Belgrade Insight, No. 11

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NEWS NEWS

Friday • June 13 • 2008

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Weekly Issue No. Nov. 13, 7 - 2008 Nov. 13, 2008 Issue No.11, 1 /Friday, Friday, June

Serbia’s DeltaAlliance Eyes Slovenia’s Lure of Tadic Splits Mercator Socialists The potential purchase of 48 per cent of Mercator would create a Balkan retail behemoth.

While younger Socialists support joining a new, pro-EU government, old Milosevic loyalists threaten revolt over the prospect.

Miroslav Miskovic has his eyes on Mercator

By Aleksandar Vasovic

stake over the coming weeks and expect to conclude a sale by March. elta Holding, owned by Ser- Infond owns 25 per cent of Mercator Socialistbia’s leader Ivica Dacic remains the Serbian kingmaker and is also the single largest stakewealthiest businessman, Miroslav Miskovic, says it holder in Pivovarna Lasko. to Shares Serbia’sin late president, Slobodan

By RadetoMaroevic Belgrade stake Mercator dipped over 3 intends bid for ain48-per-cent cent on the the in the Slovenian supermarket and re- per Milosevic, andannouncement reformists whoonwant Exchange. tail chain Mercator, theonSerbian me- Ljubljana the party Stock to become a modern Euroense negotiations a new govIn Ljubljana, Bosko Srot, chairdia reported. pean social democrat organisation. ernment have divided the ranks A successful acquisition would man of Pivovarna Lasko, insisted the After sale eightofyears of stagnation, of theDelta, Socialist which holds proposed the company’s stake make whichParty, currently operates Socialistswas returned centre stage the Maxi balance powergrocery between the intheMercator “not atoconsequence the andof Tempo chains the winning financial20 crisis”. in Serbia, theand single retail op- of after of the 250 seats in main blocs has largest yet to announce He added: “Mercator not be erator thethey Balkans. parliament in the May 11 will elections. whichinside will support.

“As Delta plans to expand its sold to a financial institution but to a With the pro-European and nation“It looks as if the Socialists will businesses throughout Southeastern merchant, as Pivovarna Lasko wants alist almost evenly matched, move towards a government led by the buyer opening markets for Europe, such an acquisition would to see blocs the SocialistsMeanwhile, now have theDelta final say theaDemocrats,” politicalto analyst Mi- Mercator.” anbe major contribution the comit of would launch talks with pletion of that Delta saidCenin a nounced on the fate the country. lan Nikolic, of aim,” the independent and “inform statement.

Nikolic Lasko believes thewould Socialists, led tre of Policy Studies, said. “But such Pivovarna On Thursday, both Pivovarna the Slovenian government of its inby Ivica Dacic, will come over to a move might provoke deeper diviLasko brewery and the Infond invest- tentions”.

Tadic, if only a pragmatic desionsfund and even split the party.”

In 2005, justout16ofper cent of Merment announced they planned to sire to ensure their political negotiations revenue came fromsurvival. outside sellSimultaneous their holdings in Mercator. held cator’s But since then itSocialists has beThe groups jointly 48% Slovenia.

“The group of younger with thetwo pro-European andown nationalthe second retail operaof group anddrawn state that they plan gathered around largest Dacic seems to be istthe blocs have attention to a come to invite tenders for their combined tor in terms of market share, both in in the majority”, Nikolic said, adding deep rift inside the Socialists. that these reformists believe the party This divides “old-timers” loyal

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POLITICS

THIS ISSUE OF MojsiIn an interview with Juliana lovic, Interior Minister, Ivica Dacic Belgrade Insight talks IS about Serbia’s efforts SUPPORTED BY:to cooperate with the Hague war crimes tribunal.

Business Insight

Costs Mounting

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conomists are warning that prolonged uncertainty over Serbia’s future could scare off investors, lead NEIGHBOURHOOD to higher inflation and jeopardise prosperity for years to come.

After two years of political impasse “This year has been lost, from the in Bosnia, the EU is preparing to standpoint of economic policy,” says strengthen its engagement and take Stojan Stamenkovic of the Economsole charge of the international community’s presence there. ics Institute in Belgrade. page 5

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neighbouring Croatia and in Serbia, Mercator currently operates 1,200 outlets in the Balkan region and turnover in 2008 is expected to exceed 2.6 billion euros. faces extinction unless it changes.

Matej Lahovnik, a former Slovenian agriculture minister, saidalso he However, a strong current was notinsurprised

by Delta’s interest. flows the opposite direction, led “Pivovarna Lasko would not initiate by party veterans enraged by the the sale without sounding out potenprospect of ahedeal with Tadic. tial buyers,” said.

Mihajlo Markovic, a founder of However, Delta is not the only potential France’s the party,bidder. recently warnedCarrefour, of a crisis Europe’s largest retailer, and if Dacic single opts for the pro-European Croatia’s Agrokor, part owner of the bloc, abandoning the Socialists’ “natIdea group, may also be interested in ural” ideological partners. acquiring the stake, Slovenian media Markovic, a prominent supporter reported.

Holding is Serbia’s fourth ofDelta Milosevic during the 1990s, is largest with operations in seen ascompany representative of the “oldimport/export, banking, insurance, timers” in the party who want to stay retail and wholesale. Through its vartrue subsidiaries to the former policies, ious it regime’s has established a even though these almost the presence throughout most ruined of Southeastern Europe.

Socialists for good.

Earlier this year, Socialist Delta announced Some younger officials its expansion in Slovenia with a dehave voiced frustration over the continuing impasse within their own

BUSINESS EDITOR’S WORD The IMF predicts a budget defecit in Serbia in 2009 of 50 billion dinars.

Political Predictability

By Mark R. Pullen

party over which way to turn.

“The situation in the party seems Page 4 extremely complicated, as we try to convince the few remaining lagOUT & ABOUT gards that we need to move out of This week, we explore Vrsac on the Milosevic’s shadow,” one Socialist Romanian border.

Party official complained.

“Dacic will eventually side with Many of us who have experiTadic in a bid to guide his party into enced numerous Serbian elections the European mainstream, but much rate ourselves as pundits when it of the membership and many officomes to predicting election recials may oppose that move.” sults and post-election moves.

9 Nikolic agreed: “The question is We feel in-the-knowPage because will the party split or will the ‘oldour experience of elections in Sertimers’ back down,” he noted. bia has shownLIFE us that (a.) no single Fearing they might not cross the Belgrade party or Insight coalitiontakes will ever gain the a workout at Ciganlija.

5-per-cent threshold to enter parlia- Ada majority required to form a government, the Socialists teamed up with ment, and (b.) political negotiations the Association of Pensioners and the will never be quickly concluded.

United Serbia Party, led by businessEven when the Democrats manPhoto DraganbyMarkovic “Palma”. achieved their surprising result at Aleksandar Andjic Pensioners leader, Jovan Krkobalast month’s general election, it velopment a €240 million bic, Palmaofand Dacic are allshopping pushing quickly became clear that the remall the with capital, for aindeal theLjubljana.

Democrats. sult was actually more-or-less the In 2006, media reported that The reported price is the post of same as every other election result Miskovic and Milan Beko, another deputy PM, with a brief in charge of in Serbia, i.e. inconclusive.

Serbian businessman, were eyeing security for the Socialist leader.value This is likely to continue as long Mercator whose total estimated wasIn then €520 million. addition, the Socialists are baras Serbia’s politiciansPage form10new “It would easier to purgaining for have other been ministries, includpolitical parties every time they SPORT chase it back then, when more funds ing capital investments, Kosovo and disagree with their current party were readily available and lend- Our sports writer charts events in this education, media reported. leader (there are currently 342 reging was on Belgrade more favourable terms,” year’s “Superleague”.

Tadic has denied talk of horseistered political parties in Serbia).

Goran Nikolic, an analyst with the Serbian of Commerce, said. tradingChamber with the Socialists, maintainDrawn-out negotiations are also reputedly ingMiskovic, that ministries would goSerbia’s only to the norm. One Belgrade-based richest person, was listed in a survey those committed to working for the Ambassador recently told me he

by Forbes magazine as the world’s government’s “strategic goal”. was also alarmed by the distinct 891st richest person, with an estiAt wealth the same Dacic seems relack of urgency among Serbian mated oftime, $1 billion.

Page 13 However, magazine luctant to callthe offPolish negotiations with politicians. “The country is at a Wprost, in 2007 put Miskovic’s the nationalists. standstill and I don’t understand MY PICKS wealth far higher, at an estimated “If we don’t reach an agreement their logic. If they are so eager to $2 billion, placing him 42nd on its do you go forthe fresh beauwithofthe and Radicals, par- Where progress towards EUand and enlist theDSS world’s richest the people tiful flowerinvestors, arrangements? ty leadership willon decide on of future courage how come they and in fifth place the list the wealthiest people in the post-comsteps”, Dacic announced, following go home at 5pm sharp and don’t munist the new former the firstworld sessionoutside of country’s parwork weekends?”

Soviet Union. liament on Wednesday.

Surely the situation is urgent enough to warrant a little overtime.

Source: Balkan Insight (www.balkaninsight.com)

ECONOMICS

Serbia will not escape Matters the global fiNeighbourhood nancial slump, says Miodrag Zecevic, executive director of marketing for Energoprojekt.

Football Rebellion

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hile the football world watchPage 5 es events unfold at the European Championships in Austria and BELGRADE Switzerland, Bosnia is experiencing a soccer rebellion, led by fans, playObama’s victorystars waswho echoed in Serers and former are enraged bia’s capital, was leaders named by what theywhere see as he corrupt the President of Belgrade, by US of the country’s football association Ambassador Cameron Munter. leaders. page 10

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Source: www.weather2umbrella.com

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politics

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Dacic: We Don’t Know Where War Criminals Are Serbia is doing its best to fully cooperate with the war crimes tribunal, but doesn’t know where the remaining fugitives are hiding, Interior Minister Ivica Dacic says

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INTERVIEW

by Julijana Mojsilovic in Belgrade

vica Dacic says that the Serbian police, though not tasked with locating war crimes fugitives, check all information that comes from the Prosecutor’s Office and security services.

“There have been five to six such actions in the last several years, but either the information proves wrong or the people found were not [Ratko] Mladic or [Goran] Hadzic,” Dacic told Balkan Insight.

Mladic, wartime commander of the Bosnian Serbs and Hadzic, a Croatian Serb leader in the conflicts of the early 1990s, are the two remaining war crimes suspects that the International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia, ICTY, still seeks from Serbia.

Serbia’s further European integration is conditional on the country being deemed to have fully cooperated with the ICTY, which means the arrest and extradition of the duo.

“It is important that Serbia does everything to show it wishes to achieve full cooperation with The Hague”, Dacic, who became Interior Minister earlier this year, said. He was speaking ahead of a new visit to Belgrade by the tribunal’s Chief Prosecutor, Serge Brammertz.

The Interior Minister said the two fugitives were either not in Serbia or had been extremely careful in their communications, “so that not only our, but also foreign intelligence services, cannot locate them”.

Dacic, leader of the Socialist Party that was once led by Slobodan Milosevic says Serbian intelligence had cooperated well with foreign agencies in locating war crimes fugitives and “the searches over the last few years were based on data provided by them [foreign intelligence]”. However, this data had proved incorrect and therefore did not lead to arrests.

Milosevic, himself indicted for war crimes in the 1990s, died in 2006 while on trial in The Hague. Only two years later, Dacic’s Socialists, firm opponents of the extradition of

Serbian Nationalists Create New Alliance

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hree Serbian nationalist parties, including that of former Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica, have signed a new alliance aiming to challenge the current coalition government.

The Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS), New Serbia (NS), and the new People’s Party (NP), signed a “Declaration on Joint Political Action” because “Serbia is tired of a government like this,” New Serbia’s leader Velimir Ilic said.

“We want to secure a better government that will offer people more security amid the crisis,” Kostunica said.

According to pollsters, all three parties are currently trailing below the 5 percent threshold of voters’ support which is required to enter parliament.

The DSS and NS currently hold 21 and 9 seats respectively in the

war-crimes suspects, entered a government coalition led by the Democrats, Milosevic’s arch political enemies and the driving force behind his ousting and arrest and his extradition to The Hague in 2001.

Dacic said the two parties had left the past behind them and were now focused on Serbia’s future. They had recently strengthened the coalition, signing a declaration on reconciliation.

