CorD Magazine No.41

ReneWIng old FRIendSHIPS h.e. dr. majed shadoud Ambassador of Syria in Belgrade

beyond belgRade carin salerno Director of the Swiss Development Agency

neW CIRCuS ConQueRS tHe WoRld Jovan ćirilov BITEF Art Director and Selector

interviews opinions news comments events www.cordmagazine.com

September 2007 / Issue No. 41

State of limbo

Cord, september 2007

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66 Society

Politics & diplomacy

State of Limbo

Renewing Old Friendships

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No Rush for Tadić

The Heat is On

Interview. Joachim Rücker, UNMIK Chief

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Dragan Bujošević investigates inter-party relations

Interview. Syrian Ambassador H.E. Dr. Majed Shadoud

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Ambassador’s present their views on climate change

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Faces & Places – images of the summer in Belgrade

Tales from the Big Plum – Pat Anđelković demystifies Belgrade Ivica’s Edge – An alternative look at trends, fads and phenomena

Business & economics

food industry LEADER

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Interview: Robert Ferko, Delta Holding Vice President

Beyond Belgrade

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Interview: Carin Salerno, Director of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation in Belgrade

Tele-com-petition

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CorD investigates competition hotting-up among Serbia’s cell networks Managing Director Ana Isaković, a.isakovic@cma.co.yu Editor in Chief Mark Pullen, m.pullen@cma.co.yu Art Director Darko Staničić, d.stanicic@cma.co.yu Editorial Contributors Tatjana Ostojić, Ivica Petrović, Vik Jensen, Vojislava Vignjević, Dragan Bujošević, Sonja Ćirić, Alex Papke Photo Jelena Mandić, Stanislav Milojković, Časlav Vukojičić, Jelena Seferin, Nemanja Savić, CorD Archive, Tanjug Translators Dejan Zubac, Tijana Pejčić, Milica Kuburu-Jovanović, Marija Petrović, Đorđe Janković Editorial Manager Jelena Vignjević, j.vignjevic@cma.co.yu Subscription & Web Ivan Lakatoš, i.lakatos@cma.co,yu Sales MANAGER: Sanja Zimonjić, s.zimonjic@cma.co.yu

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Good recipe required

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Tanja Ostojić looks into upcoming major privatisations

CorD B2B

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Business news summary and CorD Club news

Super Marina

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A look at the ambitious project that’s set to change the face of Montenegro

General Manager Ivan Novčić, i.novcic@cma.co.yu Financial Director Snežana Batrićević, s.batricevic@cma.co.yu Printing Politika AD CorD is published by: alliancemedia Knjeginje Zorke 11b, 11000 Belgrade, Serbia Phone: +(381 11) 308 99 77, 308 99 88 Fascimile: +(381 11) 244 81 27 E-mail: cordeditorial@cma.co.yu www.cordmagazine.com ISSN no: 1451-7833 All rights reserved alliancemedia 2007

Culture

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New Circus conquers the world – a look ahead to the 41st BITEF Site Specific – Alex Papke on Užice’s Open Arc Theatre Festival Culture Calendar – a look at what’s ahead in the world of culture

Leisure & Lifestyle

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Party on the Water – Richard Wordsworth tries out Belgrade’s alternative night spots

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Fashion review – Mura fashion

Techno talk – which gadgets take your fancy?

Sport

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The Partizan Ban – Serbian football is reeling after top club is banned and SFA is fined

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Davis cup hits Belgrade – featuring a word from Australian Ambassador H.E. Clare Birgin

Comment

Feudal Serbia European integration; implementation of the regional free trade zone; fighting corruption and re-establishing public trust in the Government. No. Unfortunately, these are not the priorities of Serbia’s ministries following their summer break.

By Miša Brkić, deputy editor in chief, The Ekonomist Magazine ccording to media announcements and poll results, Serbia’s ministers see the finalisation of negotiations regarding the initial coalition agreement as their key post-summer priority.

In June this agreement enabled the division of ministerial positions, but what remained unfinished was the division of the loot, i.e. the control over state-owned companies.

The public was informed prior to the summer that some deals had been made, i.e. that the Democratic Party was given Naftna Industrija Srbije (NIS) “to use”, the Democratic Party of Serbia got Elektroprivreda Srbije (EPS), G17 Plus is for the time being satisfied with the Belgrade Airport and Srbijašume (forestry) and New Serbia is struggling for national air carrier JAT. Unnamed media sources claim that “trench warfare” is underway for party control over Putevi Srbije (Serbian roads).

Even though accounts are not yet settled, it seems that demarcation lines of party ownership over state property are already established and that Serbia’s feudalisation is almost complete. For example, when the Economy Minister announced that the state will negotiate the sale of RTB Bor with the second placed bidder he was immediately “rapped on the knuckles” by the PM, who refused the proposal and instead welcomed a Russian businessman as the certain buyer of Bor in the repeated tender. It is also known who will manage JAT Airways until this company is sold (again the Russian buyer); EPS will not be up for sale because DSS wants it, and the same also applies to Telekom Srbija and the Dunav insurance company.

The feudalisation of Serbia started during the first mandate of PM Koštunica, when the then coalition partners openly divided Serbia into their “dowries”. Such a model of parcelling out state business has proved catastrophic as regards the prosperity of Serbia: it has halted reforms and endangered its modernisation, stopped European integration and contributed to the enormous expansion of corruption.

Party feuds, established over parts of the state which later became independent and strengthened, have led to the point where the Serbian Government operates on the principle of “nail and plate”, but has also created a peaceful coexistence in which one minister doesn’t interfere in another’s “internal matters”, i.e. ministry feud’s. Through the consistent implementation of such a principle, one important state project has been made farcical.

Here we refer to the motorway concessions affair, which has

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enabled a resourceful minister (for capital investments and then for the infrastructure) to make fools of the whole nation without baring any responsibility for so doing.

The feudalisation of Serbia was not stopped by the establishment of the new Government. On the contrary, it has been perfected and become the rule of conduct. The consistent implementation of the model that sees the division of the public (state’s) interest was extended to all fields. Foreign affairs are in the hands of one party, Kosovo in the hands of another and regional development is in the hands of a third. How will this “active peaceful coexistence” function on the example of Kosovo or the macroeconomic policy? The answer to that question

is already evident: one coalitional partner is prepared to alienate Serbia from the U.S. and NATO because of Kosovo, regardless of the fact that the other partner opposes that policy. It is a similar situation with the macroeconomic policy: one partner wants to privatise companies around Serbia, the other one wants to spend money from the privatisation, and the third wants to manage the fiscal policy. And nobody is allowed to interfere in the other’s businesses.

The best thing that could happen with such management of state business lies in the old national saying “too many midwives, inept child” (too many cooks spoil the broth), but there are also much worse scenarios. What is worrying is the lack of political awareness that if its disempowerment is not possible then a “central power” should have been established over feuds, i.e. at least bringing them into harmonised functioning for the sake of the state’s good operating. Until a “chancellor” is found to destroy this feudalism, Serbia will stumble in everything – economic reforms, European integration, the fight against corruption, modernisation... n

INTERVIEW

“UNMIK has basically implemented what it can under the current mandate without status.

All further progress is now dependent on status” – UNMIK Chief Joachim Rücker

State of limbo Joachim Rücker, SRSG, Head of UNMIK

This summer marked the eighth anniversary of the interim administration of the United Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) and, with the UN scaling down operations in anticipation of a decision on the final status of the breakaway province following the upcoming fresh round of negotiations, CorD travelled to Priština to speak directly to a cautious Special Representative of the Secretary General Joachim Rücker, the German diplomat who this month (September) celebrates his first anniversary as head of UNMIK.

By Mark R Pullen; Photo: Samir Karahoda erbia’s southern province has been under an international civilian administration, led by the UN, since the summer of 1999. Under the experimental system devised for Kosovo’s unique interim period, three co-operating international organisations have strived to fulfil a so-called ‘four pillar’ system within the UNMIK structure: “Police and Justice” (UN); “Civil Administration” (UN); “Democratisation and Institution Building” (OSCE); and “Economic Reconstruction” (EU).

In addition to providing an interim administration, UNMIK has been charged with establishing “an independent, impartial and multi-ethnic judiciary”, while the international security pres-

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ence in the province, KFOR, operates under a unified military control and command structure separate from UNMIK. n With multilateral organisations operating as full partners under the leadership of the UN, the structure of the international presence here is unique. What would you say have been the main successes and failures of this experimental format? r I think that UNMIK, together with its partners in Kosovo, has definitely succeeded in laying the foundations for a functioning democracy, functioning rule of law sector and a functioning market economy. I think that’s no minor achievement.

“ Everybody’s running out of patience and that’s understandable: after ten years of oppression and killings, after international military intervention, after eight years of UN interim administration, after numerous announcements from the international community that status would come in 2006 or very soon thereafter, people are frustrated.” n How have the limited achievements of UNMIK over the past eight years affected the notion of the UN as an organisation able to rebuild structures long-term, as opposed to being employed in short-term reactionary missions? r As you’re implying, UNMIK is a unique mission in the peacekeeping operations of the UN. As you know, its mandate is very broad and very deep and basically means that UNMIK has been charged with governing Kosovo while helping to make sure that there are present the institutions of self government, which have now matured. So in this sense UNMIK is certainly unique. n On the UNMIK site, former Secretary General Kofi Annan is quoted as saying: “The task before the international community is to help the people in Kosovo to rebuild their lives and heal the wounds of conflict.” How much has this been achieved? r I think you have to look at Resolution 1244 from 1999, and the mandate that the international civil presence was given. There was, of course, a period of emergency aid and emergency reconstruction that UNMIK certainly mastered. Now, of course, we are in quite a different period where the local institutions, our partners here, have matured and we are ready to go to the next stage, i.e. status.

When it comes to the implementation of the mandate under 1244, I think it’s also important to be mindful of the fact that UNMIK has basically implemented what it can under the current mandate without status. All further progress is now dependent on status.

We could see further progress on, hopefully, the return of IDPs, and we obviously need further progress on the economy and so forth, but it now turns out that all further progress is closely status related.

Basically, what we’re saying is that UNMIK has achieved what is achievable.

n How would you characterise relations between UNMIK and the local administration, the Serbian community and Belgrade? r UNMIK has a relationship of close co-operation and mutual respect with the provisional institutions of self-government (PISG) on both the central and municipal level, and of course that includes the municipalities with Kosovo-Serb mayors and majorities.

When it comes to Belgrade, we do have a certain degree of co-operation, but we are always striving to have more. We’re particularly concerned about Belgrade’s influence over the KosovoSerbs, and would like to see Belgrade encouraging the KosovoSerbs to participate in the institutions of Kosovo and end the boycott. We still have the impression that the opposite is the case; that Belgrade is discouraging the Kosovo-Serbs from participating in the institutions.

n So how much have you personally been able to achieve, given the platform available to you and the fact that you now say nothing further can be done until status is resolved? r First of all, we do still have a mandate. I’m not saying in any way that the situation is perfect, but rather that we have achieved what is achievable under the current circumstances. However, one of our tasks under 1244 is to facilitate the status process.

We’re not an actual player in the status process, but we’re certainly a stakeholder, in a sense, and we’re certainly facilitators.

As the status process continues we will try to facilitate it as much as possible and try to ensure that this process continues and comes to a positive conclusion. That’s one of our current tasks. We are also very busy with domestic issues such as the upcoming elections, the expiry of the mandates of the Kosovo Assembly and the municipal elections that are also due.

CorD / Septembar 2007 11

INTERVIEW

“ If Kosovo is still manageable, despite all the internal and external pressures and frustrations, then people conclude that the status process can be delayed further; and if there is turbulence people say you’re not mature in Kosovo and status can be delayed yet further. So it’s a catch-22; you can never get it right.” n Do you know what ‘more than autonomy, less than independence’ actually means? r Erm, I don’t. No. n Ok. As UNMIK winds down its operations in expectancy of some sort of decision on status, is the general assumption that we’re about to see the creation of EUMIK, whatever happens? r The European Union’s readiness to come in is in the context of the Ahtisaari Plan. Here you would have an international civilian presence that would be basically led by the EU and an EU Representative, and as part of that international civilian presence you would also have an ESDP (European Security and Defence Policy) rule of law mission…

Successful mission?

“I think that UNMIK, together with its partners in Kosovo, has definitely succeeded in laying the foundations for a functioning democracy…”

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Mutual respect “UNMIK has a relationship of close co-operation and mutual respect with the provisional institutions of self-government (PISG)…”

n Is it going to be a case of the same people in different hats, or will it comprise a completely new team? r No, it will not be the same people in different hats, that is definitely not the case. There will be clear discontinuity. The mandate will be different. n Will this new mandate have less depth and breadth than the UNMIK mission, i.e. will the EU play a lesser role than the UN has done because more authority will have been turned over to the PISG by then? r Well, in order to answer this question correctly you would need to know the status settlement, and neither of us knows that yet. So all I can say at this point is that I assume it will be a different mandate. n Does progress on this matter require the Browns, Sarkozies and Merkels of the EU to push for a strong united stance and take this issue head on; is the EU pussyfooting around on Kosovo? r I think that the EU has been united in its support of the Ahtisaari Plan, and has spoken with one voice in New York. Now we’re in a different stage; we’re in this period of engagement, and will wait and see what that brings. And I’m sure the EU will take it from there.

Appeal to Serbia “We would like to see Belgrade encouraging the Kosovo-Serbs to participate in the institutions of Kosovo and end the boycott.”

INTERVIEW

“I would like to stress that for very good reasons the Contact Group principles – as endorsed by the Security Council – have absolutely excluded any redrawing of borders or boundaries ” n So, if a result isn’t forthcoming soon, do you think the Albanian side is likely play into the hands of their opponents in Serbia by unilaterally declaring independence? r I don’t want to comment on Serbian tactics, but what I can say is that, in a way, we – UNMIK, as the interim administrator, and the PISG – can never get it right: i.e. If Kosovo is still manageable, despite all the internal and external pressures and frustrations, then people conclude that the status process can be delayed further; and if there is turbulence people say you’re not mature in Kosovo and status can be delayed yet further. So it’s a catch-22; you can never get it right. And the international community has to understand that.

n But is there genuine unity in the EU, if countries like Spain and Slovakia perhaps only begrudgingly backed the Plan?

Can the EU really say that it has all sails pointing in the same direction on the Kosovo issue? r All I can say is that according to all that I have seen and heard, the EU was united in its support of the Ahtisaari Plan and I assume that this is still the case. n Let’s talk about the UNMIK legacy after eight years in Kosovo. Is UNMIK leaving here having put in place what Kosovo needs in order to achieve sustainable development? r I think that Kosovo certainly has the potential to get onto a sustainable growth track, like other transformation economies and, as I said before, UNMIK has done what it can under the circumstances.

There are limitations that are status-related, and thus we cannot progress much further at this point. For example, there is a statusrelated problem linked to gaining access to international financial institutions. As a matter of fact, we have the obligations as a de facto member of the international financial institutions, for example we have a functioning “letter of intent” on macroeconomic and fiscal policies with the IMF, but we do not have the benefit of being able to acquire loans.

So, there are significant status-related limitations, but even so we have done what we can to lay the foundations for sustainable economic development. n Are these status-related limitations, coupled with other restrictions, resulting in the Kosovo-Albanian leadership running out of patience? r Definitely. Everybody’s running out of patience and that’s understandable: after ten years of oppression and killings, after international military intervention, after eight years of UN interim administration, after numerous announcements from the international community that status would come in 2006 or very soon thereafter, people are frustrated.

