO, which deepens cooperation between the Serbian military and the Western military alliance and grants NATO troops immunity and freedom of movement throughout Serbian territory. Albania and Croatia have been NATO members since 2009, while Macedonia’s bid to join has been impeded by its name dispute with Greece.

The goal of the recent diplomatic push by the West has been to counter Russian influence in the region and ensure the consolidation of democratic regimes and the rule of law there. And the West’s efforts do seem to be bearing fruit.

But a closer look at this presumed success reveals that the fruit may be rotten. A new generation of autocrats has been taking over the region, sometimes with the direct complicity of overzealous American policymakers and distracted EU officials. The apparent Westernization of the region, it’s now clear, has come at great cost.

Both U.S. and EU policymakers have been willing to turn a blind eye to corruption, which plagues the region’s governments, and have either downplayed or ignored the creeping rise of autocratic rulers. These autocrats operate under a different, savvier playbook than those of the 1990s: Internationally, they enthusiastically embrace the EU in their foreign policy. With the exception of Serbia, they express the same fervor for NATO. They are well-coached in telling Western diplomats what they want to hear, while blatantly undermining democratic principles and the rule of law at home.

Domestically, these rulers rely on a tried and tested formula that makes their economically downtrodden citizenries, who suffer from some of the highest unemployment rates in Europe, entirely dependent on state-controlled patronage networks for jobs and other resources. These rulers also undermine their domestic opponents by forging alliances with oligarchs, often dependent on the state for their wealth, and exerting control over the media and the judiciary.

Take Montenegro. A small country of some 650,000, Montenegro has in one way or another been under the rule of current Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic and his Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) for 25 years. In the late 1990s, Djukanovic broke with the pro-Serbian wing of his party and led Montenegro to independence from Serbia in 2006. Since then, Djukanovic has, in effect, turned Montenegro into his family’s private fiefdom. In 2007, Italian prosecutors charged Djukanovic with leading a conspiracy involving cigarette smuggling and money laundering in the 1990s — charges Djukanovic has vehemently and repeatedly denied while relying on his diplomatic immunity to avoid cooperating with the prosecution. In 2009, a report by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists found that Djukanovic owned assets worth nearly $15 million — a hefty nest egg for someone earning his reported income, a monthly salary of 1,500 euros. Djukanovic’s brother, Aco Djukanovic, is one of Montenegro’s wealthiest men. Having started off as a concert promoter in the 1990s, he is now — among the plethora of other businesses he’s involved in — the primary shareholder of First Bank, which underwent what many believed to be a rigged privatization in 2006. The privatization involved an open tender producing only a single bidder, a company owned by the prime minister’s brother. The bank subsequently became Montenegro’s largest, with the government becoming its largest client.

In Macedonia, the decadelong rule by the center-right VMRO-DPMNE party of Nikola Gruevski has been accompanied not only by rampant corruption, but also by a thorough and overt undermining of democracy. A wiretapping scandal involving Gruevski exploded last year, revealing the government’s extensive use of domestic intelligence to spy on the opposition and Gruevski’s own political associates. As late as 2014, the EU identified few serious problems with high-level corruption in Macedonia — but after the scandal broke, a European Commission inquiry determined that the government had systematically engaged in “interference in judicial affairs, restrictions of freedom of the media, electoral irregularities, blurring of state and party, as well as lack of oversight over intelligence activities.” The political fallout from the scandal, including the opposition’s boycott of parliament, concluded with an EU mediator negotiating Gruevski’s resignation and the setting of a timeframe for new elections this year. Gruevski’s absence from government seems temporary, however. He is active in campaigning and makes almost daily media appearances, and polls show that VMRO-DPMNE remains Macedonia’s most popular party and is poised to return to power. And just this week, Gruevski’s ally, Macedonian President Gjorge Ivanov, abruptly ordered the end of a criminal inquiry on the wiretapping scandal. This effectively frees Gruevski from the potential prospect of facing criminal charges for his conduct.

From Croatia to Albania, the region has plenty of grim stories of autocrats cloaking themselves in democrats’ clothing.

From Croatia to Albania, the region has plenty of grim stories of autocrats cloaking themselves in democrats’ clothing. Yet credit for the most dramatic political transformation — from ally of a war criminal to darling of the West — no doubt belongs to current Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic.