“I didn’t want the responsibility of the Socialists being accused for the second time of having halted Serbia on its way to Europe, and all the troubles the country faced because of that,” Dacic said, referring to the decision to join the coalition with the pro-European Democrats, and the Milosevic era, when Serbia was under international sanctions.

“On the other hand, it’s a paradox that in 2008, the Socialists, by deciding to form this coalition, are leading Serbia towards the European Union, while [Vojislav] Kostunica, who beat Milosevic in the elections [in 2000], is now against it,” Dacic said.

In May 2008, the closely fought general election left the Socialists in the position of “king makers”. At first, Dacic negotiated with Kostunica’s nationalist bloc, which included the hard-line Radicals. But in the end, Dacic formed a government with the Democrats.

He says the coalition is now “firm and will get more solid in future”, insisting that so far decisions had been reached by consensus in the cabinet.

“Lessons from the past should, in a way, be directions for the future,” Dacic said, adding that his party’s election slogan, “Let’s Start from the Beginning”, had proved right.

His ministry has indeed made a fresh start by intensifying the anticorruption struggle. After police detained 25 people on suspicion of fraud and money laundering, Dacic announced new arrests, warning that no one would be spared regardless of their position or party affiliation.

“Corruption must be fought there, where people have power,” he said.

Dacic also said his ministry closely cooperated with Croatian police ahead of last month’s arrest of sev-

eral persons suspected of planting the car bomb that killed the publisher Ivo Pukanic and an associate in Zagreb.

Two of the men detained in the cross-border police dragnet, dubbed Balkan Express, are Serbian citizens and Dacic said his ministry’s information had led to the arrests.

He said the joint action had inflicted “a serious blow to the criminals on both sides of the border,” adding that the police now anticipated “a coun-

ter-strike and we are getting ready for it,” though he did not specify.

“Police should know no boundaries or political differences because the criminals don’t know them, either,” Dacic said, of the cooperation between the police of Serbia and Croatia, countries that fought each other in the 1990s.

The minister said a meeting would soon take place with his Croatian counterpart, Tomislav Karamarko, while

No let up in hunt for Mladic and Hadzic, says Dacic

Serbia in Brief 250-seat parliament.

Kostunica’s cabinet collapsed in March over disagreements between his loyalists and pro-Western ministers loyal to President Boris Tadic, over whether the government in Belgrade should sign a European Union premembership deal known as a Stabilisation and Association Agreement.

Maja Gojkovic’s People’s Party was recently formed by disenchanted members of the Serbian Radical Party, SRS, from Vojvodina.

“I can foresee early elections in 2009,” Gojkovic said and described Serbia’s ruling coalition as “feeble.”

The creation of the new alliance comes after Tomislav Nikolic, a nationalist, split from the Radicals and formed the Progressive Party, comprised of other disenchanted Radical Party members who opposed the policies of its leader Vojislav Seselj, currently on trial before the United Nations tribunal at The Hague in the Netherlands.

Belgrade-based analysts say that the move is aimed at solidifying Serbia’s political right and creating a foothold for an alliance with Nikolic in the future parliamentary elections slated for 2012.

No Serb Nuke Plant for ‘Another 15 Years’

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erbia will not develop a nuclear power plant for at least another decade, Petar Skundric, the country’s Mining and Energy Minister, says.

His remarks come amid a protracted debate in Serbia’s scientific community over whether the country should build a nuclear power plant to reduce its dependence on imports of electricity, oil and gas.

In remarks carried by Belgrade’s B92 network, Skundric said that “no one should be afraid that Serbia will be developing a nuclear plant within next 15 years.”

“From the moment the country starts to develop a feasibility study for such a power plant, until its actual development, we would need at least 12 years,” Skundric said.

After the 1986 disaster at Ukraine’s Chernobyl nuclear power plant, the then communist Yugoslavia adopted a moratorium on such developments. The former country then had only two reactors, the Krsko power plant in Slovenia and a smaller one, tailored for scientific use, in the Nuclear Sciences Institute at Vinca, just outside Belgrade.

As a successor of the former state, Serbia continued the moratorium after it formally adopted its new constitution in 2006.

He warned that the Serbian public “must know that all of Europe is dotted with nuclear plants and that countries in the region are either building or have plans to develop such power plants.”

“The development and usage of a nuclear power plant mobilises major resources and boosts employment,” he said.

Serbia’s police have also reached bilateral agreements on cooperation with Greece, Romania and Bulgaria. An agreement with Italy will be signed next month. “Serbia’s police are now an important stabilising factor in the region and we are initiating ever better regional cooperation,” Dacic said.

Julijana Mojsilovic is a Balkan Insight contributor. Balkan Insight is BIRN`s online publication.

Photo by Aleksandar Vasovic

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business

IMF Predicts Budget Deficit in 2009

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erbia’s 2009 budget deficit is forecast to be 50 billion dinars (€588 million), an International Monetary Fund delegation said.

During a meeting with the country’s Deputy Prime Minister Jovan Krkobabic, an IMF delegation warned that “the 2009 budget has been drafted in an unfavorable economic climate, and amid the global crisis we forecast a deficit of 50 billion dinars,” the Serbian government’s Information Bureau said in a statement.

IMF experts led by Albert Jaeger warned Krkobabic that industrial growth would be 3.5 per cent with inflation at around 8 per cent.

The team arrived in Belgrade last week to help Serbian economists draft the 2009 budget.

The IMF delegation “also said that an increase of pensions up to 70 per cent of an average wage

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would reduce the funds available for investment and increase the budget deficit.” Krkobabic recently announced that the planned pensions increase is likely to be postponed until 2010.

erbia will offer incentives to foreign investors including low taxes and subsidies, with the aim of boosting the flagging economy, Prime Minister Mirko Cvetkovic said recently.

“To achieve 4 per cent growth in 2009, Serbia needs foreign direct investment. That’s the key,” Cvetkovic said at a business conference with a Greek delegation in the country’s capital.

He said that the government was ready to offer subsidies and other incentives to foreign investors including a “low, 10 per cent tax on profits and 12 per cent income tax.”

Since 2001, Greece has invested

At the meeting with the IMF team, he said that funds for the increase of pensions “can be secured through reductions in the public-sector workforce, better organised fiscal revenues and an

end to the so-called grey economy and corruption.”

Serbia currently has 1.63 million pensioners with an average pension in September of 17,311 dinars (€211).

Deputy PM Krkobabic

Revised 2008 Budget Approved

erbia’s parliament approved a revised 2008 budget, tailored to increase financing of a joint investment deal, development of infrastructure and boost pensions.

Under the provisions of the revised budget, the projected deficit was increased by 45.8 billion dinars (€538.8 million), with planned expenditure of 696 billion dinars and projected revenues of 650.17 billion dinars, leaving a deficit of 1.7 per cent of GDP, a statement said.

The Parliament’s decision will become effective as soon as it is published in the official gazette, the statement said.

During the debate, Finance Minister Diana Dragutinovic told deputies that the reshuffle of the budget was prompted by the government’s decision to allot €200 million to finance

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Friday, Nov. 7 - Nov. 13, 2008

the joint venture between the Zastava carmaker and Italy’s Fiat, another €250 million for the development of the Corridor 10 highway network and a 10 per cent increase in pensions.

The previous government, led by Vojislav Kostunica, had forecast a shortfall of 0.5 per cent of GDP. Serbia’s government previously said that GDP growth in 2008 would be 7 per cent while headline inflation would reach 9.5 per cent. Serbia’s current account defecit in 2008 is forcast at 18.3 per cent of GDP. In past weeks, top Serbian officials have repeatedly said they were hoping that the country would attract as much as €2 billion in foreign investments next year. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development also said it plans to invest €250 million in Serbia in 2009.

Source: seebiz.eu

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Serbia Seeks Deal with IMF

erbia’s government is looking to conclude a key deal with the International Monetary Fund, the country’s Deputy Prime Minister Bozidar Djelic said.

The deal Serbia is seeking with the IMF, a Precautionary arrangement, serves to boost international confidence in a member’s macroeconomic policies.

“Entering that programme would be the best recommendation for investments in Serbia. That is in our best interests and we are not asking the IMF for loans,” Djelic told state state-run RTS Television.

Djelic said Serbia “will sign the deal by the end of the week.”

“The problem is that Serbia’s spending is 20 per cent higher than its production and the IMF has already warned us about that,” Djelic said.

Djelic offered no precise details about the precautionary deal Serbia will sign.

Serbia Wants to Delay NIS Sale

he Serbian government wants to delay the sale of its Naftna Industrija Srbije, NIS, to Russian oil and gas giant OAO Gazprom until the end of 2009, amid uncertainties over how the buyer plans to provide the €500 million for the overhaul of the company, agreed as part of the deal, Serbian media reported.

Last year Serbia and Russia reached a tentative agreement under which Gazprom’s oil arm, Gazpromneft, will purchase a 51 per cent stake in NIS for €400 million and invest a additional €500 million by 2012.

The Serbian negotiators have reportedly asked their Russian counterparts to extend the current November 22 deadline for signing the deal, as it remains unclear whether Gazpromneft will fund the investments through

a cash payment or a loan.

Reports also said that the Russian side preferred that NIS take out a €500 million loan which would be procured with Gazprom’s guarantees.

In July, the Serbian government said it wanted to renegotiate the sale of NIS, arguing the proposed price did not adequately value the company. In August, Deloitte & Touche valued Naftna Industrija Srbije at €2.2 billion.

In his September visit to Belgrade, Sergey Shoigu, Russia’s minister for emergency situations and the key negotiator in the purchase of NIS, flatly rejected Serbia’s proposal.

In the report, Politika also said that the Serbian negotiating team wanted to use the additional time to include HIP Petrohemija, a petrochemicals producer, as part of a wider deal. The

Serbian government owns a 51 per cent stake in HIP Petrohemija.

The NIS Pancevo refinery

Serbia Courts Greek Investments as much as €2.2 billion in Serbia and is the second-largest investor after Austria. A total of 300 Greek companies are currently present in Serbia, mainly in the fields of energy, telecommunications and banking.

In 2007, Serbia had a trade deficit with Greece of as much as €205 million.

Cvetkovic said that one of Serbia’s economic priorities in 2009 will be the development of a motorway network dubbed Corridor 10 that will link the country with its neighbours.

Greece has already allotted €100 million from its Hellenic Plan investment programme for the development of the Corridor 10 stretch be- Serbian PM Mirko Cvetkovic

tween the southern town of Leskovac and the Presevo border crossing with Macedonia.

Economy Minister Mladjan Dinkic announced at the same conference that Serbia will also initiate talks on free trade with Belarus and Ukraine “as soon as the volatile political situation” in the latter former Soviet republic is stabilised.

“That will make Serbia even more attractive for Greek investors,” he said.

He said that “Corridor 10 will give an additional boost” to Greece’s Aegean port of Thessaloniki “which will become an important point for Source: www.emportal.co.yu European exports to Asia.”

Central Bank Increases Benchmark Rate

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he National Bank of Serbia increased its benchmark interest rate by 2 percentage points on Friday, setting it at 17.75 per cent, a move aimed at bolstering the domestic currency which has flagged of late under pressure from the turmoil in international markets.

Since December 2007, the central bank has increased the rate seven times.

“With this move, policymakers apparently intend to increase margins between interest rates in Serbia and abroad with the aim of bolstering the dinar and bringing back investors,” Goran Nikolic of Serbia’s Chamber of Commerce said.

The dinar recovered slightly against the euro after the central bank sold €80 million to boost trading in the currency market.

Having lost almost 10 per cent

of its value in October, the dinar recovered slightly before falling away again. A further sale of an additional €30 million on Wednesday failed to halt the decline and the dinar ended Thursday at 86.71 to the euro.

The decline of Serbia’s national currency comes as international investors, wary of the effects of the global crisis on developing markets, pull out their assets from the local market.

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Serbia Will Not Escape the World Recession

The country’s banking system may not be as affected by events across the world as many others, but Serbia will not be immune to the effects of an international downturn. The perceived failure of US style neo-liberal economics may hasten the continued emergence of Russia, China, India and Latin America as economic giants.

INTERVIEW

by Andrej Klemencic

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ot only is Serbia technologically dependant on the West, but in the 1990s it also lost the most qualified element of its workforce, which would have helped the country survive the crisis, says Miodrag Zecevic, executive director of marketing at Energoprojekt. One of the country’s largest construction businesses, Energoprojekt has been active across the world since the early 1950’s and is one of Serbia’s most internationalised companies with operations in over 20 countries worldwide. Andrej Klemencic spoke with Zecevic in his New Belgrade office.