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n With fresh negotiations about to start, notions of partition again unofficially to the fore in Belgrade, and a land-swap debate regarding Preševo purportedly going on in Priština, how likely are we now to see a swift solution to the status issue; and is the international community prepared to deal with any land-swap options or future question marks over the fate of the Preševo Valley? r It is UNMIK’s mandate to facilitate the status process, but your question goes into the very substance of a status settlement which is not UNMIK’s mandate. However, I would like to stress that for very good reasons the Contact Group principles – as endorsed by the Security Council – have absolutely excluded any redrawing of borders or boundaries. n Speaking hypothetically about the make up of the Contact Group for a moment, do you think it would have made more sense for it to comprise the regional players, such as Greece, Turkey, Austria, Italy, etc. – the countries who know the history and the region intimately and will have to live with the consequences – as opposed to providing the U.S. and Russia with an issue to arm wrestle over within Europe? r I’m sorry. The composition of the Contact Group is certainly not an issue I’m mandated to comment on. n What do you think you’ve personally brought to this position, as a diplomat and former mayor? r I think I’ve been able to make a contribution to moving not only the status process forward, but also in moving Kosovo forward to a point where the general assessment is that we have achieved what is achievable under the present circumstances. If this drags on further, I’m sure that instead of progress we will have regression; our achievements will unravel. This is not only where I see UNMIK, but also myself. n What’s life like for a foreigner like you in Priština? r I’m not complaining. I like the people of Kosovo and I sympathise with their aspirations. I think they – and in that I mean the Kosovo Albanians, the Kosovo Serbs and the other minorities – deserve and need clarity on status. n The sense of limbo is almost tangible here. Do you think the majority Albanians are beginning to resent UNMIK’s presence because they consider that the longer you’re here, the longer their limbo will last? r I think the overwhelming majority in Kosovo understands that UNMIK is here to help Kosovo move forward towards final status, and does not see us as part of the problem. n

Politics – Kosovo

Round & round we go

New negotiations, old opposing positions If there were optimists who claimed that the Kosovo knot would have been unravelled two years ago, today there certainly aren’t any such souls left. The key question – the determination of the province’s status – has been transferred from the United Nations Security Council because Russia, with its unyielding support for Serbia, has threatened (albeit informally) to employ its veto option, thereby letting the global political scene know that Mother Russia is “an unavoidable factor” in the Balkans.

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By Vojislava Vignjević; Photo: Tanjug & CorD archive

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ith the ‘completion’ of Martti Ahtisaari’s mission, the Kosovo baton was taken up by the Contact Group’s negotiating trio, who underlined that their main goal was to help facilitate a dialogue between Belgrade and Priština. However, the stances of the Washington representative, Frank Wisner, and the EU’s Wolfgang Ischinger, are distinctly juxtaposed to that of the third member of the trio – Russian envoy Alexander Botsan-Kharchenko.

Namely, Wisner is considered as being a strong supporter of an independent Kosovo, which he sees as the only solution for the status of the Serbian province; the EU’s representative, Ischinger (a German Am-

bassador), remains close to Washington in his views, despite being markedly more reserved in his statements – perhaps due to the fact that several EU member states are principally supportive of Serbia’s position – while Botsan-Khachenko, naturally, represents Moscow’s official position opposing independence for the province.

Numerous questions still remain open, one of which is how long the new SerbianAlbanian negotiations will last and whether they will be direct or held according to the principle of shuttle diplomacy.

Serbia and Russia demand that there be no set deadlines, while Priština, Brussels and Washington support certain time limits that will ensure the whole process isn’t merely postponed indefinitely. It is also unknown exactly what Belgrade and Priština will negotiate about, but also whether Martti Ahtisaari’s plan has definitely been

abandoned or if the West will keep it in of view, because the only competent docu“reserve”. It is also unknown whether the ment about Kosovo is Security Council Contact Group will prepare some docu- Resolution 1244. Any unilateral declarament, or if its mission will end within the tion of independence would be a violaframe of its five members (voting without tion of the Resolution and each country the right to veto) or whether the issue of to recognise such independence would be defining the status of Kosovo will again be in breach of the current Resolution. The returned to the Security Council. only place where the Resolution could be Serbia’s position remains unchanged – replaced with a new one is the Security Kosovo is offered more than autonomy and Council,” states Fleiner categorically. less than sovereignty, whatever that means.

The negotiating trio’s first visit to BelThe Government has requested from the grade did not bring anything new. In sepaContact Group that the negotiations be- rate talks with Tadić and Koštunica, the tween Belgrade and Priština be direct with- Contact Group’s representatives did not out any time limits and that the decision on present a single mutual position about status be brought only by the UN Security time limits for negotiations, nor the fate Council. The measures sent to the Contact of Ahtisaari’s plan. Wisner was the firmest Group by Belgrade for the new phase of in the position that the negotiations should negations include requests for negotiating be limited to 120 days. As the Serbian delthe status and abandoning Ahtisaari’s plan.

Koštunica emphasises that the first and funSerbian Prime Min- damental subject of the new negotiation ister Vojislav Koštunica process, through direct talks, must be the soemphasises that, in contrast to the previous ne- lution of the status of Kosovo itself. gotiations which were led by Martti Ahtisaari, the first and fundamental subject of the new negotiation process, through direct talks, must be the solution of the status of Kosovo itself. He underlines that Ahtisaari’s plan cannot be the basis for the new negotiations, which must be based on international law.

Serbia’s Minister for Kosovo and Metohija, Slobodan Smardžić, says that the Government has adopted a proposal of the rules according to which the negotiations will develop, that this proposal has been sent to the Contact Group members, i.e. their ambassadors to Serbia, and that the goal of the aforementioned proposal is to prevent negotiations like those which were egation presented an opposed proposal, the trio left for Priština without having agreed managed by Special Envoy Ahtisaari.

Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremić principles with Belgrade. In Priština they has stated that Serbia is prepared to give up mostly repeated the already well known many things, “including some prerogatives positions – we are here to search for a conof sovereignty, but Kosovo’s Albanians sensus (Wisner); the future of Kosovo is have to be prepared to give up something an important issue for Europe (Ischinger) too”. He emphasised that Belgrade is pre- and the status of Kosovo can be defined pared to offer Kosovo the widest possible only within the Security Council (Botsanautonomy in the aim of helping to reach Khachenko). The President of Kosovo, agreement regarding the future of the Fatmir Sejdiu, warned that there can be no Province: “Serbia is prepared to consider negotiations regarding the independence of the possibility of renouncing some pre- Kosovo, expressing his expectation that the rogatives of sovereignty... Kosovo could decision about the independence of Kosovo have its own access to the World Bank, the will be brought by 10th December this year.

Regardless of Kosovo-Albanian conInternational Monetary Fund and other international financial institutions, as well as fidence, it seems that the idea of partition is once again on the table. It is interesting some kind of representation abroad”.

According to Tomas Fleiner, a legal ex- to note that Ischinger stated in Priština that pert from Vienna and advisor to the Ser- the Contact Group’s trio for the new negobian negotiating team, the problem is that tiations does not rule out territorial division some people think that only one outcome as a possible solution, provided the Serbs is possible, and that is the independence and Albanians agree. He added that the trio of Kosovo. For him there is no dilemma: has the principle to support every agree“the situation is clear from the legal point ment which the two sides reach. That inCorD / Septembar 2007 17

Politics – Kosovo

Jeremić has stated that Serbia is prepared to give up many things, “including some prerogatives of sovereignty, but Kosovo’s Albanians to have to be prepared to give up something too”. cludes all options, concluded Ischinger. In response to the question ‘does that include the division of the territory?’, his response was unequivocal: “Yes, if they want that”, said Ischinger. However, Ischinger also emphasised that the trio’s principles are based on Resolution 1244 and the Contact Group’s positions, which means that “we, as the trio, will not make any proposals such as the division of Kosovo or any other solutions”. The Contact Group’s principles were established before the Athisaari-led negotiations and have not been changed since. The main positions are: there is no return to the structure of the period prior to 1999 and there can be no division of Kosovo or its annexing to any other countries.

Serbian officials mostly avoid mentioning the possibility of the division of Kosovo. However, former SCG Foreign Minister and current official of the Stability Pact for South-Eastern Europe, Goran Svilanović, claims that the possible division of the province is closer than ever, but that the Government does not want to mention this publicly in order not to compromise its negotiating positions regarding the integrity of the country. Svilanović claims that, as such, this idea will be proposed by others if it is proposed at all. Svilanović adds that everything that Belgrade and Priština agree upon and sign is in accordance with the Final Helsinki Act. This, he states, includes division.

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Ischinger stated in Priština that the Contact Group’s trio for the new negotiations does not rule out territorial division as a possible solution, provided the Serbs and Albanians agree.

Svilanović also explains how the idea of establishing the negotiating trio came about. According to him, after realising that there would be no decision reached within the Security Council, the European and U.S. members of the Security Council and the Contact Group decided to entrust the additional negotiations to the trio made up of Moscow, Washington and Brussels, mostly in the aim of dragging Moscow into the negotiations. And that was the only real reason. “The idea was that Moscow directly share responsibility with others and to face its results,” claims Svilanović.

In general, there are too many unknown elements and too few certainties at the beginning of the new negotiating process.

There are even more unknown elements than was the case with the previous, Vienna negotiations. Truly, there is a great deal of diplomatic engagement, particularly from the EU and Russia, but that is rather the result of the desire to do at least something to loosen the tangled Kosovo knot, rather than being based on any realistic prognosis that the new negotiating round could bring a result which would satisfy everyone.

Here, however, is the main quandary: can the new negotiations bring the completely opposed concepts of Belgrade and Priština any closer; or was everything devised in order to buy some more time since there is almost no space for a compromise acceptable to both sides? Both the Albanians and Serbs are starting the new cycle from old platforms. For the Albanians the only goal is independence, and they consider the adoption of Ahtisaari’s plan about the monitored state sovereignty as their greatest concession.

On the other side, the Serbs see everything, or almost everything apart from independence (monitored or not), is acceptable as a subject of negotiation, and when we add it all up, only the so-called essential autonomy is in fact in the game, i.e. the “internal” administration for Albanians in Kosovo, the “essential autonomy” for Serbs in Kosovo in relation to Albanians and Serbia gets the borders and territory.

Each side is convinced that its solution is the “real compromise”, which is sufficient enough to draw the conclusion that the new round of negotiations will fail before they even get off the ground. Since the negotiations cannot last indefinitely, the Contact Group should, at the moment they estimate that the Serbs and Albanians cannot agree, again address the Security Council with some proposal for a resolution which will again be blocked by the Russians – especially if they try to withdraw Resolution 1244 and reactivate Ahtisaari’s plan.

In the uncertain scenario of the future of Kosovo, one other possibility to that of the province’s eventual division should not be ignored because it has realistic prospects of happening: that is the unilateral declaration of independence by Priština. How risky such a move could be is a different question, but there should be no doubt that many countries, particularly the U.S. and majority of the EU, could accept such an epilogue in the final result of unsuccessful negotiations, regardless of the serious warning sent from Serbia on several occasions that the Government would undertake appropriate measures against those countries which unilaterally recognise Kosovo’s independence. n

Politics

No Rush for Tadić

The President of Serbia would like to see presidential elections called before year’s end. This eventuality would provide an excellent opportunity for PM Koštunica to secure even more power for himself – much more power than he would have get if it had depended on the Serbian electorate. However, before that scenario could unfold the expected showdown with Dinkić must take place in September.

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At first glance, about the replacement of the capital’s direcmember of the Tadić Tadić’s lack of infor- tor of police is important for the president to camp points to a mation about the re- know. Further spice is thrown in by the same newspaper article and placement of the di- source from the Tadić camp, who thickens says: ‘we didn’t know rector of Belgrade’s the plot by noting that two of the president’s anything about that either’. Yes, police seems less closest advisors had frequent contact with Boris Tadić, the President of dramatic than his the ousted director of police.

Serbia, found out in a newspaper lack of knowledge that the director of Belgrade’s Still, over 100 days into Vojislav about the arrest of police had been dismissed. The Tolimir and the sur- Koštunica’s second government, there have President’s coalition partner, PM vival of Bulatović. been no changes to state security structures.

Vojislav Koštunica of the DemoHowever, what hap- The swift replacement of one of Koštunica’s cratic Party of Serbia (DSS), did pened with del Ponte men with one of Tadić’s cohorts was supnot think it customary of civil before posed to demonstrate the government’s coalitions to inform the other By Dragan Bujošević occurred the National Secu- changed position regarding Hague-fugitives member about the dismissal of such a high-ranking official. Well, nothing rity Council started to operate. Now that and EU integration than had been the case new there. During the arrest of Zdravko the council is up and running, and one of under Koštunica’s first government, in turn Tolimir, the number three most wanted Tadić’s closest advisors has daily contact showing who was the stronger partner in Hague-fugitive after Mladić and Karadzić, with the intelligence agencies, it is appar- the coalition hatched from necessity. For Tadić’s first source was the press. Ex- ent that none of them think that knowledge the time being, Tadić has failed in all his pectedly, another serious shake-up in the power struggle between the president and prime minister followed.

‘How did Tolimir’s arrest come about?’ you ask. It was a Monday when ICTY chief prosecutor Carla del Ponte called for the head of Rade Bulatović – the head of Serbia’s Security Information Agency (BIA) and a former security advisor to Koštunica, when he was president of FR Yugoslavia prior to 2003. Bulatović then promptly arrested Tolimir.

By Wednesday, Carla del Ponte had asked Tadić not to pursue the replacement of Bulatović, something that only two days earlier had been one of her most ardent demands.

Obviously in a difficult position after the chief prosecutor’s reversal of heart on Bulatović, Tadić told del Ponte to repeat her new plans for the security chief at a press conference, while he continued with weak demands for Bulatović’s remlađen dinkić has lost much of the power he wielded placement at home.

20 CorD / Septembar 2007

Serbian President tadić is finding out about government moves via the press

goals and Koštunica is a clear and absolute winner. The failure of Tadić’s Democratic Party (DS) to take power out of the hands of Koštunica can be seen throughout the landscape, both political and not.

The remaining state owned monopolies in the industries of electricity (Elektroprivreda - EPS), gas and oil (Naftna industrija NIS), airline (Jat), forestry (Srbijašume) and airports (Aerodrom Beograd) among others, can still be used as powerful levers of governing in Serbia. Each of these companies employs and appoints trusted individuals (intellectuals among others), who justify the government’s every move to their managing boards, while at the same time wielding extraordinary economic power to carry out the policy of whichever party controls them.

However, back in the Tadić camp, a source says, ‘We’ll do better in the division of state owned companies than in the division of the government’s ministries.’ For the time being, there is an agreement as to the division of the state owned companies between DSS (together with Velimir Ilić’s New Serbia) and DS, while Dinkić’s G-17 Plus holds only the power to appoint managing boards in the ratio of three from the ranks of DS, two from DSS and one from their own party. Under his position, though, Dinkić is the “sixth-fold” minister, control-

ling the portfolios of the ministries of economy, privatisation, regional development, and international economic relations along with 14 agencies.

Of the state owned companies, DS believes that they will have control over NIS, PTT, Dunav Insurance, Poštanska štedionica, Komercijalna Bank, Jat and the Beograd Airport; while DSS will manage EPS, Telekom, roads and railways and the Official Gazette. In DSS, it’s thought that Dunav will remain in its power; however, both share the notion that negotiations will be completed by the end of summer. In other words, a consensus on the division of funds is moving along much easier than those regarding policy, security structure, or presidential and local elections, perhaps because Koštunica enjoys better relations with the country’s biggest tycoons than Tadić does.

In the meantime, Dinkić has the power to disrupt the situation even more. After creating what one high-ranking DSS official called a monstrosity of a ministry (16 assistants and 156 new employees), both DS and DSS have it in their minds to punish G-17 Plus. Dinkić, on the other hand, should not be underestimated in his fight to hold on in areas of the postal service (Pošte Srbije), Belgrade Airport, forestry company (Srbijašume), gas company (Srbijegas), lot-

tery (Lutrije Srbije), banking (Komercijalna Banka), and health insurance (Zavod za zdravstveno osiguranje), especially after having outwitted the negotiators of both Tadić and Koštunica in the deal that put G-17 Plus in control of the Development Fund. This September, a fullon clash between coalition members in the fight for the state owned companies can be expected.