Vucic has quickly become a favorite in the West for his willingness to chip away at Russian influence in the country. Vucic has managed to pull off this remarkable feat despite the resistance of his governing partner and former mentor, President Tomislav Nikolic. Both Vucic and Nikolic spent the late 1990s as allies of former dictator Slobodan Milosevic but have since come a long way in refashioning their images from radical nationalists to reformers. Last year, Vucic was among the few Balkan leaders to be received at the White House, where he met U.S Vice President Joe Biden and National Security Advisor Susan Rice. In a move that likely pleased U.S. officials, Vucic pulled off a major geopolitical coup by signing the controversial agreement with NATO, effectively undermining what many saw as Russian efforts to gain a military foothold in Serbia. Unsurprisingly, Moscow responded indignantly to Belgrade’s agreement with NATO but has so far shied away from any steps to retaliate.

And yet Vucic has not exactly thrown the Kremlin’s phone number into the trash. Last October, he visited Moscow, where he met President Vladimir Putin and signed a deal for the purchase of Russian military equipment. Unlike Albania and Montenegro, Vucic has resisted demands to abide by EU sanctions against Russia, imposed after the Ukraine crisis. He and Nikolic have both made personal efforts to allay Russian fears over Serbia’s NATO agreement and reaffirm its official position of military neutrality.

Last December, Vucic was lauded by EU officials for arresting 80 former officials, including former ministers, on corruption charges. Conveniently for Vucic, most of those arrested were members of opposition parties. Serbia’s independent media have also suffered under his rule: Human Rights Watch has reported that the number of attacks and threats against journalists in Serbia was among the highest in the region. Just recently, a journalist at Serbia’s state television was sacked for asking Vucic “inappropriate questions” about his role in the ethnic cleansing of the 1990s. It was bad timing: Flaunting his reformist and pro-EU credentials is especially important for Vucic these days, as he faces an election later this month, which he is expected to win handily.

Vucic has managed, in part, to endear himself to the West through his willingness to continue negotiations with the leadership of Kosovo, in a bid to “normalize” relations with the nascent country. This “normalization,” however, falls short of any real intention by Serbia to recognize Kosovo’s independence, which Vucic categorically rejects, or dismantle Belgrade’s parallel institutions in the Serbian-controlled north. In fact, under pressure from the EU and United States, late last year the Kosovar government agreed to recognize and incorporate some of these institutions, a move that sparked a political backlash. (Kosovo, less than a decade old, is itself already exhibiting features of a budding autocracy: The Democratic Party of Kosovo, led by former Prime Minister and recently inaugurated President Hashim Thaci, failed to gain a ruling majority in the country’s 2014 elections and held on to power mainly by relying on the party’s control over the Constitutional Court. In response to the opposition’s protests against the agreement with Belgrade, the government has arrested dozens of opposition MPs and the leader of the main opposition party and used antiterrorist police units to ransack the main opposition party’s headquarters.)

For a variety of reasons, U.S. and EU policymakers have shown great tolerance toward the abuses of Balkan autocrats. In the context of the Ukraine crisis, U.S. priorities have shifted toward expanding NATO and preventing, or minimizing, Russian influence in the region, especially in Serbia and Montenegro. This makes leaders like Djukanovic and Vucic especially valued interlocutors. Some observers believe that U.S. support in recognizing Serbian claims in northern Kosovo is partly the result of this shifting geopolitical landscape, in which the United States is willing to pay a price to appease Belgrade. The diplomatic push for Kosovo’s international recognition has also appeared to lose steam: Despite being recognized by more than 100 countries, Kosovo has remained largely shut out of international organizations. Last year, the country launched a failed bid to join UNESCO.

Geopolitics have also enhanced the importance of efficient Balkan rulers in other ways: Today, their ability to deliver immediately on the more expedient demands of Western powers is more valued than success at the long and slow processes of democratic and judicial reform. The refugee crisis has made Macedonia an important frontier state, and the EU has turned a blind eye to the country’s use of violent tactics to keep Syrian and other Middle Eastern refugees from entering the country in transit to such destinations as Austria, Germany, and France. Serbia’s efforts to control the flow of refugees have been equally applauded, especially given the tensions the issue has created in neighboring Hungary. Moreover, domestic crises, including the eurozone dilemma, Brexit, and political fallouts from the flow of refugees, have kept EU officials preoccupied with internal matters, making EU enlargement largely an afterthought.