Q: You have observed Serbia’s economy both from home and abroad. How does it look?

A: Adaptable is the best description. The ability to quickly respond to change is something we acquired during the recent turbulent times.

Serbia is now strongly committed to the European Union and this is a clear sign to foreign investors that it has accepted Western standards.

In contrast, transition is taking an unpardonably long time. Another

Serbia Seeks Partner for RTB Bor Copper Mine Serbia will start looking for a strategic partner for the RTB Bor Copper Mine and Smelter, a top Economy Ministry official said.

“We will launch the tender by Saturday, November 8,” said Nebojsa Ciric, a State Secretary with the Economy Ministry.

Ciric said that the strategic partner for the troubled copper mine “should facilitate the conditions for the company’s development and investment. It will also be required to craft a solution for RTB Bor’s social problems,” Serbia’s previous plans to sell RTB Bor, the largest copper mine in the former Yugoslavia and the Western Balkans, to Romania’s Cuprom and Austria’s A-Tec Industries AG, fell through in 2007 after the buyers failed to pay the agreed price.

Ciric said that Serbia will enter a joint venture with a strategic partner, and that the strategic partner would be the majority owner.

“The state will keep veto rights on important decisions such as bankruptcy and relocation of the company,” Ciric said.

Ealrier, Serbian media reported that Switzerland’s Glencore Internatational AG, A-Tec Industries AG and Cyprus-based East Point had expressed an interest in the deal.

difficult issue is the absence of a regulatory body to deal with cartels and monopolies. Most importantly, the level of corruption in Serbia is alarming. EU studies warn us of this constantly, saying Serbia is doing little or nothing to prevent this and change the mentality of believing corruption is the only way of conducting business.

Q: Many believe the fact that the Serbian economy has been relatively isolated means the recession will not hit the country as hard as some Western economies.

A: It is not serious to claim the crisis will not hit Serbia. To understand why, we need to go back to the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

That was the beginning of the deindustrialisation of the West. Industry moved east, as human resources moved west. The West is now in the East, beyond the Urals, where much Western manufacturing now lies. And we are closer to the West in more ways than we are aware of.

For example, despite Serbia’s connections to Russia, we never adopted their GOST industrial standard, but have kept the German one, DIN. Our comparative advantage used to be a skilled workforce that applied Western standards in building massive infrastructural projects in NonAligned countries. Our biggest comparative disadvantage now is a lack of that very workforce. This happened because circumstances lead us to advertise cheap labour as the key advantage of our market. Because

of that, our most skilled engineers moved to the West, and Serbia’s position in the crisis is weakened by this fact.

Q: Is there a chance for Serbia to re-position itself?

A: Russia is often mentioned as a power that Serbia can turn to in case of crisis, and as an alternative to the EU. This could not be further from the truth. With my knowledge of circumstances in Russia, where I helped position Energoprojekt in the 1990s, I can say they see us as their strong lobbyist inside the EU and not as an opponent to the values of the European Union. It is true we have deep connections with Russia, but that does not change the fact we are a European country and those connections will provide no shelter from the effects of the global crisis.

with it, the US dollar too. Once that trust is lost, it is difficult, often impossible, to regain it.

Q: Is there an escape scenario?

A: Since the dollar was the chief agent of globalisation, we may now expect an era of “localisation”. Countries, mainly Western ones, which the recession is hitting hardest, are re-introducing state ownership of banks in order to soften the blow of the recession.

This presents an opportunity for the

economies of Latin America, Russia, India and China to assert themselves as major players on a global scale. The US economy will remain a strong, independent entity, but its strength will depend on its capacity to recover from this difficult time. So, we may see that rather than turning to a global market, smaller countries may turn towards one of those emerging giants.

Andrej Klemencic is a communications consultant and a contributor for Belgrade Insight.

Q: As a ‘crisis expert’, what comes next?

A: I need to take us back to the Bretton Woods conference in New Hampshire, where the Allies met in 1944 to make the US dollar the global reserve currency. What that meant was that the Neo-liberal foundations of the US economy became the global doctrine.

This advocated the currency, rather than the state, as the main regulatory force within the economy. However, the sub-prime mortgage crisis has revealed that this self-regulatory system is flawed. The people have lost their trust in Neo-liberalism and Energoprojekt’s Miodrag Zecevic

Photo by Andrej Klemencic

Companies & Markets NIN Weekly Up for Sale Serbia’s Privatisation Agency announced it is inviting bidders to take a 70 per cent stake in Belgrade’s weekly NIN. The agency stopped short from setting a price for the weekly and only said that prospective bidders must have been involved in newspaper or magazine publishing for at least a decade.

They are also required to have at least €30 million in 2007 revenues.

The deadline for placing a bid was set at December 12.

The NIN weekly is 87 per cent owned by the state, while the daily newspaper Politika has a 10 per cent holding. The remaining 3 per cent belongs to employees.

Germany’s Metro to Invest More in Serbia German retailer Metro has invested €100 million in Serbia since it started business in the country in 2004 and wants to expand further, a statement said.

Metro said it has so far opened five hypermarkets in Serbia, two in the capital Belgrade, and another three in the cities of Kragujevac in central Serbia, the city of Novi Sad, which is the capital of the northern province of Vojvodina and the southern city of Nis. The company announced it will expand its Serbian network, but stopped short of giving more details.

Metro Cash & Carry is an international wholesaler operating across Europe, Asia and Northern Africa.

Although technically positioned as a wholesale operation, serving independent retailers and caterers, Metro competes head-on in many markets with international discount retailers.

Belgrade’s Airport Expects Strong Profits Belgrade’s state-operated Nikola Tesla airport expects its net profit to quadruple in 2008, local media report.

Citing the company’s director Bojan Kristo, reports said the airport expects profits of some €18 million by the year’s end as opposed to €4.5

million in 2007.

Kristo said that the rise in profits is the result of increased traffic and job cuts. The Nikola Tesla airport has two terminals and an annual capacity for handling some 5 million passengers.

In 2007, the Serbian government said it would privatise some of its key assets, including the Nikola Tesla airport, through initial public offers. However, this and many other planned privatisations appear to have been delayed due to the global financial crisis.

One Bid Placed for Serbia’s Hotel Complex The Privatisation agency has announced that a single bidder has offered to purchase the Internacional

CG hotel complex at the Kopaonik ski resort in Serbia’s southwest.

In a statement, the agency said that a consortium comprised of Serbia’s MK Group and Austria’s Falkensteiner-Michaeler has qualified for the offer.

In July, the agency launched its second attempt to sell the Kopaonik complex, 220 kilometres south of Belgrade. The asking price for the hotel was €23 million, nearly 50 per cent lower than the original asking price.

The bid included the Grand Hotel Suncani Vrhovi, the apartment complex Konaci, a restaurant and flats.

Internacional CG complex was previously owned by the now bankrupt Genex, a former top exporter and tour operator in the former Yugoslavia.

Belgrade Stock Market Recovers After Dropping to an All Time Low The BELEX15, the index of the most traded shares in the Belgrade Stock Exchange, recovered 3.49 percent between October 31 and November 6 from its historical low of 668.99 points on October 30.

On Thursday, Nov 6, the BELEX15 fell by 0.76 percent to 692,32 points from 697,59 points the day before.

The BELEXline composite index which had recorded a tiny recovery of combined 0.2 percent since October 31, also dropped

0.87 percent by the end of trading on November 6. Dealers said that the market had “dropped so much

percent between January and October that this brief recovery practically meaningless.”

Belex 15 - week to 6 Nov.

6

belgrade chronicle

Friday, Nov. 7 - Nov. 13, 2008

Obama Wins in Belgrade

As a nearly two-year-long campaign wound down, America overwhelmingly voted for Barack Obama, and so did Belgrade.

I

By Vanja Petrovic in Belgrade

n a vote held at the Media Centre’s American Election Night, Barack Obama was overwhelmingly elected President of the USA, mirroring events back in the States.

The 313 to 43 result in favour of Obama was as emphatic as the expected 349 – 162 winning margin in Electoral College votes and was just as enthusiastically received.

The event brought together journalists, US expats and politicians to chew over the campaigns, sink a few beers and cheer in the results as they arrived. Amongst the local dignatories who attended were Crown Prince Aleksandar Karadjordjevic, Governor Radovan Jelasic, Minister of Finance Dijana Dragutinovic, LSV leader Nenad Canak and DS member Dragoljub Micunovic.

There’s always a suggestion that journalists are just as interested in the free beer as the story, and the huddle of correspondents crowded in the smoking corner with a screen playing Fox News in the background, didn’t seem to spend much time pondering the election.

For them, it was a time to chew over journalistic nostalgia from the 1990s.

They spoke about hyperinflation in 1993, Slobodan Milosevic and riots in almost romantic terms. “But that was when we were young” said one prominent journalist who asked to remain anonymous.

“At the bureau, we used to receive astronomical phone bills with the morning post, but inflation would eat them by noon,” said Djordje Vlajic, a Belgrade-based BBC correspondent, of his experience during hyperinflation.

The expats, however, spent the night in a different mood, eagerly anticipating the results.

“I’ve been watching the campaign for two years now, and I think

Riza Halimi

The Obamas and the Bidens celebrate an historic victory

Ethan Van Drunen appears confused!

Photo by FoNet

Photo by FoNet US Ambasador Munter and Foreign Minister Jeremic

Photo by FoNet the world is ready for America to have different representation,” said Jamie Van Drunen, a teacher at the International School of Belgrade.

“There’s no question the campaign has smoothed over a lot of awkward conversations I’ve had when meeting people, and Serbians in particular. It’s almost like, the minute I say I’m for Obama, I’m accepted,” she added.

Her husband, Ethan, was dressed as Uncle Sam, and boasting both Obama/Biden and McCain/Palin buttons, as he mingled in the crowd talking about democracy.

Another teacher and expat, Bill Kralovec, echoed Jamie Van Drunen’s sentiment that Obama smooths over a lot of conversations, and said he uses the future American president as an example to his students.

“I use Obama as a lesson to my students. I tell them that he’s not of

the same ethnic origin as me, but I’m voting for him based on his views. I believe that this is a good lesson for the Balkans.”

“This is the first time I’ve been excited about politics, and I think all the Serbs love Obama,” he added.

Following the Media Centre vote, The US Ambassador to Serbia, Cameron Munter, pronounced Obama the President of Belgrade.

“Obama became the president of Belgrade tonight. I apologize to the Mayor of Belgrade, Dragan Djilas, but Belgrade is, as always, an example to follow,” said Munter jokingly.

Munter said that the turnout at the Media Centre had confirmed that interest in American politics is huge.

“This has only reminded us of the enormous responsibility we have in the world,” added Munter.

Photo by FoNet Dragoljub Micunovic

Photo by FoNet

neighbourhood

Friday, Nov. 7 - Nov. 13, 2008

7

Europe Ponders New Strategy for Ailing Bosnia After two years of political impasse in Bosnia, the EU is preparing to strengthen its engagement and take sole charge of the international community’s presence there.

F

By Tim Judah in London

or months, alarms bells have been ringing for Bosnia and Herzegovina as the struggle between Haris Silajdzic and Milorad Dodik, the leading Bosniak and Serb politicians, brings reform and progress grinding to a halt.

Indeed, progress in Bosnia has been on hold for some two years, during which period the authority of the Office of the High Representative, OHR, representing the international community, has been seriously undermined.

The international community, distracted by Kosovo, Serbia, Iraq, Afghanistan and the global financial meltdown, has allowed Bosnia to fall low on the agenda. Now, concerned that progress in the country has not just halted but gone into reverse, EU foreign ministers on Monday November 11 will consider, and most likely endorse, a new strategy prepared by Olli Rehn, the enlargement commissioner, and Javier Solana, in charge of EU foreign affairs.

Their report contains strong language. The political situation in Bosnia has deteriorated, it says, and while the vast majority of Bosnians support EU membership, their leaders are “mired in the nationalist logic and talk of the past”. The EU has an interest in promoting change in Bosnia because it is a potential candidate for membership, and “a stronger engagement of the EU is today more essential than ever before”.

The report argues that the “status quo is unviable and likely to remain so until and unless the international community is prepared to change the parameters of its presence and approach.

“The international impetus remains essential, since there are no domestic forces capable of challenging the status quo and influencing the

country’s leadership to replace their current disputes with a genuine consensus on EU-related reforms.”

The document proposes a sevenpoint strategy, which, as it points out, is an updated version of a plan from 2006. What it proposes is that the EU be ready to take over from the OHR by mid-2009.