The media will be left out of the coalition agreement, if only because no one dare admit it is under their control. On the contrary, it is in their best interest to have the media to complain as a result of their distinct lack of understanding for “our positions and policies”. It seems that DS has neither the will nor the power to replace the director of the state television, which is strange considering that the same party operatives that were in charge of “poisoning” journalists with information and disinformation, used to say that throwing out Tijanić was as important as catching Bulatović, A different calculation would seem to be more fitting here. At RTS, Tijanić was as good for Slobodan Milošević as he is for Vojislav Koštunica, so why wouldn’t he be useful for Boris Tadić as well? With one unnamed DSS strategist CorD / Septembar 2007 21

Politics

than to Boris Tadić, however with Ðelić has started to look like the DSS vice the tycoon’s legendary ability to president. And all of this despite talk comadapt, the meaning of these rela- ing from Tadić’s side, that, if faced with tionships may not last. any type of independence for Kosovo recStill, negotiations between the ognised by the U.S. and EU, in the fracas government’s partners on decid- Koštunica will demand a break in relations ing pillars on local and presiden- with the country and union, and DS will be tial elections has yet to begin, forced to square off against him, even if and under the constitution, these they believe he hasn’t yet come to this conmust be scheduled by the end of clusion. His aim will be just to show that the year.

Tadić’s followers are “traitors”, after which While Tadić continues to cling DSS will themselves, in silence, accept the to the idea that presidential elec- reality just as they did with Montenegro. tions will take place before the In conversation with Koštunica’s people end of the year, the president will it is difficult to get into such detail. With a likely repent as a result of his self-confident smile, one of DSS’s stratesoftness towards Koštunica. After gists asks: “Why do you think that solving pledging help with adoption of the Kosovo case will not last as long as findthe constitution at the end of last ing a solution for Cyprus has?” One of the year, Tadić asked in returned a creators of the prime minister’s policy for promise that presidential and par- Kosovo does not hide his delight with Rusliamentary elections would occur sian diplomacy and repeats: “We have to simultaneously. While Tadić kept stick to Resolution 1244 and we do not have his end of the bargain, Koštunica to propose anything new”, while claiming did not, and the president neither that “there will be no decision about Kosmade a fuss of it in December ovo and Metohija this year either”.

2006 nor has he in August 2007.

Back on the Tadić side, a close advisor The silence and avoidance of is more cautious, “If the new round of neContrasting Kosovo timeframes – one both conflict and strong political gotiations start on 10th August, it is possible of DSS’s strategists asks: “Why do you overtones in Tadić’s policy can be that some decision regarding Kosovo will think that solving the Kosovo case will attributed to his listening, mainly, be stated on 10th December. Before that we not last as long as finding a solution to his foreign advisors. Accord- have to have the presidential elections”. Befor Cyprus has?” Meanwhile, a close ing to them, DS’s policy can be fore presidential elections, four laws need to advisor to Tadić says cautiously, “If the wrapped up in one man, Boris be adopted. Three have been prepared, and new round of negotiations start on 10th Tadić (a DS official wryly noted, one is being compiled by Jeremić and his ‘when we had a policy we had associates. The DS high official at the same August, it is possible that some decision 400,000 votes, now that we don’t time claims: “I’m afraid that we will not be regarding Kosovo will be stated on 10th able to adopt all those laws in such a short we have 900,000’).

December.”

The destiny of the party de- period”.

Meanwhile, DSS released stories to the pends exclusively on Boris Tadić’s rating. It is not important media about Velimir Ilić and Aleksandar claiming that “Koštunica will not give up if people think that DS does not have a pol- Popović being possible presidential candiTijanić for all the tea in China”, a new icy or that it is unclear, it is important that dates. The high-ranking DSS source said: option opens for Tadić: request influence they look kindly on Tadić. As a result, he “We do not have a good candidate and it over dailies Politika and Večernje Nov- must be a man of compromise who does not would be better to hide that by immediately osti (and thereby take such influence away argue, and even at times follows his oppo- supporting Tadić. It would be worse to refrom the prime minister), while allowing nents’ policy directions. This has been obvi- peat the disgrace we had with Maršićanin”.

Regardless of this, DSS will no doubt conous in the case of Kosovo and Metohija.

Tijanić to stay at RTS. Tadić has been advised not to fall be- tinue the storyline about their own candiOf course, negotiations will be exhausting. “It does not even occur to us neath the bar set by Koštunica. Having dates, even if they openly claim that they to allow a milkman from Šabac to buy followed this advice, Vuk Jeremić , the cannot control Velimir Ilić.

The first aim of such a tactic is to upset NIN weekly. Babić (the director of He- Foreign Minister and one of Tadić’s closmofarm) will buy it for us with his people est associates, has started to resemble one Tadić and his people, because they know from the Privredink Association,” claims of Koštunica’s storm troopers, while DS’s very well that Vojislav Koštunica has no our high-ranking DSS official. The milk- talismanic deputy prime minister Božidar chance against Tomilsav Nikolić. The secman from Šabac is Miodrag Bogičević – a The failure of Tadić’s Dinkić has created a Tadić’s presidential man who is considered as being close to DS vice president Dušan Petrović. The Democratic Party (DS) monstrosity of a ministry victory is not as certain Privrednik Association is ruled by Mito take power out of the (16 assistants and 156 as some of his associates roslav Mišković, aka Mr. Delta, the man hands of Koštunica can new employees), and and advisors think. He described by Velimir Ilić as the owner of be seen throughout the both DS and DSS have it has a consistent rating more than half of Serbia, and who, in one way or another, has influence over all melandscape, both political in their minds to punish of around 53%, while dia in Serbia. At this moment, Mišković and not.

G-17 Plus.

Nikolić has 47%. is much closer to Koštunica and Dinkić 22 CorD / Septembar 2007

ond is to make some sort of profit out of their support for Tadić. The story of their political generosity towards Tadić will be easily circulated in the media, seeing as DSS controls nearly all, and especially the most influential, outlets. Even though DSS has no other solutions, and though they seemingly don’t want Nikolić to win, they will use such a scenario in bargaining for local elections. “If we have so far eaten everything that koĹĄtunica has served us, in the local elections we will have to eat everything and to lick the plates afterwards,â€? said one of Tadić’s people. The Democrats want the majority electoral system in the local elections, while DSS wants the proportional one. “They now control the ministries, with which they can exert influence on the local elections, the same as we did in the last three years,â€? claims the DS official. If he accepts the majority principle, koĹĄtunica will be able to blackmail Serbia, something that he has already proven successful at.

The Democrats are in power in Belgrade’s boroughs. If koťtunica accepts the majority principle, koťtunica can say that he wants a certain city borough, for instance Savski Venac, even though DSS has one-fourth the number of votes as DS does in that borough.

Even though that will cause a “revolution�

amongst DS party activists, Tadić will have to accept that blackmail too, in order to ensure that he will gain koťtunica agreement to the presidential elections this year.

Tadić’s electoral victory is not as certain as some of his associates and advisors think. He has a consistent rating of around 53 per cent, while Nikolić has 47 per cent. After recognition of any kind of independence for kosovo, Nikolić will be

the immediate favourite. Even without that, Tadić’s problem is that his voters are convinced that he is the certain victor. They thought the same in 2004, thus they did not turn out for the first ballot.

It was only in the second ballot, when members of the national minorities turned out, that Tadić won.

Bargaining over elections has shown how much Tadić’s indulgence of koťtunica at the end of last year cost him in not forcing the prime minister to agree to simultaneous presidential and parliamentary elections. If that had happened, Tadić would have certainly held onto his position, and his party would possibly have had the same number of seats in the parliament as the Radicals. Instead of this he is now in trouble.

If the position held by Tadić’s foreign associates is understandable regarding the policy for kosovo, in other areas it seems it has been counter productive.

Had Tadić more strongly opposed the theft of parliamentarian mandates, of if he had made Koťtunica publicly promise to hold simultaneous presidential and parliamentary elections prior to adoption of the constitution, instead of 900,000 votes, the Democratic Party might have had 1,100,000 voters. n

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Diplomacy

Interview: H.E. Ambassador Dr. Majed Shadoud

RenewinG old friendships Relations between Belgrade and Damascus date back centuries, probably millennia – considering the ages of these ancient, strategic cities – but it was back in the Cold War period of Yugoslavia’s membership of the NonAligned Movement that relations between Belgrade and Damascus peaked. At that time many young scholars from Syria attended the various faculties of Yugoslavia, gaining the qualifications they needed to forge their careers in politics and the sciences. One such young man was Majed Shadoud, who called Belgrade his home from home as a student from the mid-‘70s until the early ‘80s.

A

year ago, His Excellency Dr. Majed Shadoud finally made it back to Belgrade, but this time he didn’t come to study.

Instead, he arrived in Belgrade to begin his five-year tenure as Ambassador of the Syrian Arab Republic to the Republic of Serbia. This month CorD spoke to Ambassador Shadoud about the white city, bilateral relations, Syria’s own reform process and middle-east issues. n How would you describe your personal experience of studying and living in Belgrade as a young student? r In that period Belgrade was filled with the verve and energy of its people, and the vigour of the students studying in the city.

The cultural conditions and liveliness that

the Serbian people possessed ensured that we, the students, found a proper place for studying and living which merely enhanced the suitable economic situation, peace and stability. Dealing with Serbian people was also as great then as it is now. The Serbian people offered us love, respect and help in every place, as from every person that we were dealing with – be that on the scientific, public or official level. This makes Belgrade as beautiful an environment as the beautiful nature that surrounds it. These beautiful memories remained with me and my wife, who was studying with me, with my first born child here in Belgrade, who lived in this city for five years. The relations and the connections resulted in a feeling of humanity and human relations that are preserved in memory. Those beautiful memories began to renew themselves following my arrival back in Belgrade after 27 years away. n How would you define current bilateral cultural, political and economic relations between Belgrade and Damascus? r In the previous periods there were broad relations between the two countries. These relations came from our mutual interest in what would achieve peace and stability in the Middle East and the Balkans, as well as the international community.

As a consequence of the developments that the region has witnessed, those relations have diminished, but in the present period we have made serious steps to regain those relations and to develop them for the benefit of people in both of the countries and for the benefit of the peace and stabil-

24 CorD / Septembar 2007

ity in both of our regions and the world.

These steps come from the desire of the two countries and are of mutual benefit.

There are many economic sectors in Syria and Serbia that can be attractive to both sides: whether in the fields of industry generally, or oil and potassium, or minerals, wood, medicines, agricultural production or furniture. We can specify these sectors from the reality of the two countries and their mutual benefit. n Academic relations between the countries of the Non-Aligned Movement have always been strong, and although Serbia is no longer a member, reciprocal academic relations still exist between faculties in Serbia and abroad. Does Syria have scholars in Belgrade and, if so, within which academic spheres?

“As a consequence of the developments that the region has witnessed, those [our bilateral] relations have diminished, but in the present period we have made serious steps to regain those relations and to develop them for the benefit of people in both of the countries and for the benefit of the peace and stability in both of our regions and the world.” r Yes, the academic relations between the Non-Aligned Movement countries were broad and they were in all the fields. The Yugoslav universities in the frame of the former Yugoslavia were important centres for educating cadres from all over the world.

With that Serbia contributed to the development operations of those countries in a big way, through educating the required cadres. To this day those countries have

respect and honour towards the countries and the peoples of the former Yugoslavia, led by Josip Broz “Tito”, that was one of the symbols of the Non-Aligned Movement; and one of those working hardest to achieve freedom, justice and progress in the international community. The scientific relations yielded social and human relations that still exist, particularly through the many students who went on to marry girls of the former Yugoslavia, a number

of whom came from Syria. While some of them returned to Syria with their families, others remained in the former Yugoslav republics. These people, some of whom retained their Syrian nationality while other took citizenship of Serbia or one of the other republics, are very well treated.

Nevertheless, as a consequence of what occurred in the region, the number of Syrians that study in Serbian universities has dropped significantly. We hope that our scientific and cultural relations will redevelop in the coming period, for the benefit of both countries. n In terms of culture relations, do you plan to stage any specific events aimed at promoting Syrian culture within Serbia? r The Serbian people know a lot about the Arab Lands and the Arabic culture; Syria, CorD / Septembar 2007 25

Diplomacy

...as Syria’s Minster of Foreign Affairs has said, “Syria recognises the sovereignty and independence of Lebanon and she is complying with the sovereignty and independence of Lebanon” its people, culture, history, and its different ancient monuments.

The Syrian people know everything about Serbia. The embassy is working to make this contact remain alive. In the previous period, various cultural activities were held in general, and for the Syrian culture especially. These activities had the definition of the elements of the Arabic Syrian culture of achievements, antiques, traditional clothes, traditional Syrian products, mosaics, brocades, copper tools and food. These arts and crafts were introduced through fairs or television and radio programmes. The embassy also produces its own monthly publication, through which it provides different information about Syria and the developments taking place under the leadership of President Bashar al-Assad. The embassy provides the faculties that teach Arabic and the libraries with the needed scientific resources. n Syria has a diverse population that includes citizens of various faiths, including Muslim, Christian and Jew, amongst others. How is religious and national harmony maintained within Syria? r Throughout history Syria has represented an important centre because of its special geographical position and the energies of its people; it is an important centre for the interaction of the human cultures, religions that have spread from that region to the world.

This cultural interaction contributed in broadening the social and cultural awareness as the humanity for Syrian citizens.

This has reflected on the nature of the Syrian society, whose citizens had awareness, tolerance, love and openness. Because Syrian society is variable in its religions and national roots, the properties mentioned above were a factor of interaction and assistance between the citizens of the society, which is based on equality, love and tolerance. These factors have made Syrian society a special quality.

This cultural humanitarian state was a factor of attractiveness in the Syrian society for many religious and national minorities that were facing discrimination in treatment and tyranny outside Syria. Those minorities found a safe haven in Syria that has provided them with good living and allowed them to practice their habits and religions in complete freedom.

26 CorD / Septembar 2007

Views of Belgrade:then & now “It must be pointed out first that every historical period in any country has its special properties, which distinguish it from other periods. The features of each period are related with the political, economic, scientific, social and cultural conditions on the internal level; and with the nature of the international relations in its regional and international dimensions.

The period that I was first in Belgrade – from the mid-70s until the beginning of the 80s – was a special and distinguished period. This positive period was naturally harmonised with the conditions of those days. Belgrade was the capital of the then Yugoslavia, and Yugoslavia was one of the more important countries in the world, because it was of the establishers of the Non-Aligned Movement, had a political direction that was independent of both the East and the West and was one of the active countries regionally. It was full of political, scientific and economic movement, and it was the centre for many international and regional conferences, as well as social, economic, cultural activities.

Back in those days, thousands of students from all over the world were studying in the Yugoslav universities, and there were a good number of Syrian students among them. Those Syrian students were studying in all the scientific directions.

Upon my return to Belgrade a year ago, I noticed many changes that have taken place because of the events and developments witnessed by the region. However, one thing that remained the same as was the case in the past is that Belgrade, the beautiful city, has kept its beauty despite the upheaval it has faced. It is well known that Belgrade has faced difficulties and problems in all the historical periods, but it has renewed itself every time and managed to keep its beauty. Both of its rivers, the Danube and the Sava, were helping factors for the renewal of this beautiful city, and for the beauty and the attractiveness of Belgrade.

The nobleness and well-known energy of the Serbian people, as well as their love of life and development, has remained the same. The Serbian people are one of the nations that are distinguished by their dignity and love for their country, as well as their love, tolerance and openness, coupled with an ability to adapt to new circumstances, stand with all their abilities to confront the challenges, achieve their goals in development and live well. I could say that these qualities are shared by all the life-loving, active people of the world; the people that are proud of their history and past, and that are defending their lands and sovereignty, as well as their independence.

In addition to that, Serbia has an educated fortune, economic abilities and an optimistic outlook towards the future, which is concentrated on both awareness and planning. What I have seen in this year confirms these facts and directions.