The overriding concerns with issues of security and political stability are partly responsible for giving free rein to the budding autocrats of the Balkans. Aware of their indispensability to strategic goals and interests beyond democratization and the rule of law, local leaders have masterfully exploited the political and diplomatic cover offered by strengthened EU and U.S. ties to attack and undermine domestic opponents. These ties especially have allowed leaders like Gruevski, Thaci, and Djukanovic to claim that, unlike their opponents, they enjoy the support of powerful Western patrons. And, with domestic opposition weakened, little stands in the way between them and their grand ambitions of power.

The Balkans may provide a buffer to contain Russian influence in Europe and fortify it from the flow of Middle Eastern refugees. Tolerating autocratic behavior and misrule may seem a worthwhile price to pay for stability. But this is a dangerous and costly gamble. Last year, in a visit to Croatia, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland gave a speech warning the region’s leaders against threats of “violent extremism, corruption, and criminality and the sleazy autocrats and oligarchs who come bearing gifts that promote their own interests.” The statement was interpreted as a jab at Russia. But U.S. and EU policymakers need to ask themselves if oligarchs, autocrats, and kleptocrats, who happen to be pro-Western, are any better than Putin — or helpful for the West’s long-term interests in the region. The EU must also decide whether it will make the push for reform and meaningful political change or allow the Balkans’ fledgling autocrats to swindle their way into the EU.

Photo credit: ROBERT ATANASOVSKI/AFP/Getty Images

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politico.eu

Serbia's latest would-be savior is a modernizer, a strongman — or both

Matthew Karnitschnig

BELGRADE — Depending whom you ask, Aleksandar Vučić is either Serbia’s last great hope to become a modern European democracy or a strongman-in-waiting whose autocratic tendencies threaten to destabilize the Balkans.

A one-time ultranationalist who played chess with the Bosnian Serb General Ratko Mladić and served as information minister under the nineties wartime leader Slobodan Milošević, the Serbian prime minister presents himself these days as a reformer committed to leading his country into the EU. Europe, tired of the turmoil that rocked the region for the better part of two decades, wants to believe him and has put Belgrade’s membership application on the top of the accession pile.

Vučić is expected to emerge the clear victor in parliamentary elections later this month. The latest polls suggest his Serbian Progressive Party and its allies may even win an outright majority. The big question — for both the Balkans and Europe — is what he plans to do with that power.

His detractors warn that he is building an Orbán-like political machine at both the national and local level, quelling dissent by maintaining a tight grip on the country’s media.

“What’s his game? I don’t know, but it’s not good for democracy in Serbia,” said Jelena Milić, director of the Belgrade-based Center for Euro-Atlantic Studies, a liberal think tank.

Love him or hate him, it’s difficult to deny that the 46-year-old Vučić has become the region’s key political actor. By keeping a lid on regional tensions from Kosovo to Bosnia, Vučić has managed to win the confidence of key leaders in the U.S. and Europe.

‘We are fed up with being the bad guys of the world’

During his visit to Berlin in September, Angela Merkel applauded Vučić’s “courageous decisions” on Kosovo, adding that his openness to compromise had given Serbia’s EU aspirations an “important impulse.”

Sitting in his Belgrade office last week, Vučić, dressed casually in jeans and a sport coat over an open gingham shirt, returned the compliment. “I consider her to be the true leader of Europe and I’m not ashamed to say that,” he said matter-of-factly.

During the lengthy discussion, Vučić, an imposing figure of about two meters, appeared both confident and relaxed. Time and again, he insisted that his only agenda was to firmly anchor Serbia in Europe.

“My political philosophy is to bring the economy to the top of our priorities, which means to have political stability to do all necessary reforms,” he said.

Nationalist roots

Nearly 20 years after NATO bombs rained on Belgrade, the country’s economy remains weak. Economic output per head was just above $5,000 in 2015, putting Serbia, a country of just over 7 million, alongside the likes of Iraq and Libya. Amid the Balkan wars and persistent domestic tensions, Serbia’s economy never completed the transition from the communism of the Yugoslav period to a market economy. Unemployment is about 20 percent and the state sector remains the dominant employer in the country. Though the government is in the process of privatizing state-owned companies, many are too inefficient to attract buyers.