Originally, it was foreseen that the OHR would close in 2007 and the leading international role in the country be handed to a European Union Special Representative, EUSR. At present, the High Representative is also the EUSR, although in the past the former role has had more importance, owing to the extensive “Bonn Powers”, empowering the High Representative to sack recalcitrant politicians and be involved at virtually all levels of political life.

However, the current High Representative and EUSR, Miroslav Lajcak, has experienced a loss of authority since he took over in 2007, mainly owing to the failure of foreign capitals to support him.

The Rehn-Solana report argues that the EU now needs to “maximise its political leverage in the country” and become fully re-engaged. To do so, it foresees the closure of the OHR and a new UN resolution transferring residual OHR authorities to the EUSR. Non-EU countries will be engaged by having them work on the EUSR team. The elements of Bosnia’s EU Stabilisation and Association Agreement, SAA, are to be used as “drivers for reform”.

An SAA is seen as the first step towards EU membership but Bosnian leaders are widely regarded as having paid only lip service to the document, signed in June. Brussels suspects local leaders are far from committed to implementing the reforms that the SAA demands.

The final points of the document are a communication strategy to ex-

Milorad Dodik, PM of Republika Srpska plain the transition in Bosnia and a demand for clarity on the question of stalled constitutional reforms. The EU should not “insist on a particular constitutional blue-print,” it says, adding that it is “essential… to ensure a functional and efficient state, capable of delivering on BiH’s obligations in the EU accession process”.

The Bosnian Serb leader, Milorad Dodik, has long sought the closure of the OHR, and is backed by Russia in this. However, diplomatic sources say Russia has indicated that it is not looking for a conflict with Europe over Bosnia. Even if this is true, however, the risk remains that any future EU move to break the impasse in Bosnia may be stymied by a lack of consensus with Washington.

One reason for this is the election of the Democrat Barrack Obama as the next US President. This means that policy-makers and diplomats such as Richard Holbrooke who were heavily involved in the Balkans under Bill Clinton may well shape future US policy on the Balkans.

Haris Silajdzic, member of the Bosnian presidency

Mr Holbrooke, the US diplomat who clinched the deal to end the Bosnian war in 1995, may regard the EU plan as lacking in muscle. The Americans may well point to the extremely slow deployment of the EU’s flagship EULEX police and justice mission in Kosovo as a poor precedent. For now, EULEX cannot even function in the Serb-run northern tip of Kosovo.

For the moment, the closure of the OHR is not officially on the agenda, as the Steering Board of the Peace Implementation Council, which oversees the 1995 Dayton accords, in February set various conditions for closure that have not yet been fulfilled.

However, the Rehn-Solana paper argues that the EU needs to be prepared, because if the OHR is still around in 2010, when the next elections are scheduled in Bosnia, the international community’s presence “could once again become a central campaign theme…[and] the reform agenda, EU membership, and the authorities’ track record on delivery would suffer as result”.

Whether or not OHR will really be closed by the middle of next year is an open question, but what seems certain is that now both Kosovo and Serbia appear stable, attention is shifting back to Bosnia.

Meanwhile, according to informed sources, diplomats in Bosnia may decide to use some of the information they have obtained on corruption in high places to help break the political stalemate.

Referring to certain key politicians, one diplomat told Balkan Insight that the strategy would be to “isolate” these figures from “their own electorate” and to show some of their close collaborators that “they were a burden and obstacle to them and so make them disloyal”.

Tim Judah, a leading Balkan commentator, is the author of “Kosovo: What Everyone Needs to Know”, published by Oxford University Press. Balkan Insight is BIRN`s online publication.

Albania PM Avoids Questions in Parliament with Record Two Hour Filibuster Tirana _ Albanian Prime Minister Sali Berisha held a two-hour long marathon speech in parliament in a hearing over his ties to Bosnian businessman, Damir Fazlic.

Although Berisha spoke for two hours on what he called “the historic achievements of his government,” he did not once discuss his ties to Fazlic or the related accusation of favouritism or money laundering.

After making a resume of his government’s achievements that included the independence of Kosovo, the Albanian premier noted that his reform programme had the support of United States President George W. Bush.

Berisha accused the opposition of ties to organised crime and of launching the parliamentary hearing because they were jealous.

According to Berisha, his government had made historical improvements to the country’s economy, had changed its image as a hotbed of organised crime, had achieved record results in the war against corruption, improved edu-

cation, tax collection, and lowered government expenditure.

The premier also challenged the opposition to put a motion for a vote of no confidence against him, pointing out that they did not have the votes to overthrow him.

“You don’t have the hormones to take such action,” he said, The probe into the business activities of the Bosnian businessman has uncovered an intricate web, involving the family of the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Lulzim Basha.

Prosecutors are looking at a series of transactions relating to the sale of one of Fazlic’s businesses, Crown Acquisitions. This was sold in June 2007 to a Cyprus-based company, Altaria Research Limited, for €1.75 million. However, according to the prosecutor’s office, as it held no assets, it raised suspicions.

Fazlic worked as a consultant for a US-based company, BG & R, which designed Berisha’s Democratic Party electoral campaign. The Albanian opposition has charged that Berisha and Basha were involved in shady

deals with Fazlic, by allowing him to sell one of his companies for €1.75 million, without paying €520,000 in VAT and income tax.

Experts warn that when a company is sold for large sums of money, without holding any tangible assets, it raises a red flag for a money laundering operation.

Fazlic has denied this accusation.

Both Basha and Berisha have also denied the accusations.

Berisha has also previously rejected opposition accusations and in turn threatened to open the “crime archives” of the opposition.

“My family does not have any business with Mr Fazlic,” Basha said, adding that the accusations were a “hysterical campaign.”

Prosecutor-General Under Pressure Berisha, has come under strong US and European Union criticism over alleged attempts to put pressure on the Prosecutor General, Ina Rama, who has been investigating corruption.

Rama has launched probes into the March 15 blast at an Albanian army depot and into corruption in the construction of the new Albania - Kosovo highway, which have put her at odds with the centre-right government.

Meanwhile, as well as voicing support for the fight against corruption, Berisha is seeking to draft a new law that regulates the office of the prosecutor general.

The law would strip prosecutors of the right to be protected from police arrest without a formal indictment and limit their independence, by allowing the Ministry of Justice to oversee investigations.

The bill has come under criticism from interest groups, the opposition and the US government, because it limits the independence of the prosecutor general, which is guaranteed by the Albanian constitution.

On Saturday in a joint declaration, the association of prosecutors, judges, lawyers and public notaries condemned the bill.

New evidence published in the local media has suggested that the

current Minister of Justice, Enkelej Alibeaj, and former Minister Aldo Bumci, a deputy of the Democratic Party of Prime Minister Berisha, have been involved in the legal process that paved the way for the demolition process that led to the March 15 blast.

Both deny any allegations of wrongdoing and claim they were just doing their job.

Albanian PM Sali Berisha

8

neighbourhood

Friday, Nov. 7 - Nov. 13, 2008

Serbia ‘No Longer Matters to Montenegro’ Podgorica _ It’s up to Serbia to decide on what kind of relations it wants with Montenegro, since Belgrade no longer matters to Podgorica, Montenegro’s Prime Minister says.

Milo Djukanovic said the ball was in Serbia’s court. He argued Belgrade “is responsible for souring relations between the two countries.”

“We are in no rush,” Djukanovic said, adding that Belgrade “is no longer an address that matters to Montenegro.”

Montenegrin PM, Milo Djukanovic He said that it was important, but

not the most important, adding that Podgorica “will not beg” Belgrade to change its stance towards Montenegro.

“By expelling the Montenegrin ambassador Anka Vojvodic, Belgrade is responsible for souring relations between the two countries,” Djukanovic told Radio Montenegro.

The move came after Montenegro recognised Kosovo’s February 17 declaration of independence from Serbia.

The Montenegrin Prime Minister

said his country had recognised Pristina’s move because “Montenegro can no longer shut its eyes to reality.”

Djukanovic said Montenegro “took no joy in the troubles of its neighbours,” but could not be expected to ignore its own national interests.

Montenegro has traditionally been a close ally of Serbia, and the two were in a loose union until 2006, when Montenegro voted in a referendum to become independent.

A large proportion of Montenegrin citizens, about a third of the population, declare themselves as Serbs, while ethnic Albanians also make up a sizeable minority in the coastal republic and Montenegro’s recognition of Kosovo, sparked riots in Podgorica in October.

Earlier, Svetozar Marovic, Montenegro’s ruling party vice-president, said neither Montenegro nor Serbia should close the door on their European future because of the Kosovo dispute.

Croatia on Track, Others Lag Behind, Says EU

The European Commission says Croatia is on track to wrap up EU accession talks next year and could join by 2011, however other countries have a lot more work to do.

By Gjeraqina Tuhina in Brussels

B

russels_In an annual report on applicant countries, Croatia got the most positive evaluation from the European Union.

“Based on the progress made by Croatia, it should be possible to reach the final stage of the accession negotiations by the end of 2009, provided that the country fulfils all the necessary conditions,” the bloc’s Enlargement Commissioner, Olli Rehn, said.

Our sources confirmed that members in the bloc struggled over this line.

European Commission officials who were against Croatia’s accession argued that no country can be promised full membership before the EU settles its own institutional matters and agrees to a treaty which can allow for further enlargement.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy said, in June, that the European Union could not accept new members, including Croatia, before adopting the Lisbon Treaty, aimed at over-

hauling institutions and simplifying decision-making.

But sources told Balkan Insight that “members of the European Commission”, including Commission President Jose Manuel Barrosso, were insisting that Croatia could conclude the accession talks, a line which was later adopted.

Nevertheless, Croatia was asked to work hard to tackle corruption and organised crime, the commission says, noting recent high-profile killings such as a the car bombing in Zagreb, which killed a prominent journalist.

Macedonia Macedonia’s hope to get a date for the start of accession talks after three years of waiting were dashed after the final version of the report did not recommend any progress in Skopje’s membership bid.

Rehn admitted that Macedonia has made good progress on judicial and police reforms and continued to consolidate multi-ethnic democracy by

implementing the Ohrid Agreement.

“However, these good results are overshadowed by shortcomings in the political arena, which are fundamental to the start of accession negotiations,” he added.

Albania and Montenegro Albania and Montenegro both received more positive evaluations compared to previous years.

The progress report stresses that both countries are implementing a key pre-membership deal known as a Stabilisation and Association Agreement.

However, both countries need to put more effort into strengthening their administrative capacities.

Bosnia and Herzegovina Bosnia and Herzegovina is described in light of the heated nationalist political rhetoric, which has been prevalent among local politicians over the last year.

The Enlargement Commissioner

UK Foreign Minister Hopeful for Kosovo Pristina _ The British Foreign Secretary David Miliband says Kosovo is becoming a better place for all living there and pledged strong commitment to the EU’s new law-and-order mission, EULEX. “Your Constitution clearly states that all communities should live together in the newest country. The fact that your Parliament is home to deputies other than Albanians is an indication of this fact,” said Miliband in an address to Kosovo’s Parliament.

While Miliband acknowledged that Kosovo faces great responsibilities and challenges in building its future, he revealed Kosovo is not alone.

“You are not alone. The international community is here to help you.

EULEX will be functional all over Kosovo in order to build a good future for Kosovo’s citizens,” he pledged.

Serbia argues that both EULEX and the outgoing United Nations mission’s ‘reconfiguration’ (the term used to describe the UN’s preparations to leave Kosovo and make way for EULEX) contravenes international law since under the UN Security Council Resolution 1244, passed in 1999 at the end of the conflict between Serb forces and Kosovo’s ethnic Albanian major-

ity, only the UN can administer Kosovo on Serbia’s behalf.

The UN has administered Kosovo since 1999.

To meet Belgrade’s complaints, EULEX may have to operate under a UN umbrella in the north and assume a “neutral” stance towards Kosovo’s independence.

Meanwhile, Miliband advised Kosovo to cooperate with the International Monetary Fund and to consolidate its budget, which he said will bring economic development.

“The rule of law and the fight against the corruption will enhance foreign in-

Miliband during his Kosovo visit

vestment in your country,” he argued.

“This is your state. You have to work for it and there is no alternative way of governing Kosovo,” said Miliband.

Talking about the recognitions of Kosovo’s independence, Miliband claimed Kosovo’s foreign policy should follow European values.

“You have to build bridges of communication with your neighbours, including Serbia,” he urged.