Education

Economics

Region

…the number of Syrians studying in Serbian universities has dropped significantly. We hope that our scientific and cultural relations will redevelop

The private sector has been expanded in the Syrian economy… free industrial zones have been established and investment levels have grown in each sector

Syria recognises the sovereignty and independence of Lebanon and she is complying with the sovereignty and independence of Lebanon

n Syria is currently providing refuge for an estimated 1.4 million Iraqi refugees, and some 400.000 Palestinian refugees. How is the country coping with this population and what efforts are being made to facilitate them in Syrian society? r As evidence of what I have said before in the previous answer, Syria today has a great number of our Iraqi brethren and Palestinian brethren and, ahead of those, even great numbers of our Lebanese brethren.

Syria, with its national political system and awareness of its people, has always been able to deal with such situations, in spite of the great numbers of the brother people found in the country and the limited resources available.

Efforts are being exerted by Syria, the Arab countries and the International Community in order to bring safety and stability back to Iraq and thus facilitate the safe return of Iraqi refugees to their home country.

Efforts are also being made to achieve just and comprehensive peace in the region in the framework of solving the ArabIsraeli conflict, liberating the Occupied Arab Lands, establishing the Palestinian country with Jerusalem as her capital, bringing back the Palestinian refugees to their established country, harmonized with the international resolutions, systems and laws. n Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has promised to reform Syria both economically and politically. How much progress is being made in Syria in this direction? r During the reign of President Bashar al-Assad, Syria has witnessed a broad development that has included the political, economic, service, scientific and cultural structures. The development process is ongoing as a response to the existing circumstances, while it is also benefiting from external experiences. This development aims to reach high levels of qualification, high levels of growth, achieve social justice, conserve the environment and achieve the required things for national security.

The democratic experience has been developed in Syria on the political level, and the contribution of the citizens in the political, economic and social life has

been broadened. A new law for political parties has been put in place and the role of the National Progressive Front has been defined. The institutions of civil society have been broadened and their role in the society has been explicated. The participation of woman in political life has also been broadened. n What specific steps are being made towards economic liberalisation in Syria? r This began with the restructuring of the Syrian economy so that the industrial, agricultural, tourism, service and banking sectors could compliment each other.

The role of the private sector has been expanded in the Syrian economy, next to the public and the mixed sector. A lot of free industrial zones have been established and investment levels have grown in each sector. These procedures have led to more watered land in the field of agriculture and the production of great quantities of strategic crops like seeds and cotton. This has all allowed Syria to achieve greater food security: there was growth of 6.5% for 2007 so far. This is the first time that the economic growth has not depended on petroleum alone, but rather on different sectors. n What factors are hindering, and what are assisting, those efforts to push through economic and political reform? r The factors that are hindering the efforts made by Syria for economic and political reform are the continuity of the foreign pressures and the instability of the region, because of the continuing Israeli occupation of the Arab Syrian Golan.

The factors that

are assisting are the internal stability in Syria and the energy of the Syrian people and what the system provides of things that motivate the development in Syria, in addition to the geographical position of Syria and her place in the Arab, regional and international field. n The Syrian army formally withdrew from Lebanon in 2005, after 30 years.

Does Syria now fully accept the sovereignty of Lebanon and what steps are being made to ensure the Lebanese people are able to fully govern their own country? r It must be pointed out that the existing relations between Syria and Lebanon come from historical and geographical facts, the social and family connections in addition to the common interests. Syria has entered Lebanon in the past in order to stop the civil war, and she managed to stop it.

Lebanon has had a period of peace, safety, stability and economic development. Syria wants for the Lebanese people: development, progress, to live in peace and stability. Syria seeks strong brotherly relations with Lebanon for the benefit of the two peoples and countries, as well as for the safety and the stability in the region.

Finally, as Syria’s Minster of Foreign Affairs has said, “Syria recognises the sovereignty and independence of Lebanon and she is complying with the sovereignty and independence of Lebanon”. n

CorD / Septembar 2007 27

diplomacy

A.S. Babar Hashmi, Charge d’affaires a.i., Embassy of Pakistan in Belgrade

Continuity is key This summer marked the 60th anniversaries of independence for two of the world’s nuclear powers, India and Pakistan. In an effort to gauge the progress achieved to date and the challenges facing Pakistan, CorD speaks to A.S. Babar Hashmi, Charge d’affaires a.i. of the Embassy of Pakistan in Belgrade.

By Mark R Pullen; Photo: Jelena Mandić n Despite massive progress in many areas over the past 60 years, does the current unrest and generally poor standard of living mean that Pakistan has ultimately failed to achieve what the country’s founders had in mind for it? r We could have done more, it can be accepted, but that could be said about almost any other country. That said, I think Pakistan has made tremendous progress in various fields.

For instance, our rate of literacy has gone from below 20% to more than 53% in recent years.

In economic terms, our current GDP is more than U.S.$160billion; GDP has been growing continuously at a rate of 7 to 8% per annum for the past five to six years. Per capita income has increased from U.S$350 a few years ago to more than U.S$1,000 and, according to the latest Asian Development Report, Pakistan’s per 28 CorD / Septembar 2007

capita income is more than that of China and India. Looking at foreign direct investment, Pakistan attracted U.S.$6billion last year – a very substantial figure in our context. Our total trade has gone up to U.S.$47billion and our foreign exchange reserves now exceed $15billion.

U.S. Pakistan has progressed in many other areas. It is the first Islamic country to have elected a women prime minister twice. Participation of our womenfolk is in every field: Pakistan has more than 15 lady ambassadors worldwide; our women are flying the latest aircrafts, including fighter jets, and we have many female doctors, teachers and engineers that are performing their duties should-toshoulder with their male counterparts. Our media is as free as it can be anywhere else.

These are surely fine examples of the level of social progress achieved in Pakistan over the past decades.

I think Pakistan’s has been a story of progress and success – in some spheres more than others. Indeed, these other spheres could have also seen progress if only we’d had a continuation of policies. I think that the breaking of continuity – be it political or economic – is what can hinder progress. Nevertheless, in Pakistan, for the last six or seven years, we have managed to achieve continuity that has generated economic progress and social development, the benefits of which have now started reaching the common man.

n Do you think that that continuation of policy is likely to continue into the next government? r I’m pretty convinced that this continuity will continue, no matter who comes into power after the elections. There is a general realisation in the country that this is where the destiny of the nation lies. The whole of our region, I would say, is currently ‘the zone of economic opportunity’, with China, India and Pakistan all growing remarkably. And no leadership worth their salt will be able to scuttle that kind of opportunity. Furthermore, in Pakistan the institutional mechanisms ensure the continuation of policies, thereby lessening dependence on individuals. That gives us a lot

of hope that sound policies will be continued regardless of who forms the next government. n Bearing in mind the security situation in the neighbourhood, coupled with the recent unrest in Islamabad and the ongoing issue of Kashmir, I would ask you how strong the Pakistani identity is and how you are addressing ideas of secularism and social cohesion? r Around 95% of the population of Pakistan are Muslims, so the country has a strong Islamic identity. To expect it to be totally secular in the religious sphere is neither desirable nor realistic. However, Pakistan’s has always been a moderate and tolerant society, accepting of other religions and peoples without any bias against their faiths. Right from the father of the nation [Muhammad Ali Jinnah], who proclaimed that Pakistan would be a place where all the people should be able to go to their mosques, churches or synagogues, Pakistani society has followed that principle. Sometimes extremist elements do trickle into our society, as was the case with the Red Mosque incident, but these elements are extraneous. Some of these could be the so-called ‘Mujahideen’ who fought during the war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan; people who felt let down because nobody was looking out for them when the Soviet Union decided to withdraw, and people who, feeling so unsupported, decided to turn their backs and pursue their own ends. But all forms of extremism and terrorism are totally rejected by Pakistanis. That rejection was manifested by the action that the government took during the Red Mosque incident.

It was unfortunate that over 100 people were killed, but that was an essential action simply because all efforts to negotiate a peaceful end to the stand-off had failed. The Government had to act and the Pakistani nation supported that action because the whole of Pakistan is against extremism and terrorism. n What major challenges lie ahead now as Pakistan moves forward beyond this 60th anniversary? r Pakistan is faced with a few serious challenges. The first is the challenge of extremism and terrorism. In 1979 we were declared a “Frontline State” by our friends and allies when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, and today by virtue of our strategic location and leading role in the fight, we have again become a “Frontline State” in the War on Terror.

Pakistan has done more than any other country in this war. More than 80,000 of our troops are involved and 800 or so of our soldiers have sacrificed their lives - more than the Afghan or NATO troops combined - and our commitment to fight remains unflinching. We believe that this fight is in our own national interest and it is crucial that the international community share the burden in curbing this menace.

Pakistan has been under the heavy burden of

over 3 million Afghan refugees for the last 27/28 years. It is high time that the international community make it possible for these refugees to return to their country in peace, honour and dignity.

Most of the people who’ve been apprehended for involvement in terrorist activities have been foreigners. Some of these people have found their way from Afghanistan into the inaccessible areas of Pakistan, areas that were left to the tribal communities even during the colonial ara. Now, for the first time ever, the Government has moved its troops into those areas. Such an exercise is always difficult and time consuming, particularly as the tribals are fiercely independent people – a fact that is well-known by all, and particularly our British and Russian friends. We believe that bringing peace and stability to Afghanistan is essential.

Pakistan’s has always been a moderate and tolerant society, accepting of other religions and peoples without any bias against their faiths.

However, this should be achieved in a holistic way. Military means alone, devoid of any economic and social progress on the ground, may not be enough to win this battle. I must also wanr the inernational community that the fight in Afghanistan is a long haul, a marathon.

There are no short cuts to a long term and massive economic commitment. We must be prepared to be fully involved in the next decade or so if we want to see “Project Afghanistan” get near any success.

Another challenge for Pakistan is solving the Kashmir dispute. Pakistan wants friendly relations with all countries, and particularly with our neighbours. Regional stability is in our interest. With India there have already been a few rounds of ‘Composite Dialogue’.

Some progress has also been achieved in Confidence Building Measures. What we need now is to move to conflict resolution mechanisms. The possibility of conflict in

Kashmir is real and dangerous, but Pakistan is committed to solving the problem peacefully and through dialogue. With both countries now nuclear, the option of war no longer exists. Pakistan has been very flexible in its approach and wants the issue to be resolved peacefully and according to the aspirations of the Kashmiri people...

Other challenges for Pakistan include poverty alleviation and future economic development. Despite the tremendous progress so far achieved in many areas, much more needs to be done. We are looking forward to concentrating on these issues in an environment of greater regional peace and stability. Poverty alleviation would remain one of the main projects for the future government in Pakistan.

This is because there is a symbiotic relationship between poverty and extremism: poverty breeds extremism and raising the standard of living and prospects of the poor is inextricably linked to reducing levels of extremism.

Yet another challenge that Pakistan will be facing in the coming years is that of its energy requirements. The country’s economy is booming and the rapid growth in industry requires more energy. This is why we are placing an emphasis on nuclear technology, which is one of the cheapest available sources. In this context I must, however, mention the recent deal on the nuclear issue between the U.S. and India. We feel that this is a discriminatory deal, because only 14 of India’s 22 nuclear power plants have been taken into consideration, and the remaining 8 plants – officially designated for military purposes – have not been covered under the agreement. Further, our economy is almost moving at a similar pace and we need more energy for our growing development requirements to ensure economic growth and associated poverty alleviation. We are committed to meetying our energy requirements, one way or another, in the coming decades and do hope that such discriminatory policies would be discarded in the interests of a modern, progressive South Asian region. n What steps are being taken to strengthen civilian control in Pakistan? r Pakistan has achieved substantial progress in this regard. Since 2004, a democraticallyelected government has been at the helm of the country’s affairs. For the first time in history, the present elected assemblies will be completing their term of office this year.

Now new elections are due and all political parties are involved and participating in the process. Government is committed to holding transparent, free and fair elections. Observers from all over the world are welcome to come and observe these elections. Whichever political party or leader is elected by the people will be welcome to lead Pakistan into an even more progressive and prosperous future, making their contribution towards the coming 60, nay 100, years. n CorD / Septembar 2007 29

Diplomacy: Ambassadors Say

The heat is on After a summer of floods and fires across Europe, CorD asks a selection of Belgradebased ambassadors for their comments on the issue of climate change and environmental protection.

By CorD; Photo: Stanislav Milojković, Časlav Vukojičić, CorD archives

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his October will see Belgrade play host to the sixth Ministerial Conference - “Environment for Europe 2007”, organised by the Serbian Ministry for Environmental Protection with the support of the UNDP. The Conference will see the Serbian capital host at least 56 delegations from the UNECE region and other member states of the UN, international organisations, around 200 participants from international NGOs, 40 participants from the Serbian non-governmental sector and a number of domestic and foreign journalists.

Some of the guest-state delegations will be headed by respective ministers while, for the first time in the history of this event, ministers of education of UNECE countries will join the delegates of this Conference.

As a teaser to the conference, this month CorD publishes the comments provided exclusively to us by the ambassadors of Canada, Egypt, India, Japan and Norway in Belgrade.

30 CorD / Septembar 2007

H.E. Ambassador Robert McDougall, Embassy of Canada

The science of climate change is no longer in dispute. The Canadian Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change earlier this year clearly concluded that climate change is real, accelerating and largely caused by human activity.

The impacts of climate change have been felt by all countries. In Canada we are feeling the effects of climate change, particularly in our Arctic, where the traditional cultures of our native peoples and critical infrastructure are being threatened. Canada is also feeling the effects of increasingly extreme weather events.

As a leading member of the global community, Canada must focus its attention on how it can best address climate change.

The Government of Canada announced, in April 2007, its Regulatory Framework for Air Emissions, which is the cornerstone of Canada’s approach to addressing greenhouse gases. The key elements of this approach include mandatory and enforceable reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases from major indus-

“ The Canadian Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change clearly concluded that climate change is real, accelerating and largely caused by human activity.” trial sources, measures targeted at transportation and other key sectors, and actions focused on reducing the carbon footprint of consumer and commercial products.

These actions mean that Canada is committed to reducing its total greenhouse gas emissions by 20% by 2020 relative to 2006 levels and by 60-70% below 2006 levels by 2050, in the long-term.

Canada is also committed to working towards the launch, at this year’s climate change Conference of Parties in Indonesia, of negotiations on a broad and comprehensive post-2012 agreement that is inclusive, effective and flexible.

Canada is taking action and believes that humanity will succeed in addressing climate change because it is in our collective self-interest to do so. Canada is committed to meeting our environmental obligations and working with the international community to find a global solution to this global challenge.

H.E. Ambassador Ajay Swarup, Embassy of India

Since the issue of global warming was considered in some depth during the Heiligendamm Summit of G-8 leaders about two months ago, which the leaders of India, China, Brazil, Mexico and South Africa were all invited to, I would like to highlight the joint stance taken by India and the aforementioned developing countries on this issue, which is as follows:“Climate change is a global phenomenon that requires an international response under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Any new cooperative effort to tackle climate change should not undermine the UNFCCC and its Kyoto Protocol, but rather complement these instruments.

GHG mitigation in developed countries is key to addressing climate change, given their responsibilities in causing it. Developed countries must take the lead by making further truly significant commitments at an early date for GHG reductions in the period beyond 2012. Early and significant commitments would give a long term and strong signal to the private sector, including in its involvement in climate related investments, and spur the carbon market. The Clean Development Mechanism’s contribution to sustainable development and transfer of clean technologies to developing countries would also be enhanced significantly.

“In order for developing countries to contribute to the efforts to address climate change, access to adequate technology is a key enabling condition. We need an agreement on transfer of technologies at affordable costs for accelerated mitigation efforts in developing countries, inter alia through increased use of renewable energy, including biofuels, and enhanced energy efficiency.