Nonetheless, Serbia has made progress in restructuring its economy to bring its debt under control in recent years, winning high marks from the International Monetary Fund and others. Economic growth, at 0.8 percent last year, is modest but has beat expectations. If all goes according to plan, the economy should grow by more than 2 percent this year, Vučić predicts, above the IMF’s forecast of 1.75 percent.

More important, the changing environment is attracting sorely needed foreign investment, from Ikea to Hilton to Chinese infrastructure companies. Just last week, China made an offer to acquire a state-owned steel plant, a crucial deal that could secure thousands of jobs in the beleaguered sector.

Given that trajectory, it might be difficult to understand why critics both in Serbia and in neighboring countries distrust Vučić’s motives.

“I consider her to be the real leader of Europe”  — Aleksandar Vučić says of German Chancellor Angela Merkel. “And I’m not ashamed to say that.”

The answer lies in his past as an extremist. In his early twenties, Vučić joined the Serbian Radical Party, an ultranationalist group to the right of Milošević that wanted to carve a “Greater Serbia” out of the ruins of Yugoslavia. He became a protégé of Vojislav Šešelj, the party’s leader who just last month was acquitted of war crimes in The Hague.

As minister of information in 1998, Vučić cracked down on critical journalists, imposed hefty fines on publishers that didn’t fall into line and even banned some foreign media, moves he now says he regrets.

Vučić broke with Šešelj in 2008, joining a group of other pro-EU Radical Party officials, including current president Tomsislav Nikolić, to form the Progressive Party.

‘I’ve admitted my mistakes’

In the years that followed, Vučić, who famously declared in parliament in 2007 that his home would always be a “safe house” for suspected war criminal Mladić, gradually became more conciliatory. While he never fully renounced his nationalist ideology, he condemned the Srebrenica massacre and acknowledged Serbia’s shared responsibility for the Balkan wars. He visited Srebrenica for commemorations twice last year, returning for a second visit in November after being forced to flee by a rock-throwing mob during his first trip.

“I do my best to be very realistic,” he said. “I’m not ashamed of my past, but I’ve admitted my mistakes, publicly.”

Today, he credits that metamorphosis for his political success.

“Many people felt the same,” he said. “They believe in me today because they had the same feelings, the same political attitudes, the same political stance and now they are different. We are changed.”

There’s no question Vučić’s conservative pro-EU message has resonated amongst Serbs.

A walk through central Belgrade helps explain why. For all Serbia’s progress, the country still has one foot firmly planted in its past. Reminders are everywhere. Just a block from Vučić’s office stands the bombed out shell of the former defense ministry, a prime target of the NATO bombings in 1999 that successive governments have left in ruins as a reminder of that conflict with the West. Along Knez Mihailova, Belgrade’s main shopping street, vendors hawk pro-Mladić T-shirts that read: “What’s the General afraid of? God and nothing else.”

For more than a decade after Milošević was overthrown in 2000, Serbia was controlled by reform-minded democratic parties. Many Serbs saw the democrats as the country’s salvation after the wars and isolation of the Milošević era.

It was a tumultuous period, marked by the assassination of Prime Minister Zoran Đinđić in 2003 and other crises. Many Serbs were also left disillusioned by widespread government corruption.

In 2012 parliamentary elections, Vučić’s Progressives captured 24 percent of the vote, finishing first. A few weeks later, Progressive party founder Nikolić was elected Serbian president, further bolstering the party’s position.

After another round of parliamentary elections in 2014, the Progressives doubled their support to nearly 50 percent, giving them a majority of the seats in parliament and making Vučić prime minister.

EU or Russia?

Despite his dominant position, Vučić called elections two years ahead of schedule in January, seeking a fresh four-year mandate. Months earlier, he hired another political renegade — former British Prime Minister and Labour leader Tony Blair — to advise him. Vučić’s aim is to secure another full term before he implements the deep job cuts and fiscal measures necessary to retool Serbia’s economy. His hope is that Serbia will be poised to join the EU by the time the government’s next term ends in 2020.

That may be wishful thinking. The Commission has made it clear it’s in no rush to admit new members, but the EU’s general disarray and political infighting may ultimately prove to be the bigger obstacle.

The risk is that keeping Belgrade on hold will push it deeper into the arms of Russia.