Kosovo’s parliamentary speaker, Jakup Krasniqi, thanked Miliband for his speech and his contribution to state-building in Kosovo.

Source: Prishtina Insight

said that although the country started talks on visa-free access to the bloc and signed a Stabilisation and Association Agreement, “this has not prevented a deterioration of the political situation in the country in recent months.”

“The challenge for Bosnia’s leaders today is to achieve the degree of political consensus that has delivered progress on EU integration elsewhere in the region,” Rehn said.

Kosovo Kosovo had by far the most negative evaluation of its achievements during the year but the European Commission promises that a feasibility study on Kosovo will be published in autumn 2009 detailing its progress towards the EU “as part of the Western Balkans.”

“Kosovo will remain a focal point in 2009,” Rehn pledged.

Gjeraqina Tuhina is Brussels correspondent for Kosovo`s public TV, RTK. Balkan Insight is BIRN`s onOlli Rehn line publication.

Police Caught in Blame Game Zagreb _ Croatian police and their colleagues from Bosnia’s Serb-dominated entity are trading accusations over who’s to blame for the narrow escape of a key suspect wanted over the murder of a high-profile journalist.

The suspect, identified as Zeljko Milovanovic, narrowly escaped an arrest operation carried out by the police on Friday evening near the northern Bosnian town of Doboj, police officials from Bosnia’s Serbdominated entity of Republika Srpska said.

Croatian police believe Milovanovic is a key suspect in the car bombing which killed Croatian newspaper editor Ivo Pukanic and his marketing chief, Niko Franjic, on October 23.

Police in Croatia have already charged five people in connection with the car bombing.

However, their Republika Srpska counterparts have been accused of shielding criminals amid allegations that someone from the Doboj police force warned Milovanovic about his imminent arrest and allowed him to make a quick escape.

Momir Dejanovic, the President of Republika Srpska-based non-governmental organisation, the Centre

for Humane Politics, claimed police in the entity “have been lying for years about their achievements, protecting the interests of criminals, piling up unsolved murders, routinely issuing false documents…and protecting murderers and other dangerous criminals wanted by the international police.”

But Darko Ilic from the special prosecutor’s office of Republika Srpska blamed Croatia’s media for naming Milovanovic as a suspect prior to his arrest, saying it was this that allowed him to make his getaway.

Croatia’s journalists “published information on Milovanovic before arrangements had been made for his arrest,” argued Ilic.

However, Croatia’s police spokesman Krunoslav Borovec rebuffed these accusations on Croatian Radio.

“Croatian police informed their Bosnian colleagues about the case much earlier than Milovanovic’s identity was published by Croatian journalists,” Borovec insisted.

Meanwhile, Croatian police say they have launched joint patrols with police from Bosnia and Herzegovina and these patrols will be allowed to search areas ten kilometres deep inside each other’s countries.

out & about

Friday, Nov. 7 - Nov. 13, 2008

9

Vineyards and Eastern Promise

Gather herbs, drink wines, go fishing, and then enjoy your stroll round this ancient border town, close to Romania.

By Pat Andjelkovic

T

he upside of global warming is that November’s cold weather may not hit us for a while, which means you’ll still have a pleasant weekend or two to take a short trip to Vrsac, one of the oldest towns of the Banat region, about 85 kilometres northeast of Belgrade.

Vrsac is situated on the edge of the Panonnian plain, an ancient seabed, at the foot of the Vrsac mountains, 14 kilometres from the Romanian border. It is well connected by highway, rail, and bus. The town has only about 40,000 inhabitants, and is primarily flat, making walking around quite

easy. However, the name derives from the Slavic word “vrh,” meaning “summit,” since a medieval fortress stood on the hill, which is 399 metres high, overlooking the town. All that remains is the tower, Vrsacka kula, which dates back to the mid-15th century. You can drive up to the tower and enjoy a fine view of the town below, especially lovely at sunset.

Vrsac has had a turbulent history since its foundations around 500 BC. Later, the region belonged to the Huns, Avars and Bulgarians.

Serbs settled in the region in the 6th century, and some time after, the town became part of the Hungary.

The Ottomans destroyed it in the early 16th century, but it was soon rebuilt. In 1594, the Serbs in the Vrsac region launched an uprising

St. Gerhard’s spires, reaching heavenward

Photo by Pat Andjelkovic

against Ottoman rule and in 1716 it passed from Ottoman to Hapsburg control, and the Muslim population fled, leaving Vrsac mostly populated

by Serbs. Soon, the Hapsburgs settled German colonists there. Good relations between the Serbs and Germans were interrupted by the revolution in 1848, when the Serbs fought on the side of the Hapsburg Emperor, while the Germans sided with the Emperor’s Hungarian opponents. In 1918, after the Hapsburg Empire collapsed, the region became part of the new Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, later renamed Yugoslavia.

Following Yugoslavia’s breakup, the town has been part of Serbia.

But a strong Romanian community remains in Vrsac, with its own thea-

One of Vrsac’s renowned white wines

tre, schools and museum. Romanianlanguage instruction takes place at a kindergarten, an elementary school, a high school and a teachers’ university. The cultural organization CRS and the folklore group Pentru Albu hold many cultural events in Vrsac and in nearby Romanian-populated villages. In 2005, Romania opened a consulate in Vrsac.

The town is known for several industries, especially pharmaceuticals (Hemofarm), confectionery, and textiles, and is a centre for agriculture in the Banat, with 54,000 hectares of arable and extremely fertile land in its possession. For sports fans, the Millennium sport centre, built in 2002, hosts domestic and international championships.

But most people visit Vrsac for its

Photo by Pat Andjelkovic

wines. There have been vineyards in this area for more than five centuries.

About 300 varieties of grapes are grown and about 120 kinds of wines are produced on the hilly vineyards.

The town abounds in wine cellars, and every third weekend in September a harvest/wine festival is held.

Connoisseurs say white wines from these vineyards are among the best in Serbia, which they attribute to the fact that the grapes grow at a latitude of 45 degrees north, which is ideal in terms of sunlight and warmth. It is suitable for a wide variety of grapes, including muscat, Italian reisling, sauvignon, burgundy, traminac, cabernet, merlot and chardonnay.

A walk round the lanes off the main square will bring you to the statue of Borislav Kostic (1887 –1963), a professional chess grandmaster from the town who attained international fame in Europe and the Americas, and who in 1916 in New York played 20 opponents blindfolded, winning 19 games and drawing one, all the time engaging in polite conversation with opponents and spectators.

For lunch or dinner, a good bet is the newly built Villa Breg Hotel, which stands on the hill overlooking the town. Plush, but reasonably priced, it offers a selection of classic Serbian fare as well as international dishes.

The climate on the hills around Vrsac is said to be good for asthmatics, while the various flora and herbs growing wild there are famous. On account of this diversity of flora and fauna, the richness of the forest ecosystem, the landscape and views, the greater area of the forests on these hills and mountains was declared a natural park in 1982.

Fishermen can enjoy angling on the river Karas, the canal DanubeTisa-Danube, and in local fishing ponds. Nearby, in the Vrsac marsh, there is a lake where both anglers and hunters gather. The lake teems with fish, while the surrounding area is home to mallards and wild geese.

Among the most significant local cultural events are The Days of the Grape Picking; The Wreath of Vrsac (an international folk festival; The Days of Vasko Popa (a Romanian poet); In Search of Paja Jovanovic (a photographer/painter); the Vrsac Autumn Theatre, dedicated to Jovan Sterija Popović; and The Bora Kostic Memorial Chess Tournament.

While walking around, look up at the many intriguing façades on public buildings and homes. Buildings to seek out in particular are the City Hall, dating from 1757, the 18th century palace of the Serbian Orthodox bishops, the baroque pharmacy, which today houses an interesting museum, and St Gerhard’s Catholic Church. Budding pilots and aviation buffs might like to visit the JAT flight academy, based at the local airport.

Organised visits are possible.

Further information: www.serbia-tourism.org/srpski/tekst. php?podaci=vino_e.txt&gde=vrs Hotel Villa Breg: www.villabreg.com/default_en.asp

Vrsac has many lovely facades

Photo by Pat Andjelkovic

National Museum: www.muzejvrsac.org.yu/GMV.htm

10

life

Friday, Nov. 7 - Nov. 13, 2008

Indian Summer Work Out in Ada Ciganlija

Like Central Park in New York, or Hyde Park in London, Ada Ciganlija is a slice of peace and mother nature in the heart of a big city.

Text by Vanja Petrovic Photos by Sophie Cottrell

A

da Ciganlija is often called the “poor man’s sea”, though in fact nearly everyone visits this man-made lake.

In the summer, thousands of Belgraders flock here to relax, sunbathe and swim.

However, in the autumn, Ada takes on a different character. As the cafes, restaurants and nightclubs wind down, and the colder weather approaches, only those made of sterner suff remain.

They rollerblade, cycle, jog, play basketball and tennis, play rubgy and football or work-out with friends.

We joined them one cold Saturday afternoon and met pensioners learning to rollerblade, a group of friends playing soccer, two youngsters biking along paths and a couple of hard-core tennis fans playing out a neverending match.

Nina and Jovan can’t ride their bikes on the streets at home so they come to Ada to let off steam.

Bane Karbinovic, 47, and Dragan Kickarevic, 46, have been playing tennis on this court since 1991. During an average week, they play four hours of tennis. When we caught up with this pair, the sun was going down and they were still at it. “Sport comes above everything in my life,” says Dragan,

Inspired by the neolithic stone circles at Stonehenge in the UK, artist Ranko Vulanovic’s 1996 work may not ulimately have the same longevity, but the installation certainly makes a great frame for the fountain.

In the summer, the cycle tracks are crowded, not just with cyclists but rollerbladers, couples and families out for a stroll, pushchairs, scooters and delivery vehicles. As it starts to cool down and the fair-weather vistors stop coming, only the hard-core remain.

This group of friends gets together every day at 3pm on this pitch. Whilst we were there, they spent as much time yelling at each other as they spent actually playing, but that’s part of the fun, they told us.

Branislav Kralic smiles as his trainer, Tanja Bogdanovic, tells him to concentrate on what his feet are doing. This 65-year-old has decided to learn to rollerblade “because it’s the best dynamic exercise in nature”. After only his fifth class, he seems to be getting the hang of it!

the belgrader

Friday, Nov. 7 - Nov. 13, 2008

11

Not Just Another Bakery Family-run Nasa Pekara has been satisfying pastry-loving Belgraders since 1912 and is going strong.

By Pat Andjelkovic

W

ith a bakery on nearly every corner in Belgrade, why bother to visit Zivko and Zorica Djuroski’s Nasa Pekara (Our Bakery), tucked away on a tiny side street in the city’s Crveni Krst area? Just one bite of any of their products will shout out the answer for you: taste and quality. You’ll no sooner leave the shop with a bag full of goodies than you’ll be planning your next trip. The bakery’s been at the same location since 1912, and has been in the Djuroski family since 1963.

Zorica is a Serbian-American, and has happily fit right in to a baker’s life since she married Zivko.

Located on a short street running parallel to Bulevar Kralja Aleksandra, the bakery is easily reachable by the number 7 tram. Hop off at Vuk’s Monument and walk up the boulevard a bit, and soon you’ll smell

the aroma of garlic bread wafting toward you and pass customers bustling along munching on croissants or cakes. Nasa Pekara offers classic fare: several kinds of burek, pigs in a blanket (rol-vrsle), croissants, rolls, and just-greasy-enough pogacice, in addition to trendier whole wheat, rye, barley, corn, garlic breads and freshly-made sandwiches. Zorica and two helpers greet each customer with a “dobar dan” and a smile.

The bakery’s eight assistants work like a well-greased machine, rolling out dough, filling small cakes, and removing trays from the oven to serve a motley group of customers: school children, pensioners, elegantly dressed ladies, and modish guys and girls, all waiting patiently.

Sample some of Zorica’s famous chocolate chip cookies, muffins and filled doughnuts, just some of the recipes she brought along with her from the US after she married. They also make their own versions of Serbian-style finger cakes (sitni kolaci), such as fig-walnut balls and prune and apricot filled cakes.

For the moment, Zivko has opened just this one location. “We’d surely do better in another location downtown, but,” he says with a grin, “everything’s already selling like hot cakes, so I’d rather just stay here!”

Nasa Pekara welcomes large orders if placed a few days ahead.

Nasa Pekara Kajmakcalanska 5 063 8139754 Tues – Sun 5:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.