Rewards for innovators need to be balanced with the common good for mankind. We also consider it necessary and important to enhance developing countries’ capacities to deploy mitigation and adaptation technologies.

“Many needed technologies based on resource endowments of developing countries (e.g. biomass, biofuels, clean coal) do not yet exist, or are too expensive. Collaborative R&D between developing and developed country R&D institutions can address this gap. Financing can be through a Venture Capital Fund, located in a multilateral financial institution, with the resulting IPRs being held by the Fund, and deployed at concessional cost in developing countries. Additionally, there could be collaborative R&D projects with sharing of IPRs by the partner R&D institutions.

“Resources required for adaptation are of magnitude order as those for GHG mitigation. For this we should mobilize resources from the entire carbon market, as is being done on a small scale from the 2% levy on the CDM proceeds. These resources are separate from the provision of new and additional resources to tackle the challenges of adapting to the adverse effects of climate change.

Diversion of ODA resources from economic growth and poverty alleviation in developing countries for adaptation is not the answer as development is a prerequisite for achieving effective adaptation.”

I would also like to draw attention to the Indian PM’s intervention on Climate Change at the Heiligendamm meeting.

Speaking in Berlin on 8th June this year, PM Manmohan Singh said: “…We all have a vested interest in making our planet secure for our children and grandchildren.

India’s GHG emissions are among the lowest in per capita terms. Moreover, being only around 4% of the world’s emissions, action by us will have a marginal effect on overall emissions.

Nonetheless, we recognise wholeheartedly our responsibility as a developing country. We wish to engage constructively and productively with the international community and to add our weight to global efforts to preserve and protect the environment.

We are determined that India’s per-capita GHG emissions are not going to exceed those of developed countries even while pursuing policies of development and economic growth.

We must work together to find pragmatic, practical solutions which are for the benefit of entire humankind. These should include mitigation and adaptation strategies with fair burden sharing and measures to realize sustainable patterns of consumption and production.

The process of burden sharing must be fair. It should take into account where the primary responsibility for the present levels of GHG concentration rests and not perpetuate poverty among the

“ The Clean Development Mechanism’s contribution to sustainable development and transfer of clean technologies to developing countries would be enhanced significantly.” developing countries. No strategy should foreclose for them the possibilities of accelerated social and economic development.

The principle of common and differentiated responsibility and respective capability is very important.

The time is not ripe for developing countries to take quantitative targets, as these would be counter-productive on their development processes. Adaptation is the key for developing countries. It needs to be adequately resourced without detracting funds meant for development, which, in any case, is the best form of adaptation.

The determination of any particular stabilization goal and the time frame in which it should be achieved needs to be made at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. This should be preceded by a scientific consensus on impacts at different levels of GHG going beyond the current IPCC findings, which still document many uncertainties.

It is important that critical and promising clean technologies are made affordable for developing countries, where there is a large reliance on fossil fuels. The IPR regime should balance rewards for innovators with common good for humankind.

We also believe that the carbon market has a significant role to play in tackling climate change and that we should spur private sector involvement in climate related technologies and investment.

The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) has worked well and needs to be expanded to include approvals for programmatic approaches. Enhanced level of GHG abatement commitments by the developed countries would significantly stimulate CDM projects.

CorD / Septembar 2007 31

Diplomacy: Ambassadors Say

H.E. Ambassador Tadashi Nagai, Embassy of Japan

Also speaking for CorD, Japanese Ambassador Tadashi Nagai took the opportunity to explain Japan’s Invitation to Cool Earth 50 initiative to CorD readers.

“The Government of Japan, seriously concerned with the global environmental issues -- in particular climate change -- considers that global warming is a challenge that the entire world should tackle together.

Mr. Shinzo Abe, Prime Minister of Japan, has proposed “Invitation to Cool Earth 50”, a comprehensive strategy to address the issue. The outline of the proposal, which consists of three pillars, is as follows: Pillar 1: A long-term strategy to reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases globally · Propose a long-term target of cutting global emissions by half from the current level by 2050 as a common goal for the entire world. · Present a long-term vision for developing innovative technologies and building a low carbon society.

Pillar 2: Three principles for establishing an international framework to address global warming from 2013 onwards · Proposition to the world “3 principles” in designing a concrete framework for addressing global warming beyond 2013: 1. All major emitters must participate, moving beyond the Kyoto Protocol, leading to the global reduction of emissions; 2. The framework must be flexible and diverse, taking into consideration the circumstances of each country; 3. The framework must achieve compatibility between environmental protection and economic growth by utilizing energy conservation and other technologies. · We will create, under international cooperation, a new financial mechanism to extend support to developing countries with high aspirations. · We will expand the endeavour for improving energy efficiency to the entire world; we will promote international efforts

“ The Government of Japan, seriously concerned with the global environmental issues -- in particular climate change -considers that global warming is a challenge that the entire world should tackle together”

32 CorD / Septembar 2007

to expand the use of nuclear power, as well as providing assistance such as infrastructure development. · We will study methods such as an integrated approach to fight pollution and global warming; emissions trading; and economic incentives.

Pillar 3: Launching a national campaign for achieving the Kyoto Protocol target. · The Kyoto Protocol Target Achievement Plan will be reviewed to ensure Japan achieves its Kyoto Protocol objective to reduce emissions by 6 percent. · The Government will promote its initiatives and urge municipalities and major business entities to accelerate their actions for reduction of emissions. · We will launch a national campaign and call for efforts and creative ideas with the motto of reducing greenhouse gases by “1 person, 1day, 1kg.”; we will solicit and adopt new proposals from the people for expanding the national campaign.

It is the sincere hope of my Government that each and every country, be it an industrialized or developing country, will accept this invitation and walk together towards the “Cool Earth” in 2050.

H.E. Ambassador Adel Ahmed Mohamed Naguib, Embassy of Egypt

Environmental action in Egypt encounters numerous challenges that make it imperative to apply traditional and non-traditional techniques to bridge the gap between the quality of life Egyptians aspire to and that which they really get as a result of ongoing pressures affecting their environment.

One of the Environmental subjects which concern Egypt is harmful emissions into the air, as this represents an environmental pressure that reflects negatively on man’s health and productivity, thus leading to a real loss in the national economy.

The multiple sources of air pollution and the heavy load of pollutants are but a normal consequence of the accelerated economic growth Egypt has witnessed over the past three decades.

Higher rates of air pollution are becoming strongly correlated with economic progress.

Therefore, The Arab Republic of Egypt has paid special attention to monitoring and reducing such emissions through concerted efforts undertaken at both national and international levels alike.

“ Egypt has paid special attention to monitoring and reducing [harmful] emissions through concerted efforts undertaken at both national and international levels alike.”

The Egyptian government has conducted many projects to fight pollution. For example, air pollutants in Egypt are monitored by the National Network for Monitoring Air pollutants (NNMAP). NNMAP has 54 stations covering most of the regions exposed to air pollution hazards. Greater Cairo alone is covered by 20 stations to monitor Sulphur Dioxide, Ozone, Carbon Monoxide and Black smoke.

The network was initially established in 1999, with 42 stations. Later, renovation works were undertaken and 12 new stations were added (6 in 2004 and 6 in 2005) to cope with the progressive increase in the sources of pollution.

The Egyptian Ministry of state for Environmental Affairs regularly upgrades NNMAP within the framework of a comprehensive system, observing international standards of air pollutant monitoring system.

H.E. Ambassador Haakon Blankenborg, Embassy of Norway

The Norwegian Government’s new white paper on climate policy contains proposals for concrete new measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The Government proposes substantial cuts in emissions both in Norway and abroad.

In its white paper, the Government is proposing that Norway have the world’s most ambitious climate targets. The country is to be carbon neutral by 2050, which means that all remaining emissions will be set off against emissions in other countries. The Government will improve on Norway’s commitment under the Kyoto Protocol by 10 per cent, and plans to cut global emissions of greenhouse gases by the equivalent of 30 per cent of our 1990 emissions by 2020. These targets will be achieved both by substantially reducing Norway’s emissions and by paying for cuts in other countries. The whole of the extra 10 per cent will be accounted for by reductions outside Norway.

Research and technological development are major priority areas in the Government’s climate policy.

The white paper sets out a number of proposed measures, including the following: Prohibiting landfilling of biodegradable waste as from 2009; prohibiting the installation of oil-fired boilers in new buildings as from 2009; introducing a new scheme for supporting the conversion of oil-fired boilers to boilers using renewable energy; increasing the capital of the fund for the promotion of energy efficiency; initiating a programme for the development of marine wind turbines; increasing the capital of the fund for sustainable gas technologies; taking targeted and coordinated measures to expand the production of bioenergy by up to 14 TWh; continuing the efforts to improve public transport, including the efforts to improve rail transport; working to promote the inclusion of international air and sea traffic in future international agreements on climate change; inviting the largest towns to cooperate on reducing local emissions.

The white paper contains a proposal for a new investment fund.

The tax system will also be utilised to encourage environmentally friendly behaviour within a revenue-neutral framework.

The white paper contains proposals for climate targets and action plans for the main sectors responsible for greenhouse gas emissions.

CorD / Septembar 2007 33

Business Interview

Robert Ferko, newly appointed Vice President of Delta Holding’s food division

Food Industry

LEADER “We are in the developmental phase of the strategic business plan, which will determine the future aggregate of all our food brands, as well the future plan for each brand separately until 2012. Our ambition is to be the biggest in the region by that year.”

By Tatjana Ostojić; Photo: Jelena Seferin obert Ferko was, until recently, the president of the managing board of Slovenia food giant Droga Kolinska. On 1st July he was named a Vice President of Delta Holding, responsible for the conglomerate’s established businesses and growing forays into the food production industry, which he has worked extensively in since the start of his career in 1989. Ferko has an MA in food technology and is currently working on a doctoral dissertation at Ljubljana University. This month, Ferko sat down with CorD to discuss his arrival in the Serbian food industry, as well as Delta’s plans for development within the sector.

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n What was behind your decision to joint Delta Holding in Belgrade? r I decided to join Delta Holding because it is an ambitious company. When Delta

decides to penetrate a field, it goes in through the front door, very ambitiously.

Apart from that, the company’s goals in the field of food industry coincide with my desire and attempts to be part of another big story emerging in this region.

Therefore, our interests in that sense coincided, and here I am. n The competition in the food industry is strong, in many sectors it is very stable, how will Delta find its position? r Delta got into the food industry three years ago, when it purchased the meat products factory Juhor. A year and half ago the company bought Danubius from Novi Sad and the soft drinks factory will start production soon. This year, Delta will launch still water and next year extend the portfolio of those products.

We have started working intensively on the coffee production project and in the confectionary industry.

These fields, however, are not all structured, i.e. the concentration of players is not so heavy as to restrict movement.

Delta Holding is an ambitious and recognisable company and is prepared to invest a great amount in marketing, which means support for the market penetration of new products and later support towards brand positioning.

Some of the fields we are talking about, for instance water, have growth of around

Marketing is very important. Big international players invest approximately 15 per cent of their income back into marketing...

34 CorD / Septembar 2007

20 per cent annually. Consumption of water in Serbia is around 45 litres per capita, whereas in Slovenia it is around 104 litres and in Croatia between 70 and 80. You can see the possibility for significant growth here. We have ambitious plans. We are starting with still water, and later we will also move into the field of mineral water, and are considering other soft drinks, such as high fruit-content juices. On top of this is the supermarket chain, which Delta is creating in the regional sense, and which can provide a strong stimulus to all those brands, at least at the beginning, n Delta has signed a contact with Novak Đoković to promote the new Aqua Gale.

Do you plan similar marketing moves for other brands as well? r Marketing is very important. Big international players invest approximately 15 per cent of their income back into marketing, thus it is very important to engage those funds for already established brands and especially for brands just about to launch. I think that now is the time for new brands, before the big players come to this region. Delta, as a civic-minded company, returns part of its profit to its consumers, i.e. the society where it operates, and that is a very recognisable activity of Delta Holding as a whole.

Apart from Novak Đoković, with whom we have already signed a contract, we

We are in the developmental phase of the strategic business plan which will determine the future aggregate of all our food brands...

the Serbian food industry was very strong in the former Yugoslavia and in the last two or three years there has been a great deal of investment in this field.

will also carry out the same activities with other brands. Every brand has to be identified with some activity, or face, or person, and so such activities are usual, required activities. The brand needs to be identified with somebody or something. n Are there plans to acquire any of the domestic water producers? r Aqua Gala is our brand of still water and we will launch it on the market at the beginning of September at the latest. As regards our next moves, nothing has been ruled in or out. In fact, the market here is dynamic, it grows very quickly, things are happening very quickly and we have to be prepared for all challenges. In our strategy, and when we talk about food brands, we say that we will grow both organically and through acquisitions. Therefore nothing is ruled out in the field of water and soft drinks, or any other for that matter. n How did Delta decide to go into the production of coffee? r This is a very profitable area in the food industry, especially in Serbia. I’m convinced there is a great deal of room yet, and that we can make a new brand.

We have plans to start in the confectionary and coffee industry in June next year.

Belgrade: Balkan Metropolis n Have you had the chance to see much of Belgrade? r A little. After work I go for walks, go to the fitness centre or for a sauna, or I run.

I missed Guča, and many Slovenians went to Guča again: they were among the most numerous. My family is still in Slovenia, but we are thinking about moving here.

There is no dilemma regarding them coming to Belgrade. In Slovenia, Delta is seen as a very respectable company, and I always underline that I am proud to be a part of Delta. My family sees Belgrade as a metropolis, which in fact it is because it has as many inhabitants as all of Slovenia. We think that the international component my children would gain here would be very useful. Because of that they are waiting for me to find “my place under the sun” so they can come. n As regards regional expansion in the food industry, are you planning acquisitions in neighbouring countries? r We are in the developmental phase of the strategic business plan which will determine the future aggregate of all our food brands, as well the future plan for each brand separately until 2012. Our ambition is to be the biggest in the region by that year. In everything Delta does, we want to do best and at the highest possible level.

Acquisitions in Serbia and in the region are being considered. n As a recent arrival in Belgrade, what similarities and differences have you noticed in the way business is carried out here and in Slovenia?

r When we talk about Delta Holding we talk about the biggest enterprise not only in Serbia but in the whole region. The company has one owner, the enterprise is very ambitious and dynamic; it wants to make new brands and to make new investments in the food industry. When we talk about Droga Kolinska, it is also a very respectable company, which did not grow necessarily organically, but more through acquisitions.

In 2005, two respectable companies, Droga and Kolinska merged. That was followed by two bigger acquisitions in the region, GrandProm and Soko Štark, followed by green-field investments – the Argeta factory in Sarajevo and the new coffee roasting factory in Macedonia. When we talk about Droga Kolinska we talk about a company CorD / Septembar 2007 35

Business Interview

Ferko has no plans to go it alone n Have you thought about opening your own business? r Yes, I have considered working for myself. However, I think that the cooperative way of working suits me best. I have not ruled out the possibility that I might someday work independently, but currently I am not interested in working in some small business, and at the beginning every business is small. Since 1989, when I started working, I have been working in cooperative, larger environments, at companies that have been strong players in the food industry. that has reached a certain phase of maturity, when the owners have to decide the future direction of the company. However, on the other side, Delta is a company in the process of creating new green-field investments in the food industry, new brands, and is growing in every sense. n In Slovenia, the state has maintained a percentage ownership of several companies, how does this affect the business climate? r The state is on average the owner of 25 per cent of the Slovenian economy. The new government has decided to withdraw from the economy, and to an extent, they have already done this, but it is impossible to do everything overnight. The state is still a big player there. Therefore when the government changes, new management also comes, as well as a new philosophy.