Russian investment in Serbia is modest compared to that from the EU. Still, polls show Serbs consistently regard Moscow as Serbia’s most important ally. Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Serbia in 2014 to celebrate Belgrade’s liberation from the Nazis in 1944 by the Red Army. The commemoration, which included the country’s largest military parade in decades, was even pushed forward a few days to accommodate Putin’s schedule.

While Serbs generally have a positive view of the EU, their connection to Slavic, Orthodox Russia has a more visceral, almost mystical quality.

That tendency appears particularly strong among younger people. Though most young Serbs believe both living and democratic standards are higher in the EU than in Russia, a clear majority would welcome a Russian military presence in the country and would support Moscow’s foreign policy, according to a recent Ipsos study of 18-35 year-olds.

Milić, of the Center for Euro-Atlantic Studies, says Vučić does nothing to counter Moscow’s influence. Serbia did not join the EU and U.S. in imposing sanctions against Moscow for its annexation of Crimea. Milić says Russia’s soft power, which she calls the “invisible hand” in Serbian politics, is growing. Šešelj and other far-right groups advocate closer ties with Russia. Their message is transported across Serbian social media by dozens of supposedly grass-roots pro-Moscow organizations that have sprouted in recent years.

Milić says her own institute, which favors a pro-NATO course, has had its servers taken down by hackers. She was recently given police protection after receiving threats.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic | John Macdougall/AFP via Getty Images

“People are sentimental about Russia but are pragmatic,” explains Bojan Klačar, an analyst with the Center for Free Elections and Democracy, a non-partisan group that monitors and analyzes the country’s political scene.

Vučić said he saw no reason why Serbia’s close ties to Moscow should be an obstacle on its way to the EU.

“Yes, we would like to preserve traditionally good relations with Russia …but our priority, speaking about foreign policy, is to be on the EU path,” he said.

‘Self-censorship widespread’

If nothing else, Vučić and his party have brought Serbia a semblance of stability. Though the liberal parties that preceded the Progressives laid the groundwork for Serbia’s EU aspirations, it was Vučić who formally set the ball rolling by beginning the accession process in 2014.

Nonetheless, his detractors say the stability has come at the cost of democratic values, in particular a free press. In recent years, the Vienna-based Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe has repeatedly complained about physical assaults against critical journalists, as well as hacker attacks directed at a number of media websites.

“Media outlets and journalists continued to face pressure from politicians and owners over content and editorial policies,” democracy watchdog Freedom House concluded last year.

This week, a reporter from Serbia’s public broadcaster in the Vojvodina region was suspended and had her salary cut for asking about Vučić’s ultranationalist past.

Vučić tweeted “all of those who punish journalists, supposedly in my name, should be ashamed of themselves.” But Serbian reporters say such reprisals are far from rare. In Brussels, officials downplay such concerns. Given the continued tumult in the region, Serbia looks to be a relative sea of calm.

“The EU is interested in the stability of the region and he delivers,” said Ljubica Gojgić, a prominent Serbian broadcast journalist. “From the point of view of Brussels, they couldn’t hope for a better partner.”

While acknowledging Vučić’s shortcomings, in particular his sensitivity to criticism, EU officials say they see no viable alternative. By appealing to both nationalists and reform-minded pro-EU voters, Vučić is in a unique position to move the country forward, they argue.

So far, he has given them little reason to doubt his sincerity. Not only has he stayed true to Serbia’s reform course, he has also helped keep the peace in the Balkans. On Kosovo, he proved to be more willing to compromise than the liberals in power before him.

During the refugee crisis in the Balkans last year, Serbia was a model of cooperation. After Hungary closed its border, Belgrade shuttled refugees to the Croatian frontier, ensuring the refugees safe passage.

In the interview, Vučić said his biggest worry was the rise of extremism in the region, especially in and around Bosnia. The recent Hague verdicts have reopened old wounds on all sides.
“Who knows what spark might ignite Bosnia,” he said.

In Serbia, Šešelj’s acquittal has made it all but certain that his Radical Party, which was shut out in the last elections, will win seats in parliament.

On the campaign trail in recent days, Vučić has warned that the nationalists could even regain power. Given his huge lead in the polls, the comments appear to be a spirited attempt to get out the vote.

Some analysts say the return of the ultranationalists could end up helping Vučić by making his party appear more measured.

The risk is that after regaining a platform in parliament, the extremists will return the national debate to a narrative of Serbian victimhood. Vučić said he’s determined to keep that from happening.