‘Byzantium’ at the Royal Academy Serbian and Macedonian treasures form a significant part of the display at this magnificent exhibition, covering a thousand years of history.

By Marcus Tanner

E

very so often, a major exhibition in London rises well above the ordinary, which is the case with the widely praised and recently opened exhibition “Byzantium” at the Royal Academy in London.

From the moment you enter the dark and mysterious first hall, dominated by a vast church chandelier, you feel as if you have crossed the portals of an ancient Orthodox cathedral, an impression maintained as you progress through the series of halls in which treasures glow in their cabinets in soothing semi-darkness.

It’s a tall order, to try to compress an idea of an empire that lasted for more than a thousand years into a half-dozen rooms located in central London but the Academy has done a superb job. Eschewing the complexity of the political, social and dynastic turmoil that gripped an empire that constantly shifted shape over the centuries, the Academy has concentrated on art and culture.

Primarily, of course, this means religious art, and religious cul-

ture, because although Constantine founded the city in the 330s as the “new Rome”, (mainly because it was strategically better positioned than Rome), Byzantium, as it also became known, shed the Latin language and pagan traditions of the old Rome and assumed a thoroughly Greek and Christian persona.

For that reason, “Byzantium” mainly comprises icons, church chandeliers, church bells, reliquaries, covers for service books for use in church services and other religious items. To anyone such as myself, who might have feared this would be repetitive, the diversity of objects came as a revelation; Byzantine artists clearly compensated for their narrow range of Christian themes by making imaginative use of materials. Glowing icons of egg and tempura jostle for space beside jewelencrusted, beaten-silver book covers, perfume holders and incense braziers fashioned out of metal into the shapes of cathedrals and churches, and bone and ivory caskets with gospel and saints stories carved on the sides.

While the emphasis on the empire’s culture is unashamedly and correctly religious, the exhibitors have not forgotten the fact that when they were not surging in and out of the great church of the Holy Wisdom to see the Patriarch and the Emperor presiding over magnificent liturgies, the people

Proud owners Zivko and Zorica

of Constantinople/Byzantium lived and died, married, conducted business, made love and ate and drank.

In one chamber, as a result, the visitor leaves the semi-ecclesiastical darkness of the other halls and plunges into bright light to find a display of domestic artefacts: glazed plates with designs that might have been made yesterday, some very trendy looking spoons, children’s sandals and hoods and a charming scent bottle, shaped like a fish. How little basic design ideas have changed in a thousand years!

The provenance of the items comes as a highly effective reminder of the vastness of this empire at its high point. Many artefacts come from as far away as Egypt, for example. Balkan visitors will be struck by the number of items hailing from Serbia and Macedonia. Clearly, the curators of the Royal Academy conveyed their enthusiasm to counterparts in Belgrade and Skopje, because the National Museum and Museum of Applied Arts in Belgrade and the Icon Gallery in Ohrid are exceedingly well represented. The Pec Patriarchate loaned one of the most eye-catching items of all, a beautifully carved 15th-century bell.

The Byzantine Empire fell to the Ottomans in 1453 but its religious expression, the Orthodox Church, lives on, and the church’s broadly anti-Western mindset continues to set agendas in the Balkans, vis-a-vis both Turkey and the West. However, as the exhibition notes, the Byzantine Empire was not the static, inwardlooking, hermetically sealed entity that some imagine. The last chambers explore the extent to which the Latin West, the Byzantine Empire the Ottoman Muslims all borrowed

Photo by Pat Andjelkovic

Byzantium: a treasure trove from across the empire from - and influenced - one another extensively in the arts. At the same time, the exhibition does not forget that the sack of Constantinople in the 1200s by Western so-called crusaders was a formative experience, cementing feelings of distrust on the part of the Orthodox world for the Catholic West that have never entirely faded.

In short, this exhibition is far more than a display of beautiful objects,

though it is certainly that as well. Not to be missed.

Details: Byzantium runs until 22 March 2009 at the Royal Academy. Price £12.00 See: www.royalacedemy.org/byzantium Marcus Tanner is an editor of Balkan Insight. Balkan Insight is BIRN’s online publication.

12

the belgrader

Friday, Nov. 7 - Nov. 13, 2008

Going out

Danguba

Ever dreamed of screaming cheesy songs at the top of your voice, but felt deeply ashamed of wanting to do so? This place is for you.

By Vanja Petrovic

R

emember when glam metal was cool? I don’t, in fact, but for the sake of argument I’ll assume it’s because this movement took the world by storm before I was born. Or maybe I’ve just been oblivious to its influence. Maybe, I’ve been living in an isolated Indie circle for too long.

I have to admit that when we walked into Danguba, I felt a bit uneasy. As we descended the stairs to this tiny, dark club, time warped and I felt we were on the set of a Whitesnake music video. I’d never seen so much teased hair in one place, and I didn’t think they made leather jackets anymore. “How is this possible?”

I thought, “when it was 2008 a few seconds ago?” But, then: “No, you

have to give it a chance. Your hipster friends can’t save you now.”

So, I gave it a chance. We squeezed our way to the front, settled in next to a guy I was told to avoid at all cost – apparently, everyone there knew each other. The cover band, Pro rock, was led by a man with greasy hair dressed in a black cutoff T-shirt and ripped jeans who was screaming “Shot Through the Heart”

by Bon Jovi.

As the night progressed, I calmed down. I even danced a bit. At one point I found myself in sync with the place. A familiar tune came from the synthesizer, a tune people the world over would instantaneously recognize, and before the lead singer could even begin, the entire crowd - me included - was yelling “I, I just died in your arms tonight/ it must have been something you said/ I just died in your arms tonight.”

However pretentious you may be when it comes to music, I know that

you’ve listened and danced to this song, even if only when no one was around. You may even have played it on repeat. Several times. I am still a bit in denial about what happened that night but I think I experienced musical freedom.

It was then that I understood the beauty of Danguba. It isn’t your typical Belgrade scene. It’s a place to es-

cape the Janet Jackson look-a-likes that my colleagues Zoran Milosavljevic and Richard Wordsworth keep writing about, and that in itself forms part of its charm.

One of the most attractive things about this place is that everyone really is there just to have a good time listening to music that they truly enjoy. You have to appreciate that, no

Danguba - not a cheese shop, just cheesey

matter what your tastes may be. In other words, I’m recommending the place. But don’t tell anyone. To get in is heinously cheap, at only at 100 dinars. The drinks follow in the same vein, with nearly everything under the 100-dinar mark.

Klub Danguba Cirila i Metodija 2

Source: myspace.com

Dining out

Balzac

Istrian chef proprietor Nevio Sirotic displays his talents with this six-course ‘cuisine d’auteur’ menu.

By “Trencherman”

F

orgive me, please, if I get a little pretentious in the next 800 words or so. I’m prone, so I’m told, to use two long words where one short one would do, particularly when talking about food and drink and particularly when I’ve enjoyed myself.

When dinner-party discussion turns to good restaurants in town, the name Balzac is unlikely to feature in many people’s lists. So, it was a brave move to import the kitchen of Nevio Sirotic to Belgrade for the month of November to offer us two “cuisine d’auteur” menus, the first based loosely around the olive and the second, the truffle.

Chef proprietor Sirotic runs Toklarija, a small restaurant in a converted farmhouse set in the hills above Buzet, which for some years has drawn rave reviews for its combination of the finest local ingredients and traditional Istrian menus.

Believing no serious foodie could pass up the opportunity to sample one of Gault Millau’s Croatian highlights, and knowing there would be only 16 covers served each night, I booked for the opening night. Now, either not many of us heard, or there’s not many of us. There were, I believe, just eight diners. I can’t believe Belgrade doesn’t have a committed nucleus of food fanatics and

so will have to blame the marketing.

Sirotic, however, did us proud.

The fixed-price menu included six courses, aperitifs, wines and digestifs at 5,500 dinars and was without doubt the best €65 I’ve spent in any restaurant in Belgrade. My advice? Book now before you finish the review, before anyone else has the chance.

As I describe the food and drink you should assume that everything was perfect, or nearly so, and this will save me the need to find fresh superlatives for each course.

We were greeted with a quinceand-honey rakija, which was sweet and fruity and led us into a first course of two different salamis, both firm and meaty, served with a local cheese described as ricotta but firmer and less grainy; some marinated mushroom; and a little cold mashed potato with apple slices and a generous splash of olive oil. The wine was the chef’s own malvazija, musky and intense with a little fruit and a golden yellow colour.

Next: soup. Beans, cabbage and smoked bacon. Hearty and thick and intensely savoury, served with a little more of the same malvazija. Then a beef carpaccio, rocket and parmesan salad, the highlight of which was the fruitiest, most flavourful olive oil dressing. Another, different, malvazija accompanied this and was perhaps Sirotic’s only mistake. It was not that the wine itself was poor - far from it just that it lacked the necessary acidity to cope with the oilyness of the salad.

A red wine, another of the chef’s own, light, reminiscent of a good pinot noir, worked well with the pasta course that came next. Air-dried pancetta and cheese stuffed into little pasta parcels with a dusting of cheese and cubes of pancetta on top.

Nevio Sirotic works his magic at Balzac throughout November No sauce, just three great flavours perfect. Sirotic apparently likes his piglets at around 5-7kg, so by the time they hit the plate they’ve done precious little squealing. But they certainly make a great stew. Meltingly tender pork cooked for many hours so that the fat had rendered off, leaving just moist meat with a little light jus, served with pickled cabbage. Simple but so well executed.

With this we had perhaps the finest wine of the night, an intensely full Damijan, slightly tannic, plummy and long lasting.

Cherry-filled gnocci, with a little deeply flavoured cherry sauce followed and perhaps were just a little too robust and heavy to round off six courses but a cherry schnapps, eased them down.

Coffees and a fine Serbian plum rakija finished off the evening.

Photo by Vanja Petrovic The staff provided faultless service and were well informed about the dishes and wines. If you have the cash and the opportunity, this is not something you should miss.

Price: 5,500 dinars all inclusive Restoran Tokaria at Balzac Strahinijica Bana 13 Tel: 011 3285906

sport

Friday, Nov. 7 - Nov. 13, 2008

13

In the Driving Seat of a Ramshackle Train With a third of the season gone, champions Partizan look set to win the Serbian “Superleague” with bitter city foes Red Star unable to find any consistency. But is there any glamour left in the prize?

By Zoran Milosavljevic

A

five-point gap between the front-runners and the chasing pack less than halfway through a football season usually means a wide open title race. Teams in Europe’s top leagues have squandered bigger leads in a short space of time while others have been able to make up lost ground and snatch the silverware from their rivals on the last day of the season.

In Serbia, the annual two-way battle for supremacy between champions Partizan Belgrade and their eternal city foes Red Star has not gone down to the wire for some time. Having romped to their 20th league title last season, Partizan appear set to put another one under their belt although they are only five points clear of clos-

est rivals, Vojvodina Novi Sad, with merely a third of the season gone.

Why is that? Quite simply because Vojvodina are not genuine title contenders and although they have a history of upsetting the “big two” every so often, their lack of depth and financial muscle, when compared with Partizan and Red Star, confines them to a perennial third-place finish.

It will take something special from them to leapfrog Partizan this season and their away match to Red Star on Saturday will be the first test of their ability to hang in there.

Red Star, on the other hand, trail Partizan by nine points and face a seemingly impossible task to wipe out the deficit, given that most of their performances this season have been awful by the standards of a club that won the European Cup in 1991. One would have found it hardly imaginable for Red Star to have just five wins and as many as four defeats from 11 games in a 12-team “Superleague,” whose name is nothing short of laughable given its quality. Having gone down to the likes of Borac Cacak and Javor Ivanjica, it came as no surprise that Red Star also suffered emphatic 2-0 defeats to both Vojvodina and Partizan in the opening stage of the season. Hence, even a runners-up finish might be a tall order for Red Star as they soldier on through one of their most troubled seasons in recent history.

The club’s Czech Zdenek Zeman never found his feet after he

this crop of players and a board lacking the zest required to pull the club out of the doldrums, Red Star could face more barren international years and also a very difficult task to dethrone Partizan.

The champions have given a glimmer of hope to their rivals with a patchy run, which followed a perfect start of seven straight wins. Partizan have managed only one win in their last four league games and lost their opening UEFA Cup group match to Italian rivals Sampdoria in the process, prompting widespread opinions

that they still lack the steel to mix it with Europe’s big boys despite being too good for Serbian opposition at the moment. That emphasizes how sadly deprived of any real quality the Serbian “Superleague” is and one must wonder whether a proposed expansion to 16 clubs will help improve its potential or actually dilute it to a level not worth mentioning.