Where the state is involved there is also the appointing of cadres, making everything possible. However, when there is a single owner, and when the goals of the owner and the management coincide, it can create a 36 CorD / Septembar 2007

good base for good work in the future. On the other side, with a single owner you can quickly and dynamically take advantage of market opportunities that are opening. The state is still present in many companies in Slovenia, and runs things there. Truly, it is not the major owner, but with 25 per cent and representatives on the supervisory boards, the state can do a great deal. The government is also aware that the frequent changes in business philosophy, strategy and cadres, is not good for companies. In many companies the state has already withdrawn but, on the other side, it is still present in many of them. n In your opinion, what is the future of the Serbian food industry? Will it compete with the foreign competition or will it be taken over? r Everything that is on the market is also up for sale. However, when you ask me about the Serbian food industry, I have to say, from my experience, that it was very strong in the former Yugoslavia and in the last two or three years there has been a

great deal of investment in this field. I do not doubt that the Serbian food industry will be prepared to welcome international companies and compete with them on an equal footing. However, as to whether the owners hold on to their industry and for how long, that is a different matter, and depends on the owners. n Delta has enacted a complete strategy in the food industry ‘from the field to the table’. Is this the best way to fight off competitors? r I think this is very important, because consumers today are aware; they want to know where everything comes from and how it was prepared and what they can expect. That aspect is very important and it is becoming more important every day.

Within the Delta System, the retail arm can provide a strong stimulus, at least in the initial launch period of new brands.

However, success in retail will also require working externally, with buyers and outside suppliers.

The fact that we are the food producers in the Delta system cannot be an excuse, nor can it give us some special, favourable position, especially not to the detriment of quality. I have a comprehensive view of Delta, and, in everything I have seen, the company strives for quality, in all fields it is in. From the equipment for production to applying the process for developing a brand, only the highest possible international standards are being implemented. This convinces me that there will be success both within our retail system and on the open market. n

Interview

Carin Salerno, Director of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation’s Office in Belgrade

Beyond Belgrade The Swiss Agency for Development and Co-operation (SDC) established a permanent humanitarian & development agency in Serbia in 1992, maintaining its presence throughout the ‘90s (including the NATO bombing of the country). Working to develop the country on four central pillars -- local governance, private sector development, education and infrastructure – in the last 15 years the SDC has invested a total of €110million in bilateral co-operation. Now the SDC is implementing its latest 2007-9 Strategy.

By Željko Popivoda; Photo: Jelena Seferin arin Salerno has been director of the Swiss Co-operation Office in Belgrade since January 2004. Speaking to CorD this summer as she began preparing for the end of her mandate here, she noted: “it’s very easy to see the progressive changes that have taken place in Belgrade: with more

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shops, banks, and people on the streets and in the cafes.” However, “One of the major challenges for this country is to ensure that development support is not only concentrated on Belgrade. Now is the time to really look into those areas that still have a low level of economic development and poorer inhabitants. The Swiss development Co-operation is now looking into the more

difficult and remote areas that usually aren’t well supported, as we feel we can really make a difference to those municipalities.” n The population to GDP differential between Serbia and Switzerland is shocking, to say the least. Serbia – 9.8million [including Kosovo], $27.5billion; Switzerland – 7.5million, $382.4billion. What do you think Serbia has to prioritise in order to achieve its potential? r I think that building infrastructure remains one of the major challenges, although a lot has already been done. If the infrastructure is there – in terms of hardware, services and a framework of conditions for investment – investments will come. Legal conditions and enforcement, in terms of fighting corruption, red tape, etc. It’s about making Serbia a comfortable place in which to invest, and all these elements must be fulfilled for Serbia to attract those levels of investment.

And when those investments do come they should be spread across Serbia – in south Serbia and Sandžak or central Serbia – as opposed to being concentrated in Belgrade. n As part of your Office’s new strategy, you are helping to tackle problems of unemployment by supporting micro business and SME establishment. How is this support manifested? r We are part of the European fund for South-East Europe, which is a big regional fund that provides loans through the banks to small and medium-sized enterprises. Our aim when participating in this fund is also to target small and medium-sized enterprises outside of Belgrade, in order to promote wider development. We are also keen to target female entrepreneurs, to help ensure they receive an increased share of the investment opportunities. This includes start-up loans and credits to micro businesses and SMEs n What products and services do you see as being able to help address the trade balance between Switzerland and Serbia; what can Serbia offer Switzerland? r Everything, but particularly more and more well-skilled dynamic, dedicated young people. In terms of exports, Serbia can offer a lot of food products and processed agricultural goods.

38 CorD / Septembar 2007

I also think that Serbia could offer a lot in terms of services to the EU and Switzerland in particular.

We have an institution called SIPPO [Swiss Import Promotion Programme], which has an office here in Belgrade. SIPPO actually supports enterprises that wish to export their products to Switzerland or Europe, helping them to develop their strategies and address their shipping and client communication needs n Your new strategy also includes a focus on education. Are you running training courses and/or workshops for education professionals; realising formal visits and/ or facilitating partnerships between institutions? r We have three components in the education sector. One is Roma education. Here we really promote the integration of Roma children into the state school system.

The second component is professional development, which involved the setting up (now complete) of a teacher-training system with the Serbian Ministry of Education, and the establishing of two regional teacher-training centres for professional development, in Čačak and Užice, which ensure that the teaching system is being decentralised, bringing it closer to the needs of the schools. This is very important because although one needs a common curriculum, one also needs to adapt to the local communities’ needs.

The third component of our education programme is looking at the reform process in the education sector. This included the setting up of a project unit within the ministry of education to promote decentralisation, effective budgeting, planning and monitoring, as well as supporting the ministry’s regional and international presence. n Having ventured down into Southern Serbia regularly for the past four years, how would you assess the mindset of the communities down there; are they facing the future with optimism? r If you live in a place that is surrounded by dead factories, it is hard to feel comfortable and hopeful for the future. Thus, one major task is to make sure that those factories are either closed down or privatised, so that the local economies can be boosted again.

If these people are offered interesting economic development and personal opportunities, any inter-social, inter-ethnic or political problems will simply cease to be important. If you offer people opportunities to live better, many problems are automatically solved. However, if these places continue to be difficult to access by road and the infrastructure isn’t there, then it will continue to be difficult to generate economic opportunity and attract investors.

Nationwide

Caution

Support

Our aim is also to target small and medium-sized enterprises outside of Belgrade, in order to promote wider development.

Swiss investors tend to be more conservative and will probably wait for the country to become more stabilised and structured before they risk anything.

With an annual budget of roughly €10million, we are always seeking to identify our comparative advantage. We are most engaged in civil society

n What initiatives are you spearheading to help promote Swiss investment in Serbia? r This summer saw a Swiss Economic Mission visit central Serbia and Vojvodina. The mission included several potential Swiss investors and such organised visits will continue. In the meantime, we have noticed that Swiss investors are still a little reluctant to invest in Serbia because the framework conditions are not as well organised as Swiss businessmen like. Unlike Austrian, Italian or Greek investors, who are heavily present here already, Swiss investors tend to be more conservative and will probably wait for the country to become more stabilised and structured before they risk anything. n Are your efforts principally aimed at helping to create an environment that will encourage the refugees of the former Yugoslav, who are currently residing in Switzerland, to come home? r Everything we do is contributing to the development of Serbia, and the country’s future integration into the European community. So if this inspires some of the refugees now in Switzerland to come back, then good, but if not they will stay in Switzerland. It’s very difficult to make a direct link between attractiveness and their willingness to return home. That said, I know that some people are coming back, lured by investment opportunities. n What is the end goal of the new 2007-9 strategy; what precisely are you hoping to achieve? r The overall goal is, of course, to help advance the socio-economic transition of Serbia and contribute to the country’s integration into the European Union.

There are set targets in each of the four domains, but overall we hope to see Serbia advancing towards EU integration – a process we are constantly monitoring.

The main difficulty we

have, as a small, non-EU country, is finding a niche where we can contribute; areas that are not being boosted so much by funds coming from the EU, the World bank, USAID, etc.

With a budget of only roughly €10million per year, we are always seeking to identify our comparative advantage over others. We are most engaged in the area of civil society, and in particular in increasing citizens’ awareness and involvement in their local political and institutional structures, as well as encouraging the authorities to engage in a dialogue with the citizens they serve. n After almost four years in Belgrade, working on development and examining investment opportunities, what would your advice be for CorD’s investor readers? r Look beyond Belgrade. Belgrade is not all that Serbia has to offer and there are interesting investment opportunities and people beyond the capital. Making such investments will probably take longer, but the potential returns will be higher. n

CorD / Septembar 2007 39

Business

TELECOM COMPETITION Nowadays it is impossible to go through a town, turn on the TV or open a newspaper without being met by one of these recognisable slogans: “Some have started to complain that they’re seeing double”, or “Top stuff, bro!” or “Eight phones starting from one dinar”. Of course, we’re talking about the three mobile operators in Serbia. The activities of Mobilna Telefonija Srbije (MT:S) and Telenor increased with the announcement of the arrival of the third operator,VIP, and have only accelerated in the last few months.

By Zorica Nikić he current trends developing in the mobile network sector in Serbia are the early exchanges in the country’s first European-style corporate market battle.

The competition – increasingly evident between the two foreign-owned private companies and the national provider – is

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40 CorD / Septembar 2007

indicative of Serbia’s maturing free-market climate; a climate that sees private and state-owned companies going head-to-head with nothing but the quality and price of their offer able to ensure success.

The battle between the three mobile operators in Serbia is reminiscent of the war waged between the two largest

coffee producers in Serbia. The two companies competed to come up with the best advertising message and hire more celebrities. The result of this struggle, said one of the directors of the two companies speaking frankly, was a joint loss. Namely, neither of the firms profited, consumers didn’t get better quality, nor there was

growth of the commodity group. The only ones who profited were the marketing agencies and the media. It remains to be seen if the mobile operators will share the fate of the coffee-market battlers.

It is unofficially estimated that the mobile operators spend a combined total of around €45million on marketing in Serbia.

It is almost impossible to get the data about how much a mobile operator, but also any other company, invests in marketing, because it falls under the category of trade secrets and is reluctantly talked about.

“The Legislator abolished the obligation to show marketing investments through bookkeeping in 1992, so that now the balance sheet does not contain expenditures on marketing activities.

It might be possible to determine approximately how much a mobile operator spends on media advertising, but not on promotional campaigns which cost eight to nine times more than the advertising,” says Žozef Lončar, editorin-chief of Taboo marketing magazine.

To the common reader, viewer and observer, even to an averagely informed person, it is clear that the campaigns have become more frequent and that they are pretty competitive. In the first seven months of this year, out of total television advertising, eight to nine per cent of investments and ratings came from these three operators, says AGB Nielsen Media Research, which researches television ratings in Serbia.

The three mobile telephone operators have started a pitched battle for each subscriber. VIP sold 50,000 sim cards in one day, and each card is at the same time a ticket for a lottery to win one of the valuable prizes. As a counter measure, MT:S offered its users free tickets to the concert of Zdravko Čolić and with that a lottery ticket of Lutrija Srbije (Lottery of Serbia), where the main prize was a car. The marketing propaganda flooded the daily press and TV screens, so that other products were pushed into the background. Numerous packages with various benefits were introduced.

The ordinary people are literally dazed by so many packages on offer, regardless of the fact that they should be in a better condition, as consumers, with the increase in competition, compared to the time when Telekom and Mobtel held a monopoly.

This sudden expansion of mobile communications is a consequence of an insufficiently developed landline service in Serbia. MT:S and Telenor together cover more than 89 per cent of the domestic market and, according to the latest data of the Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia, 71.2% of households have a mobile phone, while 86.5% have a fixed landline.

Two thirds are using the services of one of

High Investments This intense media advertising shouldn’t be a surprise when one considers that Norway’s Telenor paid €1.5billion to enter the Serbian Market, and Austria’s Mobilkom (VIP) paid €320million for the license, with an announced €100million of investments to follow. All those investments point to the profitability of mobile telephony. However, the aggressive advertising of the three operators can only be compared to the marketing campaigns during parliamentary elections, with the latter being shorter and appearing periodically. Recently, information came out that Ðani Ćurčić (winner of the last Celebrity Big Brother in Serbia) earned €100,000 for his part in a television commercial about MT:S services. the three operators, while one third can’t or won’t do it. Practically speaking, there are more mobile phone cards than there are citizens in Serbia.

Virgin Mobile, one of the largest British mobile operator, uses a software package for planning analysis. It conducted optimum marketing campaigns and reduced the number of users who are switching to other operators. The programme enables the operator to analyse data about its users, the results of previous marketing campaigns, determine more easily the target groups when shaping new marketing activities. They conduct more than a hundred marketing campaigns every year and each one is directed towards one goal – a particular group of users, reducing costs, preventing the loss of users and increasing income.

Because of the increasing competition on our market, retaining users will be a key factor of successful business. This will be particularly pronounced when virtual mobile operators, who use others’ networks, begin to appear. Their activities are based only on marketing, selling and other activities, selling the capacity they

bought from the mobile operator to the end user for a higher price and focusing on small segments when it comes to marketing – age and interest groups. Slovenia has two virtual mobile operators and three classic ones. Croatia has three mobile operators and is getting ready to introduce a virtual one. One of the Slovenian MVNO’s belongs to the large retail chain Mercator, while in Croatia company Agrokor is interested in the sector. Large retail chains in Italy, like Coop, and in the UK, Tesco, also have their own virtual mobile operators. Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia & Herzegovina don’t yet have a virtual mobile operator.

The Croatian TelCro, which is a future virtual operator, is rightfully interested in those markets as well.

We didn’t succeed in getting official information about whether and how much the mobile operators have profited with this kind of intense advertising, but in an informal conversation, a representative of one of the three mobile operators, when asked: “Who will come out of this war as the winner, one of the operators or the consumers?”, answered: “One winner is certain – the media”. n

CorD / Septembar 2007 41

Newcomer

Pioneering bank Low taxes; domestic use of the Euro; a stable government; EU prospects.

These are the factors that are enhancing the appeal of Montenegro as a location for commercial, investment and private banking; and leading many companies to believe that Montenegro is on the way to one day becoming the Monaco of the Balkans. One such company is local Atlas Group, which has established the coastal republic’s first ever investment bank – Invest Bank Montenegro (IBM).

Pioneering developer Invest Bank Montenegro is set to become the first bank in the region to introduce trading on the web, offering an opportunity to trade on all global markets in foreign exchange, precious metals, commodities, stocks & shares, indexes, futures, etc., through the bank’s on website.

“The second phase is to put the local exchanges, especially the Montenegrin Stock Exchange, on his month CorD speaks to the worldwide web. This will CEO of Invest Bank Monallow people all over the world tenegro, Aurel C. David, CFA, to trade, through our website, about the fledgling bank’s future on the stock exchange here and plans. “The first task,” explains in the vicinity, which is subject David, “is to change Invest Bank to further negotiation,” explains Montenegro (IBM) from a comDavid. “In the first phase our mercial bank into an investment trading business will aim to bank. In order to do this we need provide liquidity to the markets, to obtain licenses, which will increase the transparency of the happen in September.” market and making it more atThe focus in the first phase of tractive to foreign investors. the bank’s development, explains Expansive operations David, will be based on three pilIBM is not limiting itself to lars – financial engineering and Montenegro alone, as David classic investment banking; prinotes: “We have acquired a vate banking and custody servbanking licence in Russia and ices; and trading, including adviare set to bring a Russian bank sory, managed accounts, etc. and a Cypriot bank into the “IBM’s mission is to act as a group. As our group has offices bridge between global financial in Belgrade we will be able to markets and Montenegro, in parserve the Serbian market from ticular, and the Balkans in genthe capital, but investment bankeral. Moreover, we will do this as ing for the region will be primaan intrinsic bridge: not as some rily conducted in Podgorica.” foreign bank coming down to the Aurel C. David, CFA, CEO of Invest Bank Montenegro Enhancing knowledge region to exploit, but rather as a local bank that’s providing opportunities fying potential companies for sale, helping With Montenegro and the region still for elaborate growth to Montenegrin and companies obtain funds on capital mar- largely unknown entities to many of the regional players, as well as facilitating for- kets, etc. The other part is infrastructure, world’s investors, IBM is seeking to adeign investors. This will help Montenegro which is of tremendous importance to both dress the knowledge gap: “We have identito preserve national interests to a certain Montenegro and the wider region. This in- fied a lack of research of the region, and so cludes water, energy and public transporta- we will conduct this ourselves. Although degree.”