“We need a good reputation,” he said. “We are fed up with being the bad guys of the world … we want to just be a normal boring country in 10 or 20 years.”

 

newsweek.com

Panama Papers: Who was behind the investigation into elite's tax havens?

By Paul Lashmar On 4/4/16 at 8:16 AM

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

With the Panama Papers exposé perhaps we can now say the fortress walls of offshore secrecy are finally cracking. Such havens allow corruption and tax avoidance to take place on a massive international scale by some of the richest and most powerful people on Earth. Meanwhile, the poor get poorer.

Western politicians have huffed and puffed about clamping down on offshore havens but in reality their collective breath would not have knocked over a little piggie’s straw house let alone bastions of vested interest. It is thanks to investigative reporters, whistleblowers and unprecedented international media collaboration that the matter is being forced.

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The advocacy group Global Financial Integrity reports that illegal channelling of profits offshore cost developing countries nearly US$6 trillion between 2001 and 2010. As Facebook posters like to remind us, one percent of the world’s population owns half the wealth and they like to hoard it.

But finally things may be changing. We are being treated to the third major offshore data leak in as many years. The first was the Cayman Islands tax leak in 2013 that exposed a huge number of major figures worldwide as holding accounts in the tiny island—a British dependency—in secrecy.

Then there was the great HSBC leak which revealed that the company’s Swiss private bank had helped wealthy account holders from other nations to dodge huge sums of due tax. Now it is the turn of Panama—an excellent place to park large sums of money.

The Panama investigation has again featured a network of like-minded journalists in a range of countries. The network has been built up over a series of multinational collaborations. Among the organisations involved are The Guardian and BBC TV’s Panorama programme, which have a longstanding relationship with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) which is at the heart of this operation. The material is reported to have been leaked to the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung from the database of Mossack Fonseca, the world’s fourth biggest offshore law firm.

As the cracks appear in the once invincible wall of tax haven secrecy, it must be dawning on the rich and powerful that their privacy is no longer guaranteed. The opening reports of the Panama Papers focus on a US$2bn trail to Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia. But we can expect coming days to bring revelations about many more people. The last thing the rich and powerful who have offshore bank accounts want is publicity about them. Their questions must be “where next” and “which havens remain safe?”

Secret banking paradise

What is important about Panama’s financial services industry? If you tap “Panama offshore” into Google you get a long list of adverts offering to set up a Panama offshore (secret) bank account for you.

For those wanting to establish a really secret tax avoidance scheme it is not good enough just to pick one offshore tax haven—say the British Virgin Islands or the Cayman Islands. You need a series of interlocking offshore accounts in different jurisdictions to guarantee anonymity. British Virgin Islands is good for setting up companies and the Caymans provides extremely discreet bank accounts. Meanwhile Panama is tax exempt and stonewalls requests for company information from investigators in the rest of the world.

Offshore companies incorporated in Panama—and the owners of the companies—are exempt from any corporate taxes, withholding taxes, income tax, capital gains tax, local taxes, and estate or inheritance taxes, including gift taxes.

Panama has more than 350,000 secretive International Business Companies (IBCs) registered: the third largest number in the world after Hong Kong and the British Virgin Islands. Alongside incorporation of IBCs, Panamanian financial services are proactive in forming tax-avoiding foundations and trusts, insurance, and boat and shipping registration. Violation of financial secrecy is punishable by prison.

Panama ranks at 14th position on the 2015 Financial Secrecy Index. But it remains a jurisdiction of particular concern. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Pascal Saint Amans summed up the problem recently: “From the standpoint of reputation, Panama is still the only place where people still believe they can hide their money.”

The Tax Justice Network says that “until now Panama has been fairly indifferent to reputational issues, but the increased attention that Panama receives will inevitably raise concerns among the punters that Panama is no longer able to effectively protect the identity of the crooks and scammers attracted by its dodgy laws and equally dodgy law firms.”

TJN says Panama has long been the recipient of drugs money from Latin America, plus ample other sources of dirty money from the US and elsewhere—it is one of the oldest and best known tax havens in the Americas. In recent years it has adopted a hard-line position as a jurisdiction that refuses to cooperate with international transparency initiatives.