Igor Burzanovic (centre) and his Red Star team mates are in dire straits

Photo by FoNet

took over during the summer break and his Macedonian successor Cedomir Janevski has convinced few people that he is a worthy long-term replacement. The club’s fans are not just interested in wrestling the title back from Partizan. They want to see Champions League football or at least an end to early UEFA Cup exits such as this season’s first qualifying round defeat to Cypriots APOEL Nicosia, which underlined the embarrassing fact that Red Star have failed to survive the winter break in Europe for 17 years. With

Falling Roof Hands Cavic the Italian Job A complete lack of funds and facilities force Serbia’s top swimmer into exile after his most impressive performances for his country

By Zoran Milosavljevic

“

I really wanted to stay in Belgrade to live and train here but that is an impossible mission.

It is most regrettable that I have to leave and continue my preparations in Italy,” Serbia’s Olympic hero Milorad Cavic said last week after finding that Serbia’s capital, whose population is around 2.5 million, does not have a swimming pool available for one of the world’s top swimmers to train in.

Sounds like a bad joke, doesn’t it?

Well, it’s not. Belgrade has two indoor aquatic centres for the general population’s recreational activities, all its professional water polo teams and swimmers. One of the two is currently out of use after a ceiling cracked and it was only through a divine act of fortune that it did not collapse. Cavic, who won the Olympic 100 metres butterfly silver medal for Serbia at the Beijing Olympics after capturing gold at the European Championship in Eindhoven earlier this year, has nowhere to train in Belgrade. Worse still, he has almost nowhere to live in this part of the world.

The Serbian government, promised to donate U.S.-born Cavic a

flat after he finished behind Michael Phelps in the closest swimming race in Olympic history, one that required a video replay to determine the winner. When the euphoria died down, the promise, according to Cavic, boiled down to allowing him to use one.

“I know the government has a lot of issues but there is no point in making promises you can’t keep. I am disappointed to be honest and I think I deserve more credit after what I have done for my country,” a disillusioned Cavic said. Not surprisingly, because he could have so easily chosen another country, not least the one he was born in, from Serbian parents.

His coach was quick to dispel any fears that Cavic might ask for Italian citizenship either, which may look

like a good option, given that his only current alternatives are paying for a hotel in Belgrade, sleeping on his aunt’s couch in the city centre or returning to Florida to live with his parents. “It was a very difficult decision to make but I had no choice because staying in Belgrade any longer would be a waste of time,” said Cavic. “The water in the only swimming pool available is cold and it’s also open for public use whenever I am scheduled to train, so I am really not optimistic about things changing for the better in the near future,” he added.

Indeed, it is a rather forlorn hope and the only question that remains is how long Serbia will be able to hold on to Cavic and other top athletes who are light-years ahead of the country’s infrastructure.

TV Events

Friday, Nov 7: French Top 14 Rugby Union: Montpellier v Paris (Eurosport 2 at 8.30 p.m.); Soccer: FC Cologne v Hannover (Sport Klub 8.30 p.m.), Leeds v Northampton – FA Cup first round (Sport Klub + 8.45 p.m.), Argentinean League (Sport Klub + 11.00 p.m.)

Saturday, Nov 8:

Milorad Cavic is swimming against the tide

Source: www.svevesti.com

Zoran Milosavljevic is Belgrade Insight’s sports writer and also a regional sports correspondent for Reuters.

Rugby League World Cup: England v New Zealand (Sport Klub 9.50 a.m.); Alpine Skiing World Cup: Women’s Slalom (Eurosport 10.00 am.) Basketball - Regional NLB League: FMP Belgrade v Partizan Belgrade (FOX Serbia 4.00 p.m.), KK Zagreb v Hemofarm Vrsac (HRT 2 at 4.00 p.m.); Soccer: Arsenal v Manchester United (RTS 2; kick off at 1.45 p.m. live coverage possible or delayed at 4.00 p.m.), Leicester v Stevenage – FA Cup first round (Sport Klub 4.00 p.m.), Liver-

pool v West Bromwich (RTS 2 at 6.30 p.m.), NEC Nijmegen v PSV Eindhoven (Sport Klub + 6.45 p.m.), Real Madrid v Malaga (FOX Serbia 8.00 p.m.), Bologna v Roma (Sport Klub 8.30 p.m.), Barcelona v Real Valladolid (FOX Serbia 10.00 p.m.), Blythe Spartans v Shrewsbury – FA Cup first round (Sport Klub 10.30 p.m.), SV Hamburg v Borussia Dortmund (Sport Klub + 11.00 p.m. delayed); NHL Ice Hockey: New York Islanders v Pittsburgh Penguins (Sport Klub 1.00 a.m. Sunday) Sunday, Nov 9: Alpine Skiing World Cup: Men’s Slalom (Eurosport 10.00 a.m.); Basketball: NBA Regular Season: LA Clippers v Dallas Mavericks (OBN at 10.30 p.m.); NFL: Pittsburgh Steelers v Indianapolis Colts (Sport Klub 10.15 p.m.), Chicago Bears v Tennessee Titans (Sport Klub 1.30 a.m. Monday); Soccer: Spartak Moscow v Lokomotiv Moscow (Sport Klub + 12.00 a.m.), Sutton v Notts County – FA Cup first round (Sport Klub 1.00 p.m.), Blackburn v Chelsea (RTS 2 at 2.30 p.m.), Inter Milan v Udinese (OBN and Avala 3.00 p.m.), Schalke v Bayern Munich (Sport Klub 5.00 p.m.), Fulham v Newcastle (RTS 2 at 5.00 p.m.), Sevilla v Recreativo Huelva (FOX Serbia 7.00 p.m.), Lecce v Milan (Avala and Sport Klub 8.30 p.m.), PSG v Lille (Sport Klub + 9.00 p.m.), Argentinean League (Sport Klub + 11.30 p.m.)

14

the belgrader

Friday, Nov. 7 - Nov. 13, 2008

My Picks

Garden Center Florist Flower arrangements should inspire, and make the space they inhabit, more beautiful. But where can you find that perfect arrangement for the coffee table or a present?

T

By Rian Harris

here are plenty of flower shops all over Belgrade, but a good deal of the arrangements they offer are uninspiring and stuffed with filler. If you’re looking for an eyecatching arrangement for your home or to give as a gift, one good choice is the Garden Center Florist at Kalenic.

Garden Center, whose impressive full-service operation is hidden in Vidikovac, offers spectacular quality cut flowers and arrangements, as well as a small selection of plants, pots and potting compost, in two store fronts on the outer edge of the market.

This past weekend I purchased three enormous, stunning purple-blue hydrangeas, which were bundled together with a few branches of a darkleaved pepper plant. The arrangement is beautiful, and at 1,250 dinars, it could give any New York flower shop a run for its money. Plus, the gorgeous hydrangea blooms dry without losing any of their colour. I still have some from last autumn on display.

The Garden Center Florist is located right next to the entrance to the Kalenic parking garage, across from Safran Shoes at 1b Maksima Gorkog.

Mon - Sun 7 a.m. to 9 p.m.

decay of a once wealthy family from the southern Serbian town of Vranje in the late 19th century.

What’s On CINEMAS

CONCERTS

Roda Cineplex Pozeska 83A , tel: 011 2545260

Jean Michel Jarre

Quantum of Solace 18:00, 20:15 & 22:30 Turneja (The Tour) 20:30 & 22:30 The House Bunny 17:45 & 20:00 Wall E 16:15 Journey to the Center of the Earth 16:00 Star Wars: The Clone Wars 16:30 Max Payne 22:15 Nim’s Island 18:30 Dom sindikata Trg Nikole Pasica 5, tel. 011 3234849 Turneja (The Tour) 20:00 Quantum of Solace 16:15, 18:15, 19:15, 20:15, 21:15 & 22:15 Max Payne 22:00 The House Bunny 16:00,18:00 & 20:00 Ljubav i drugi zlocini (Love and Other Crimes) 18:00 & 22:00 Wall - E 16:15 Mamma Mia! 17:15 Ster City Cinema Delta City, Jurija Gagarina 16 (Blok 67), tel: 011 2203400 The House Bunny 13:50, 16:00, 18:10, 20:20 & 22:30 Quantum of Solace 11:20, 12:00, 13:30, 14:10, 15:40, 16:20, 17:50, 18:30, 20:00, 20:40, 22:10 & 22:50 Death Race 12:40, 14:50, 17:00, 19:10, 21:20 & 23:40 Max Payne 19:40, 21:40 & 23:40 Nim’s Island 11:10, 13:10, 15:20 & 17:40 Mamma Mia! 12:20, 14:30, 16:40, 18:50, 21:00 & 23:10 Tuckwood Cineplex Kneza Milosa 7, tel: 011 3236517 Quantum of Solace 15:30, 16:15, 18:00, 18:30, 20:15, 21:00, 22:30 & 23:15 Turneja (The Tour) 16:00, 18:15, 20:30 & 22:45 Max Payne 15:30, 17:30 & 19:30 The House Bunny 15:40, 17:45 & 20:00 Milos Brankovic 21:30 Death Race 23:20 Mirrors 22:05 Nim’s Island 17:45 & 19:15 Mirrors 21:15 & 23:30

Floral treats at Garden Center Florist

November 8, 19:30 Tickets available at National Theatre ticket office and Bilet Service, Trg Republike 5

11th Pancevo Jazz Festival

O3ONE Gallery Andricev vecnac 12 Mon- Sat 12:00 - 20:00

Free Zone Film Festival Bright lights, pyrotechnics, millions of people and electronic music are usually associated with raves. However this is not technically what will happen on Saturday night at the Belgrade Arena. Jean Michel Jarre will perform for the first time in Belgrade. His concerts are known for record breaking capacity crowds and their overthe-top visual effects, as well as the occasional strung out fan.

One of the finest orchestra in the country performs Tchaikovsky’s Swan lake suite and Symphony No 5 and Mendelssohn’s Concerto e-moll, conducted by Robin O’Neill.

Ilija M. Kolarac Foundation Hall Studentski trg 5 November 7, 20:00 Tickets available at Ilija M. Kolarac Foundation Hall ticket office

BALLET

National Theatre Republic Square 1a The Impure Blood Ballet based on the eponymous novel of Serbian novelist Bora Stankovic about the

Prints Graphic exhibition by Aleksandar Mladenovic Leka November 3 - 15

Pancevo Cultural Centre Vojvode Zivojina Misica 4, Pancevo November 7 - 8

Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestra

Pagliacci

Graficki Kolektiv Gallery Obilicev venac 27 Mon - Fri 11:00 - 20:00 Saturday 10:00 - 16:00

ANNUAL EVENTS

Renowned jazz musicians of different generations come to Pancevo to celebrate jazz.

Belgrade Arena Bulevar Arsenija Carnojevica 58 November 8, 20:00 Tickets available at Belgrade Arena ticket office and Bilet Service, Trg Republike 5

OPERA

Photos by Sophie Cottrell

This opera has all the proper elements of a love triangle: the jealous husband, a cheating wife and her lover. The occupation of the characters is what sets it apart.

They are a traveling group of clowns.

The plot gets a little tricky when, despite the discovered affair, they must continue performing. Revenge, clowns and murder make sure that this is not just your grandmother’s opera.

Sunny Day

National Theatre Republic Square 1a November 9, 12:00 Tickets available at National Theatre ticket office and Bilet Service, Trg Republike 5

THEATRE If typical Hollywood movies have started to get a little stale, try the 4th Annual Free Zone Film Festival. There are 17 different films to choose from, but all are concerned to some extent with current politics around the world. US President Bush’s war on terror and a French defence attorney’s fascination with crime are a few controversial topics at this festival.

Belgrade Cultural Centre Kolarceva 6 November 7 - 12 Tickets available at BCC ticket office and Bilet Service, Trg Republike 5

Terazije Theater Terazije 29 Gypsies Go To Heaven Musical based on the short story Makar Chudra by Maxim Gorky.

November 11, 19:30 Tickets available at Terazije Theatre ticket office and Bilet Service, Trg Republike 5

EXHIBITIONS Remont Gallery Makedonska 5 Mon - Fri 11:00 - 19:00

Aleksandra Stratimirovic’s award-winning artwork has become popular because of its composition. She doesn’t use paint or clay. Her palate is an array of thousands of test tubes containing expertly mixed liquid. When you step back, the effect is impressionistic. What seems odd up close is really an impressive masterpiece from a few steps back.