Continuing, David explains that in tion, roads, etc. Here we envisage our role big world banks are researching, they’re terms of financial engineering, “one part in assisting the government to both attract research is not as effective because they of the first phase will include launching capital from abroad and structure that rela- do not have local knowledge or regular local access.” n private industry operations, such as identi- tionship through a fund or other means.”

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Leading local player Atlas Group is the largest financial group in Montenegro and one of the three largest in the region. The Group relies on the two pillars of finance and real estate. Atlas Group owns two banks in Montenegro – Atlasmont Bank and Pljevaljska Banka (privatised last year and now being transformed into IBM) –brokerage house, CG Broker and engineering project management company FIN Invest. Atlas Group is also heavily 42 CorD / Septembar 2007

involved in the tourism industry and owns several hotels on the Montenegrin coast, as well as boasting water-bottling factory Aquamont in Kolašin.

Atlas Group is proud of its involvement in the academic world, having founded the first private university in the country – Mediteran University – which now boasts numerous faculties, including the Montenegro Business School, Faculty for Tourism, Trade and Hotel Management;

Faculty for IT, Faculty for Visual Arts, Law Faculty and Foreign language Faculty.

Last year saw Atlas Group establish a top-notch 4G radio and television station, based in Podgorica. This station will soon appear on satellite.

All these factors ensure that Atlas is a strong, competitive group that’s constantly expanding and seeking new opportunities.

Business – privatisation

Good recipe

required Privatisations of EPS, NIS & JAT in the spotlight CorD’s interlocutors generally concur that the privatisations of Public Companies shouldn’t be rushed and that the right model, suitable for each company, should be chosen.

44 CorD / Septembar 2007

By Tatjana Ostojić he privatisation of Public Enterprises (JP) – most of all major utilities companies like Elektroprivreda Srbije (Electric Power Industry of Serbia - EPS), Naftna industrija Srbije (Petroleum Industry of Serbia - NIS) and Jugoslovenski aerotransport (JAT Airways) – is one of top subjects in Serbia.

Increased interest in the privatisation of major state-owned enterprises shouldn’t be a surprise according to Dr. Nikola Zelić, a partner in Factis Consulting, who notes that 35 per cent of total fixed assets in Serbia are engaged in those companies, while 14 per cent of the country’s total workforce is employed in those companies, which are capital-intensive businesses.

Aleksandar Vlahović, a partner in EKI Investment and former Minister for

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Privatisation in the DOS Government of Serbia, highlights that almost half of the Serbian economy is vertically connected to these state enterprises. “The privatisation of Public Enterprises is essentially the most important stage of the privatisation of socially and state-owned capital. The quality and competitiveness of the Serbian economy will depend on the quality and successfulness of the privatisation of public enterprises,” says Vlahović.

Professor of the Belgrade University, Dr. Stojan Dabić, emphasises that these are strategic companies and that the selling of public enterprises is sensitive because these firms are of general interest.

Legal Regulation “There are around 15 enterprises which are all in state ownership, and the Government is in charge of some of them, like EPS, NIS, the Railways, Postal service, National Television, Srbija Vode (Serbia Waters), Vojvodina Vode (Vojvodina Waters), Srbija Šume (Serbia Forests), Vojvodina Šume (Vojvodina Forests), also in part Telekom, JAT, mines for underground exploitation and JP for Public Roads (Public Enterprise for Public Roads). Besides these, there are around 500 local-level enterprises like waterworks, companies for refuse collection and disposal, local public transport companies - GSP (Public Transport Company), JP for green areas and cemeteries,” explains Zelić.

When it comes to legal regulation, Zelić explains, there are two laws: the Law on Public Enterprises, which states that these are enterprises which perform activities of public interest and are all in state ownership, and a special Law on Public Enterprises on the Local Level. The third regulatory part are the laws for particular activities – like the Law on Energy, Railways, Telecommunications, Roads, Law on Utility Services on the Local Level. These individual laws are modern and fully in accordance with European laws, while the Law on Public Enterprises is very old.

However, Zelić stresses, the question of the privatisation of public enterprises is legally regulated, but also completely unregulated. “Why do I say this? Because the Law on Privatisation states only in one place that the state and socially-owned capital is the object of privatisation. After that, it only speaks about the privatisation of socially-owned companies. During the privatisation of Telekom in 1997, this law proved to be insufficient, so that article 9a was inserted into the Law on JP, which envisages that the employees will have a right to get free shares of up to 15 per cent, i.e. 30 per cent of shares will be given for free, with the other 15 per cent should go to the National Privatisation Fund,” says

aleksandar vlahović

Zelić. According to CorD’s interlocutor, there is nothing in the Law about when or how the privatisation of these enterprises will be conducted, so that there’s no general model for privatisation.

“It started off ad hoc. The privatisation of NIS was initialised, but then halted. The privatisation of JAT was initialised and now a financial advisor has been chosen.

Since there is no complete regulation, there are only presumptions as to when and how a JP would be privatised,” highlights Zelić.

According to the Factis Consulting partner, this ad hoc approach might not be bad when talking about the JP’s on the level of the Republic, because each enterprise is specific and with each one of them there is a more or less pronounced state interest.

“It is appropriate that there exists a special strategy on behalf of the state concerning these enterprises. Since there aren’t many of these companies, it is possible to process each of them separately. There is no need for a general model. However, that doesn’t go for Public Utility Companies. It would be good to legally introduce a general model for privatisation,” Zelic points out.

Privatisation of EPS Vlahović agrees with Zelić that there is no universal principle that could be applied to our JPs, but points out that the method of privatisation must be transparent and imply competitiveness and publicity, and that all the defined principles of the Law on Privatisation be adhered to. “It is particularly important that the restructuring and privatisation of EPS and NIS are done, but above all EPS,” stresses Vlahović. According to the former minister, the percentage of capital that will be offered for sale does not have to be identical to what the Law on Privatisation provides and considers as being important to CorD / Septembar 2007 45

Business – privatisation the process of restructuring and status transformation, which will define what parts of the system of a JP will be involved in the privatisation.

“The state must withdraw from ownership as much as possible and stay only where necessary, to ensure a stable functioning of the system. The limits of state survival in the sense of ownership are not the same for all JPs. It is certain that the state’s participation in the structure of ownership is the greatest in EPS. Besides that, only certain parts of the system of EPS should be the object of privatisation and even that only after a fully realised restructuring programme. For example, the privatisation should involve the distribution network, probably thermal power stations, but it is completely certain that the state as the owner must remain in the system of transmission, as well as hydroelectric power stations, in the system of production of electric energy,” Vlahović notes.

Vlahović is of the opinion that it is extremely important to develop regulatory bodies and strengthen the Energy Agency, to which the executive authorities would soon have to transfer all of its powers to lay down conditions for business in this area.

“The degree of development and independence of this regulatory body will very much affect the interest of large world companies to invest in this area,” insists Vlahović.

Zelić feels that if the JPs don’t undergo a majority privatisation, they should at least be partially privatised and opened on the capital market, and that goes for all JPs – both those operating on the republic level and those on the local level, except for those enterprises which have networks as their base business, i.e. the enterprise for the transport of oil and natural gas, the enterprise for the transport of electric power, etc. Those enterprises are so-called natural monopolists which have to be regulated by the regulatory bodies. This also refers to waterworks on the local level.

“I completely agree that without getting the large JPs, like NIS and EPS, on the

Dr. nikola zelić

stock market, it won’t have enough material to trade. Our citizens, the small investors, won’t have anything to invest in. This is true. However, the question is whether these enterprises, EPS in particular, are ready – most of all because of the price of their products – to be opened on the market. If they were opened on the market now, it would be possible to take possession of a significant part of their capital in a relatively short time and for a small amount of money. On the other hand, the main knowhow of any strategic partner would be how to increase the price of electric energy,” emphasises Zelić. In his opinion, EPS currently does not fulfil the conditions to be opened to the market, until the price level of electric power is on the level of European prices, which are, right now, two or three times higher than the domestic price.

“When that happens, in three to four years, EPS should go on the market because electricity has no substitute,” Zelić points out.

Professor Dabić is even more explicit: “If you sell all of your energy providers

Privatisation of Banks “If you privatise the entire banking system you lose economic independence and with that the instrument to lead the economic policy and population protection policy,” says Professor Stojan Dabić, PhD., pointing out: “You sell domestic banks to some foreign banks and if they have no interest in getting into debt and they get liquidated, they will pull out of this area and we will be left without financial support for the domestic economy. It is good that large banking systems are arriving, which are prepared to follow the development of our big companies.

46 CorD / Septembar 2007

However, we’re already having problems with large companies losing businesses abroad because they cannot ensure bank support. There were such cases with smaller foreign banks, where they asked for all the data on the new business, the future buyer and the conditions and then sent that data to their headquarters for approval. That’s when abuses occurred, because companies from the seat of the bank appeared as competitors with better conditions. That was particularly witnessed in Bosnia & Herzegovina and Croatia,” Dabić explains.

you’re putting yourself at the mercy of the supplier. He can say in certain conditions “it doesn’t suit me do deliver electric energy, and the state cannot allow that”.

According to Dabić, there is a general phase of stagnation of market material on the domestic financial market, i.e. there’s a small amount of securities. “Our market is very shallow. The best firms are sold to foreign investors who don’t want to play on the market but are buying all the shares from shareholders and turning themselves into a single-member closed joint stock company or a limited liability company.

Generally, the prices of shares are low nowadays and we can only expect an increase in prices in September, not because the companies have shown significantly better results but because there is a lot of free money floating around in this area so the supply is higher than the demand. To make the market deeper and broader, it would be good to get the securities of the present JPs on it,” explains Dabić.

Present state-owned enterprises, according to Dabić, should transform into joint stock companies, where the country would own 70 per cent and small shareholders, past and present employees, up to 15 per cent – the same as the privatisation fund.

These 15 per cent of shares on the market would, according to his words, significantly revive the Serbian stock market and also provide a more realistic picture of the value of domestic Public Enterprises.

“I am not in favour of sale by tender or public offer. In the first phase there should be a transformation of a JP into a joint stock company with the majority of it under state ownership. The state would then have a fairly substantial manoeuvring space to get new investors through new emissions of shares,

and at the same time support the very development of those enterprises. At the moment when the state decides to get out of those enterprises, and it shouldn’t do it quickly, it can be easily done through public offer or stock market. By the way, these first 15 per cent could go on the stock market by the end of the year. That would speed up the process of activating the resources from the Republic Privatisation Fund and calm the legitimate dissent of those who didn’t use their right to get shares.

The state will decide to go on a tender or auction only out of practical reasons, and that is if it needs more resources,” thinks Dabic.

jat’s privatisation would represent a strategic sale of the national carrier

Privatisation of NIS However, Vlahović is in favour of a different type of privatisation for NIS. “I think the state should pull out of NIS as soon as possible and there’s a need for a complete privatisation in a fixed timeframe with only research, development and pipeline transport remaining in state ownership. It’s a question of a state decision. If the decision of the state is to go into a gradual and careful privatisation and to offer a minority share of the capital to the strategic partner, then it’s only logical that the resources for development are secured in the manner done

by NIS. If the country is going to be the dominant owner over a longer period, then someone has to finance the development,” says Vlahović, commenting in the wake of NIS’s announcement that it will be taking a loan of €372million.

Srđan Bošnjaković, General Manager of NIS, recently explained that a loan was the only way for NIS to secure the money to modernise its refineries, renew the retail network and maintain its market share while so doing. Bošnjaković pointed out on that occasion that the loan amount was incomparably smaller than the total value of the company and so it wouldn’t affect the process of the privatisation of NIS. Taking a loan, as Bošnjaković said, would be a part of the new or changed strategy for privatisation which would be the basis upon which to make the Law on the Privatisation of NIS. “The Law should be adopted at the end of September or the start of October, after

which, in October, the process of privatisation could be continued,” said the General Manager of NIS on that occasion.

Economist Miroslav Prokopijević, director of the Centre for Free Market, estimated – in his statement to the Beta Agency – that NIS’s taking of a loan before privatisation is a mistaken step. “Any form of recapitalisation before the privatisation of state firms is wrong. It should simply be sold,” said Prokopijević.

Vlahović also believes that NIS should be sold, and he’s certain that the moment NIS is privatised the quality of corporate management, and with that the business performance of this company, will be at a higher level. “I don’t believe that appointing people based on party membership can ensure management of the system. NIS is a typical commercial business. The state has no place there, except to ensure a maximum profit out of privatisation and, on the other hand, a successful functioning of the system as a consequence of a successful privatisation. Of course that one part of the NIS capital can be privatised through an initial public offer and I think that, with large privatisations, multiple positive structural effects have to be achieved, and one positive effect on the stock market is the development of the financial market. However, if the initial public offer were the dominant model of privatisation, a question poses itself of whether that could ensure a quality corporate management and, in general, that greatly needed level of competitiveness of NIS, bearing in mind that it’s hard to expect a strategic partner with experience, knowl-

Experiences of Foreign States According to Dr Nikola Zelić, both in original capitalist countries and in countries in transition, the matter of the state’s share in the ownership of the electric power industry is resolved differently. For example, there are capitalist countries where the electric power industry is 100 per cent in the ownership of the state, as is the case with Greece, or in France where the state owns 87.3%. In Italy, for example, the ownership of the state amounts to 21.4%. When it comes to the countries in transition, for example the Czech Republic, the state owns 67.6% in an example of a very successful privatisation.

edge, market and the rest to participate in that kind of model,” stresses Vlahović.

According to Vlaović, all these firms end up in a strategic partnership sooner or later.

For example MOL, which is in the dominant ownership of investment funds and which is targeted by OMV these days, is an example of a good privatisation. On the other hand, the Croatian INA is an example of bad privatisation, namely, the state is the dominant majority owner here and the type of privatisation was a minority privatisation which led to a technological stagnation in the development of the company. “We should follow the positive experiences of the surrounding countries in transition, and not just expect the maximum profit, but judge a privatisation as successful if it ensures quality in business even after the privatisation,” highlights Vlahović.

Privatisation of JAT The Privatisation Agency sent an invitation to the addresses of 24 international consultancy houses to submit offers for the making and implementation of a privatisation strategy for the company JAT Airways. Various names of foreign airlines were mentioned as possible strategic partners of JAT. Prime Minister Vojislav Koštunica has even met with the General Manager of Aeroflot, Valery Okulov, who confirmed that Aeroflot was interested in a strategic partnership with JAT. Aleksandar Vlahović is of the opinion that the strategic partner for JAT should be chosen by a tender with respect to all the elementary principles of the Law on Privatisation: transparency, competitiveness.

JAT, he is convinced, should be privatised as soon as possible.

While CorD’s interviewees may not have completely agreed on the privatisation model of Public Enterprises, it seems as though the differences are minor when it comes to the privatisation of JAT. With NIS, and especially with EPS, there should be caution and no rushing according to their words. However, it will all be a matter of judgment and state strategy in the end. n CorD / Septembar 2007 47

BUSINESS

B2B Foreign investments down y the end of the year, Serbia will have between 2 and 2.5 billion dollars worth of foreign investments, said Jasna Matić, State Secretary within the Ministry of Economy and Regional Development.

Matić added that present results are far worse than those from last year, when foreign investments were up to 4.5 billion dollars. In the first five months there were around 1.2 billion dollars of foreign investments, specified Matić, but this all concerns transactions mostly arranged during the last year. By the beginning of 2007, because of the institutional crisis and delayed formation of the government, there were no new projects and contracts, so there will not be many transactions in the second half of the year. It is estimated that greenfield investments will rise to form 30–40% of all investments. Privatisation inflows will not be high – indeed, they will be much lower than was the case last year, even though privatisation is now faster because it concerns mostly small, already destroyed companies, so the prices will be bad as well, underlined Matić. She thinks that expectations that contributions to investment will rise are unrealistic because it has never happened in any country and so will not in Serbia either.