In Jeffrey Robinson’s 2003 examination of tax havens: The Sink: Terror, Crime and Dirty Money in the Offshore World, a US Customs official is quoted as saying:

The country is filled with dishonest lawyers, dishonest bankers, dishonest company formation agents and dishonest companies registered there by those dishonest lawyers so that they can deposit dirty money into their dishonest banks. The Free Trade Zone is the black hole through which Panama has become one of the filthiest money laundering sinks in the world.

The investigators

The emergence of a multinational network of journalists prepared to take on these secret havens has at its heart the investigative journalist Gerald Ryle, who spent 26 years working as a reporter and editor in Australia and Ireland, including many years at The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age newspapers.

A quietly spoken man, he uncovered some of the biggest stories in Australian journalism, winning four prestigious Walkley Awards including the Gold Walkley, Australia’s highest award for journalism.

While working for the Sydney Morning Herald in Australia, Ryle was told by a source he would receive an significant package which could be the biggest story of his career.

I still remember the day it arrived, there was just the office manager there, I just hugged her and thanked her and walked back to my office. I pulled the package open and there was a hard drive inside.

At first he did not know what it all meant but it became clear that it was an enormous cache of details of confidential emails, documents and files from the offshore world. From what could be made of the scattered and vastly disorganised material, Ryle later recalled his thoughts.

I know it is a potential goldmine but I don’t actually know what I’m looking at, I’m not sure how valuable it is.

Ryle knew it was information from the secretive offshore world, was authentic and that the next step was to organise extracting the data in some kind of meaningful format. A chance to have access to the resources needed for this type of operation became available when Ryle was offered a job heading the International Consortium of Investigative journalists (ICIJ) in Washington DC.

Founded in 1997, ICIJ was launched as a project of the Centre for Public Integrity to extend the centre’s style of watchdog journalism, focusing on issues that do not stop at national frontiers: cross-border crime, corruption, and the accountability of power.

Teamwork

With the consortium’s resources available to him, Ryle started to organise an international effort to structure the information so that journalists worldwide could analyse and find big names and stories from the data on a safe and secure platform in an efficient and ordered way.

Within 24 hours of publication of details of Cayman Island tax havens in April 2013, the Guardian was filled with stories from a collaboration with the International Consortium of Investigative journalists (ICIJ). The tie-up also included the BBC in the UK, Le Monde in France, Süddeutsche Zeitung and Norddeutscher Rundfunk in Germany, The Washington Post, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) and 31 other international media partners.

According to the ICIJ, 86 journalists from 46 countries used both hi-tech data crunching and traditional reporting to sift through emails and account ledgers covering nearly 30 years. One of the biggest hits for the ICIJ was on Azerbijan’s president, Ilham Aliyev, after he and members of his family were revealed as shareholders in at least four offshore companies. It is against Azerbaijani law to be involved in business while in power. By September 2013, journalists from 190 countries had produced stories from the database about prominent citizens who had hidden offshore accounts.

HSBC leak

Then in February 2015 a team of journalists from 45 countries opened to public scrutiny secret bank accounts maintained for criminals, traffickers, tax dodgers, politicians and celebrities. Secret documents in the data batch revealed that global banking giant HSBC profited from doing business with arms dealers, the ICIJ reported. The leaked files, based on the inner workings of a Swiss private banking arm of HSBC, related to accounts holding more than $100 billion. They provided a rare glimpse inside the super-secret Swiss banking system.

The documents, obtained by the ICIJ via the French newspaper Le Monde, showed the private banking arm had dealt with clients who were engaged in illegal behaviour.

In February 2015, after being informed of the full extent of the reporting team’s findings, HSBC gave a conciliatory response, telling ICIJ: “We acknowledge that the compliance culture and standards of due diligence in HSBC’s Swiss private bank, as well as the industry in general, were significantly lower than they are today.”

Later that year ICIJ was given access to the largest data haul so far—some 11m documents covering accounts held by the rich across the globe. The follow-up stories are breaking now and will fill news bulletins for months—maybe years. It is proof—if any were needed—of the need for investigative journalists to hold the powerful to account.

Paul Lashmar is a senior lecturer in Journalism at the University of Sussex

 

Dvor - Massacre of mentaly sick people in hospital... Danish documentary movie

 

This  Danish documentary movie  (in Danish, Serbian and in part of English) was removed from Serbian T.V. not to offend Croatian States?!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9RXqbcA0TQ