November 3 - 12

CLUBBING Student Cultural Centre (SKC) Kralja Milana 48 Cocoon Belgrade Guy Gerber, Extrawelt Vlada Janjic, Gordan Paunovic, Dee Face

Israeli Cinema Week

Couples

The museum of Yugoslav Film in association with the Israeli Embassy in Belgrade present a week of Israeli cinema during which seven feature films will be screened.

Exhibition of paintings by Daniel Glid November 3 - 14

The Tube Dobracina 17

SULUJ Gallery Terazije 26 Mon - Fri 11:00 - 18:00 Saturday 11:00 - 14:00

Peppe & Coba November 8, 22:00

Museum of Yugoslav Film Achive Kosovska 11 November 5 - 11 Tickets available at Museum of Yugoslav Film Achive ticket office

Checkmate Exhibition of paintings by Nadezda Markovski November 3 - 15

November 8, 22:00

Andergraund Pariska 1a Black in white lounge - Pure black grooves November 13, 22:00

directory

Friday, Nov. 7 - Nov. 13, 2008

TAXI SERVICES

Beo Taxi 011 9801 Blue Taxi 011 555999 Joker Taxi 011 3971174 Lux Taxi 011 3033123 Pink Taxi 011 9803 Taxi Bell 011 9808 Yellow Taxi 011 9802

BEAUTICIANS

MIOLIFT STUDIO Trg Nikole Pasica 8 Tel: 011 3340554 www.centarlepote.co.yu NENA Terazije 42, 1st floor Tel: 011 3619115, 011 619577 WELLNESS CENTAR ZORICA Dobracina 33, Bulevar Despota Stefana 71, 2nd floor Tel: 011 3285922, 011 3243940, 063 356001 www.zorica.co.yu SPA CENTAR Strahinjica Bana 5 Tel: 011 3285408 www.spacentar.co.yu office@spacentar.co.yu

BUILDERS ENJUB Bulevar Mihajla Pupina 20 Tel: 011 2601673 www.enjub.co.yu info@enjub.co.yu

ESTATE AGENTS

INTERNET HOTSPOTS

AS-YUBC ESTATE Bul. Mihajla Pupina 10a Tel: 011 3118424, 063 371 879 as.yubc@sbb.co.yu EURENT Dobracina 21 Tel: 011 3038662 www.eurent.co.yu info@eurent.co.yu

123 wap Vase Pelagica 48 Absinthe Kralja Milutina 33 Backstage Restaurant Svetogorska 19 BAR Central Kralja Petra 59 Bistro Pastis Strahinjica Bana 52B Bizzare Zmaj Jovina 25 Café bar MODA Njegoseva 61 Café Biblioteka Terazije 27 Café Koeficijent Terazije 15-23 Café Nautilus Turgenjeva 5 Café Paleta Trg Republike 5 Celzijus Dzordza Vasingtona 12 Coffee dream Kralja Petra 23 Café Pianeta 27. Marta 141 Colonial Sun Bul. Vojvode Putnika 32-34 Cuba Café Kneza Viseslava 63 Extreme kids Cvijiceva 1 Gradski Macor Svetozara Markovica 43 Ice bar Kosovska 37 Idiott Dalmatinska 13 Insomnia Strahinjica Bana 66A Ipanema Strahinjica Bana 68 Journal Kralja Milutina 21 Koling Klub Neznanog junaka 23 Kontra Bar Strahinjica Bana 59 Langust Kosancicev venac 29 Mart Caffe Krunska 6 Monin Bar Dositejeva 9A Monument Admirala Geprata 14 New York, New York Krunska 86 Oktopus Brace Krsmanovic 3 O’Polo Café Rige od Fere 15 Pietro Dell Oro Trnska 2 Pomodoro Hilandarska 32 Que pasa Kralja Petra 13 Rezime Centar Cafe Kralja Petra 41 Veprov dah Strahinjica Bana 52 Vespa Bar Toplicin venac 6 Via Del Gusto Knez Mihailova 48

EVENTS & CATERERS Villa catering Krunska 69, Beograd Tel: 011 3442656, 3835570, 063 207976 www.villa-catering.com office@villa-catering.com

PARTY SERVICE Tel: 011 3946461 GODO Savski kej bb Tel: 011 2168101 BUTTERFLY CATERING Tel: 011 2972027, 063 7579825 office@butterfly-catering.rs Aleksandra-Anais Tel/fax: 011 4898173 063 7775889 office@aleksandra-anais.co.yu CATERING CLUB DB Tel. 065 8099819 Fax: 011 2980800 cateringclubdb@eunet.yu CATERING PLUS Palmira Toljatija 5 Tel: 011 2608410 office@catering.co.yu DIPLOMAT CATERING Josipa Slavenskog 10 Tel: 011 3672605 diplomatcatering@icomline.net EURO CATERING Prve pruge 2 11080 Zemun Tel/fax: 011 3190469 office@eurocatering.co.yu

FLORISTS

COSMETIC & HEALTH SERVICES KOMNENUS Kraljice Natalije 19 Tel: 011 3613677 www.komnenus.com office@komnenus.com ANTI-AGING CENTAR Nikolaja Ostrovskog 3 Tel: 011 2199645 www.aacentar.com EPILION dermatological laser centre Admirala Geprata 13 Tel: 011 3611420, 011 3615203 www.epilion.co.yu, info@epilion.co.yu

DENTISTS BIG TOOTH Mite Ruzica 10a Tel: 063 8019190 www.big-tooth.com dr.ilic@beotel.yu FAMILY DENTIST Bulevar Dr Zorana Djindica bb Tel: 011 136437 www.familydentist.co.yu ordinacija@familydentist.co.yu BELDENT Brankova 23 Tel: 011 2634455 APOLONIJA Stevana Sremca 13, Tel: 011 3223420 DUKADENT Pariske Komune 11 Tel: 011 3190766

MALA VRTNA RADIONICA Spanskih boraca 22g Tel: 011 3130300 www.mvr.co.yu mvr@verat.net CVET EXPRES Rajka Od Rasine 28 Tel: 011 2545987 INTERFLORA Vojvode Stepe 405 Tel: 011 462687 TELEFLORA Svetogorska 11 Tel: 011 03030047/048

HAIR STYLISTS

GYMS, LEISURE & SPORTS CENTRES

HAIR FACTORY Kosovska 37/10 Tel: 011 3227775 www.hairfactory.co.yu vlada@hairfactory.co.yu EXCLUSIVE UNISEX HAIR SALONE ALEKSANDAR Bulevar Despota Stefana 96 Tel: 011 2087602 www.aleksandar.weebly.com fsaleksandar@gmail.com

EXTREME GYM TC ABC Cvijiceva 1 Tel: 011 2768255 www.x3mgym.com extremegym@x3mgym.com LPG Centar YU BIZNIS Centre, Bulevar Mihaila Pupina 10b Tel: 011 3130806 lpgstosic@eunet.yu, www.lpgsalon.co.yu

RELAX PLATO Beogradjanka Tower Masarikova 5, 5th floor Tel: 011 3061765 www.relaxplato.com Golf Club Beograd Ada Ciganlija 2 Tel: 063 8963816 Partizan Shooting Club Tel: 011 2647942, 064 801 9900 Fax: 011 2647261 www.partizanshooting.rs info@partizanshooting.rs Hippodrome Belgrade Pastroviceva 2 Tel: 011 3546826

LEGAL SERVICES ILS Ltd. in association with Clyde & Co Gospodar Jevremova 47 Tel: 011 3038822 www.clydeco.co.uk clyde@clyde.co.yu HARRISONS SOLICITORS Terazije 34 Tel: 011 3615918 www.harisons-solicitors.com KARANOVIC&NIKOLIC Lepenicka 7 Tel: 011 3094200 www.karanovic-nikolic.co.yu info@karanovic-nikolic.co.yu

MASSEURS

HEALTHCARE BEL MEDIC Viktora Igoa 1 Tel. 011 3065888, 011 3066999, 063 206602 www.belmedic.com BEL MEDIC Koste Jovanovića 87 Tel. 011 3091000, 065 3091000 www.belmedic.com Dr. RISTIC HEALTH CENTRE Narodnih Heroja 38 Tel: 011 2693287 www.dr-ristic.co.yu zcentar@dr-ristic.co.yu LABOMEDICA Bulevar Kralja Aleksandra 193a Tel: 011 3088304 www.labomedica.net klinika@labomedica.net Privatna Praksa Petrovic Kralja Milutina 10 Tel: 011 3460777 Dom Zdravlja “Stari Grad” Obilicev venac 30 Tel: 011 635236 Dom Zdravlja “Vracar” Kneginje Zorke 15 Tel. 011 2441413

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VETS&PETS

NOVAK VETERINARIAN CLINIC Veselina Maslese 55 Tel: 011 2851856, 011 2851923 www.vetnovak.co.yu novak@ptt.yu Veterinarska stanica Lazarevic Zrenjaninski put 30 Tel: 011 3319 015, 063 216 663 Fax: +381 (0)11 2712 385 Oaza Miklosiceva 11, Tel: 011 4440899

Bookstores

PLUMBERS HAUZMAJSTOR Francuska 56 Tel: 011 3034034 office@hauzmajstor.co.yu HIDROTEK Ljutice Bogdana 2 Tel: 011 2666823 kontakt@hidrotek.co.yu

SOLARIUMS BEAUTY CENTAR Traditional Thai Massage Centre Knez Mihajlova 2-4 Tel: 011 3030003 www.menta.co.yu menta_bg@ptt.yu

ALLIED PICKFORDS SERBIA Zarka Obreskog 23 Tel: 011 8487744 www.alliedpickfords.co.yu movers@alliedpickfords.co.yu AGS Belgrade Niski autoput 17 Tel: 011 3472321 www.agsmovers.com belgrade@agsmovers.com

SUN FACTORY MEGASUN Maksima Gorkog 82 Tel: 011 3440403 sun.factory.megasun@gmail.com ORNELA MEGASUN Njegoseva 56 Tel: 011 2458398 ornelakbl@eunet.yu Studio miolift Beograd, Trg Nikole Pašica 8 Tel: 011 3033211, 064 2351313 Aleksandar team Bulevar Despota Stefana 34a Tel: 011 3225632 www.aleksandar-team.co.yu Sun look Makedonska 5 Tel: 011 3343810 www.sunlook-bg.com

OPTICIANS

TICKET SERVICES

MOVERS

EUROOPTIC Bulevar kralja Aleksandra 278 Tel: 011 2415130 www.eurooptic.co.yu OPTIKA BEOGRAD A.D. Cara Urosa 8-10 Tel: 011 2629833

PRINTERS DIGITAL PRINTING CENTAR Cvijiceva 29 Tel: 011 2078000 www.dpc.co.yu office@dpc.co.yu DIGITAL ART Tel: 011 3617281

BILET SERVICE Trg Republike 5 IPS & MAMUT MEGASTORE Knez Mihajlova 1 Tel: 011 3033311 www.ips.co.yu

TRANSLATORS TODOROVIC AGENCY Tel: 011 2188197 BELGRADE TRANSLATION CENTRE Dobracina 50/11 Tel: 011 3287388 www.btc.co.yu natasa.ralic@btc.co.yu LEXICA TRANSLATION AGENCY Beogradska 35 Tel: 011 3222750 www.lexica.co.yu office@lexica.co.yu

Akademija Knez Mihailova 35 Tel: 011 2627846 Antikvarijat Knez Mihailova 35 Tel: 011 636087 Beopolis Makedonska 22 Tel: 011 3229922 Dereta Dostojevskog 7 Tel: 011 3058707, 011 556-445 Kneza Mihaila 46 Tel. 011 3033503, 011 3030 514, 011 627-934 Geca Kon Kneza Mihaila 12 Tel. 011 622073 IPS Mercator, Bulevar umetnosti 4 Tel: 011 132872 Super Vero Milutina MIlankovica 86a Tel: 011 3130640 IPS BOOK & MUSIC STORE Beoizlog, basement, Trg Republike 5 Tel: 011 3281859 Plato Knez Mihailova 48 Tel: 011 625834 SKZ Kralja Milana 19 Tel: 011 3231593 Stubovi kulture Knez Mihailova 6 Tel: 011 3281851, 011 632384 The Oxford Center Dobracina 27 Tel. 011 631021 We welcome suggestions for inclusion in the directory.

Please send details to: belgradeinsightmarketing@ birn.eu.com

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Friday, Nov. 7 - Nov. 13, 2008