Source: Beta

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Russians with better offer for RTB Bor ussian company Basic Element will significantly improve their offer from the last auction for RTB Bor. “We expect the auction to be announced very soon and that the best offer will be chose in short notice,” stated Geoffrey Coaly, general director of SMR, one of the members of Basic Element.

Basic Element is one of the biggest private investment funds in Russia, headquartered in Moscow, whose value is estimated at more than 14 billion dollars and whose annual income exceeds 13 billion dollars. The president of the managing board of this group is Oleg Deripaska. Coaly said that he hopes that the Government of Serbia, when evaluating all entrants, will consider a complete offer of interested buyers, not just the price, as was the case at the last auction. “We have long-term plans with RTB Bor and we are ready to offer some significant amounts for the investment plans, as well as for the social programme and environment protection,” announced Coaly.

According to Coaly, Basic Element did not have enough information on RTB at the last auction and calculated that the minimal price of 266.7 million dollars, given by the Government, as too high. “In

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48 CorD / Septembar 2007

the meantime, we took a better look at the situation in RTB and we wish to give a competitive offer which will be acceptable for the Government of Serbia, but also for all the workers and the local municipality,” underlined Coaly.

The last auction for RTB was announced in September last year and Romanian company Kuprom was chosen as the best tender bidder with their offer of 400 million dollars. The purchase contract was cancelled at the end of April this year due to the fact that Kuprom did not pay the agreed price. A new auction for RTB foresees the minimal price of 340 million dollars.

Source: Beta

industry, the New Chrysler heads on at full speed, following its shining pentastar. In its showrooms located in more than 125 countries throughout the world, the New Chrysler will exhibit the most impressive range of products yet.

The star is born again, shining as brightly as ever, and the New Chrysler’s message to us all is: “Get Ready for the Next Hundred Years”.

Chrysler Balkans d.o.o. the new subsidiary of Chrysler International Corporation is located in Omladinskih brigada 33, 11000 Belgrade.

New Yorker in Serbia n 23rd August New Yorker opened their first store on the Balkans in Novi Sad, on 548 square metres in newly built mall Mercator. “Spreading our trading network on other European countries is one of the main goals of the New Yorker company policy“, said Faulkner Putsman, the marketing director of the New Yorker company, which is attempting to become the European leader in teen clothes production.

Besides operating in Serbia and Germany, New Yorker is one of the most important companies on the European teen clothing market, with 529 outlets in 19 countries.

Source: B92

O THE CHRYSLER PENTASTAR IS REBORN he phenomenon of stellar evolution - the rebirth of stars - is one of the most spectacular events in space.

Through regeneration, stars not only continue to shine, but also expand to colossal proportions.

After a pause that lasted nine years, the Pentastar is back - shining, not in space, but as the symbol of the New Chrysler. It has been reborn and its new shape embodies strength, precision and exceptionally high quality. “The Pentastar conveys the New Chrysler’s pride, determination and commitment to make outstanding vehicles, and at the same time creates excitement for what the future holds”, said Mr. Paraskevaides, CEO Chrysler Balkans d.o.o.

So, what are we to expect in future?

Thanks to its leading position and it’s most innovative and technologically advanced facilities in the automotive

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chrysler balkans ceo, mr. paraskevaides

CEFTA ratification in September he Government of Serbia should ratify the Central European Free Trade Agreement (CEFTA) by mid September.

The law proposal for CEFTA ratification was urgently sent to Parliament and with the President of the Parliament is settled that this should be the first theme on the first fall sitting, said Jasna Matić, State secretary within the Ministry of Economy and Regional Development. The Government of Serbia believes there still is no harm, because of delaying the ratification, continues Matić, explaining that the prolonging of formation of the government had the strongest consequences on domestic trade. The Serbian economy will not have any problems because of the CEFTA agreement, added Matić, noting that concessions which are given with this agreement are like those which were guaranteed by the 31 bilateral agreements between countries in the region regarding free trade. Eight countries signed the agreement so far, besides Serbia and Bosnia & Herzegovina, and it became valid on 26th July in Montenegro, Albania, Macedonia, Moldavia and Kosovo, while in Croatia that should happen during this month.

It was signed in December last year by Montenegro, Croatia, Albania, Bosnia and

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Herzegovina, Serbia, Bulgaria, Moldavia, Romania, Macedonia and for Kosovo UMNIK. The agreement envisages the abolition of tax limits for industrial and agronomic products for the countries in the region by 2010. Liberalisation of public supply and stronger incentives for investors in these countries are what is new, and it also increases the chances to step onto the European market under the privileged treatment. The CEFTA agreement was originally created in 1992, while the text for countries in South East Europe was made last year.

Source: Beta Eighty years of RZB hat presents itself today as one of the 100 largest banks in the world and a successful institution with approximately 58,000 staff is the result of the work put in by generations of employees and managers”, said RZB’s Chief Executive Officer Walter Rothensteiner. “We owe these colleagues a debt of gratitude for their tireless and fruitful work, gratitude that I would like to express here.”

Raiffeisen Zentralbank Österreich AG (RZB) is holding no celebrations to mark the 80th anniversary of its foundation on 16th August, 1927. Instead, it has decided to donate 80,000 euros to charity, including the Helga Treichl Hospice of the Austrian Red Cross (http://www.roteskreuz.at/23. html) and the Mobile Hospice of Caritas Wien (http://www.caritas-wien. at/88.htm) and to Austrian Doctors for Disabled, an initiative supporting disabled persons in Bosnia and Herzegovina (http://www.doctorsfordisabled.at/).

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Greeks buy Beko factory reek company Lambda Development bought textile factory Beko at a bankruptcy auction for 55.8million euros. The starting price of Beko, located in downtown Belgrade near Kalemegdan, was 39 million euros and there were four competitors – three domestic and one foreign. People from Lambda, who bought Beko’s factory through the firm Property Development, registered in Belgrade, announced that on the land where abandoned machinery now is, in the future there will be a hotel and a housing estate. Zisimos Danilatos, the Greek company’s spokesman, said that the company will invest 150 million euros here. All Beko’s creditors, who require about 35 million euros, will be paid after levying the selling price of the factory. This firm also bought Beko’s shop in Despot Stefan’s Boulevard at its initial asking price of 800.000 euros, and

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for the general store in Knez Mihailo’s Street there were no interested parties. This formerly very successful textile company was declared bankrupt in 2003 with debts of up to €6million.

Source: B92 Excellent foundations for the future ZB is Austria’s calling card on the international financial markets. It is the only bank in Austria to have a global branch network. What is more, in recent years it has recorded the most dynamic growth of all Austrian commercial banks.

Boasting total assets of 116 billion euros (as of 31 December 2006) it is the largest Austrian-owned bank and is also ranked among the 100 largest banks in the world.

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Agrokor buys SL Gross grokor has bought the retail chain SL Gross from Serbia’s SwisslionTakovo, which has nine retail outlets and three distribution centres. The concern still hasn’t confirmed this transaction, which the Serbian media interpret as the first step in taking over or entering a strategic partnership with the entire Swisslion-Takovo, owned by Dragoljub Drašković. SwisslionTakovo and the Slovenian Mercator have recently given up on their announced merger, and the Croatian media are interpreting this move by Agrokor as giving up on further co-operation with Miroslav Miskovic’s Delta, with which they are supposed to merge their retail sectors.

Source: Briefing

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NEW LIGHT NADLANU.COM his summer, Telekom Srbija is general patron of a pioneering project called NEW LIGHT NADLANU – the first international festival in Serbia aimed at presenting and provoking new film and visual tendencies

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of the contemporary digital world.

Production house Red Production, helped by Telekom Srbija and in cooperation with webportal www. nadlanu.com, is organising the festival NEW LIGHT NADLANU. It hopes to stimulate and popularise mass consumption of modern, widely approachable digital technologies, cell phones, computers and Internet, all in the form of a completely new basis for advanced, exciting and creative visual authorship.

A special part of the festival is the programme called Pioneers of telephone film – short films and video works, up to three minutes long, made on cell phone cameras. This kind of work is submitted to the festival only

by Internet, through the website www. novasvetlost.nadlanu.com.

The authors of these films give up their rights and pass them to the festival NEW LIGHT NADLANU and webportal www.nadlanu.com for use, publication and presentation. All works can be seen for free on website www.novasvetlost.nadlanu.com and be sent as video content of a MMS. The central part of the festival NEW LIGHT NADLANU – awarding and representing of awarded films – will be organised in Belgrade in September 2007.

CorD / Septembar 2007 49

B2B Knjaz Miloš getting new owners roducer of mineral water and juices, Knjaz Miloš, from Aranđelovac, will get new owners in 2008. Director of corporate affairs of the Danube Foods Group, Rade Pribićević, said that the sale of companies from the Danube Foods Group system, within which the factory of mineral water and non-alcoholic drinks Knjaz Milos operates, would start with this. In the first six months of operation in 2007. Knjaz Milos recorded “a very good trend in business results”, so they’re expecting in that company to end the year with a positive result. Total growth in relation to the previous year is 13 percent, and a particularly high growth has been recorded with the non-carbonated mineral water Aqua Viva, which grew an amazing 80 percent, said Pribicevic.

Source: Beta

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Savings in Komercijalna Banka totals €700million omercijalna Banka, at the end of July, celebrated reaching the level of 700 million euros of foreign currency savings and in that way once more confirmed the position of leader held for five years in the domestic financial market, says in the announcement made by this bank. In marking this success, the representatives of Komercijalna Banka thanked the present clients for their trust, but also highlighted how they wished to attract new savings clients with stimulating interest rates on foreign currency deposits. The stimulating savings action campaign lasted from 15th July to 15th August 2007, and it concerned citizens’ foreign currency savings with a fixedterm of 12, 24 and 36 months. During this action campaign, Komercijalna Banka offered a better interest rate for the children’s Cvrčak (Cricket) savings with a 36 month fixed-term of six percent. Komercijalna Banka has made available annuity foreign currency savings to all savings clients – a convenient benefit of regular interest payments depending on the chosen variant according to clients’ wishes.

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Piraeus Leasing gets licence iraeus Leasing has received an operating licence from Serbia’s central bank, the NBS, to operate in the domain of financial leasing. The company’s domain will be in the area of financial leasing, principally for industrial, construction and medical equipment, as well as all types of vehicles.

Director of Piraeus Leasing is Zoran Pavlović, while the leasing house’s founder is Greece’s Piraeus Bank. Piraeus Leasing is the 17th society in this field that the NBS has granted an operating licence to.

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50 CorD / Septembar 2007

vip gave away 1,000 nokia and samsung mobiles this summer

VIP Gave 1000 Mobile Phones he company VIP Mobile delighted 1000 lucky users, participants in a prize game, within the promotion of “Early bird catches 1000 dinars”. One thousand attractive Nokia and Samsung mobile phones were given away in the prize game.

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Buildings of the Federal Ministry of Internal Affairs Sold contract has been signed with the company Total Holliday concerning the sale of the complex of buildings of the former Federal Ministry of Internal Affairs, the value of which is 29.1 million euros.

The purchase contract was signed by the assistant director of the Property Directorate Srboljub Panic and the representative of Total Holliday Zarko Pavlovic, who said that the money would be paid before the agreed deadline of 20 days, and that construction works would start after the necessary permits are obtained. On the fourth tender for the sale of the buildings demolished during the NATO bombings in 1999, in Kneza Milosa Street in Belgrade, the starting price was 28.8 million euros.

Offers were delivered by four bidders, and the first place went to Plaza Centers PPM company, for a price of 35.4 million euros, which gave up on signing the contract.

Source: B92

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Chinese Ready to Invest 20 Million Euros epresentatives of a delegation of 20 investors from China announced that they were ready to invest up to 20 million euros in Serbia, most of it into the area of agriculture. The chief of the Chinese delegation, Liu Ji, stated that the businessmen were interested in founding a Chinese in-

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dustrial park in Serbia and added that the delegation would assess the possibilities for it during the visit. He added that Serbia was propitious for investments; both because of cheap labour and tax relief, and the Chinese investors were planning to use their high technology in Serbia. The Chinese investors are also interested in building and selling residential and business structures, the food industry, buying wineries, catering and tourism as well as construction materials industry. Total exchange between Serbia and China last year was 788.1 million dollars, of which the import from China was 781.8 million dollars, and the export from Serbia 6.3 million dollars. In the first semester of this year, the import from China to Serbia was 568 million dollars, and the export just Source: Beta 505 thousands.

Greeks buy Berane mine ankruptcy administrators of Berane Lignite Mine and representatives of Balkan Energy from Greece have signed a contract to sell the company. “The buyer asked for the signing of a concessions contract for a period of 20 years, so I expect the government to decide on that request by August 21. According to the agreed contract, the buyer will pay 1.5 million euros for the Mine’s property seven days after the concessions contract is signed,” said Dušan Bugarin, bankruptcy administrator of the Mine.

The purchase contract specifies the obligation of the buyer to present a bank guarantee within three months for the planned investment of 120 million euros in the modernization of the Mine and construction of a thermoelectric power plant with the power of 100 megawatts.

Previously signed purchase contract with the British offshore company Global Steel was terminated at the beginning of June

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because the buyer didn’t pay two million euros for the Mine within the deadline, which made it lose the right to a return of one hundred thousand dollar deposit.

Source: Beta InCReASed SALeS oF neSTLe In SeRbIA estle Adriatic company in Serbia announced that it sold nine million euros worth of food products in the first semester of 2007. That’s 35 percent more than in the same period of last year, and the growth of sales is the result of a better and bigger availability of Nestle products on the Serbian market and constant investment in innovations of key brands.

In the first semester of this year, on the market which consists of Serbia, Montenegro, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Macedonia, Nestle Adriatic sold 31.5 million euros worth of merchandise, which is 31 percent more than during the same period of last year.

Source: B92

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PIRAeuS bAnk AwARdS SChoLARShIPS To Young PeoPLe pportunity for young students to acquire valuable knowledge and experience in the most perspective fields of financial operations In August, Piraeus Bank has invited all students who have accomplished outstanding performances in their graduate studies of economics, banking and finance, mathematics and other technical studies, to apply for the oneyear Treasury graduate Programme of Piraeus Bank group Athens. Through

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piraeus bank is proving a strong supporter of academia

this programme, the Bank intends to support professional development in the most perspective fields of modern banking, as well as to support professional improvement of the selected candidate according to the latest world standards. Piraeus Bank group has launched this scholarship award programme for the first time in all countries in which it operates.

HR unit representatives of Piraeus Bank Serbia will select a candidate who will join his colleagues from other countries of the region in September in the Head Office of Piraeus Bank Athens.

Upon completion of this programme, Piraeus Bank will employ the selected candidate in the Serbian representa-

tive office of the Bank. “So far, this type of education has been provided only to employees of the Bank, but we have decided to give the opportunity to young students, to educate them through practice, and thus invest in our future,” said Mrs. Mila korugic-Milošević, HR & Organisation Division.

Piraeus Bank also provides education for its employees through programmes consisting of a vast array of specialised banking courses, organised courses of English language and advanced computer usage training. Piraeus Bank AD Belgrade currently employs 482 banking experts, and by the end of this year, it plans to increase the number of its employees by 20 per cent.

CorD / Septembar 2007 51

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head designer walter de’silva describes the new audi a5 as “the most beautiful car i have ever designed”

The new Audi A5 udi’s exciting new interpretation of a classic vehicle concept, the Audi A5, is a modern grand tourer, a touring coupé in the best tradition. It marries sporty dynamism with refined elegance to produce a fascinating car – exhilarating driving and generous refinement all combined with the Audi brand’s legendary sophistication and quality. The progressive design has been perfected to ensure the new coupé an appearance that is both elegant and dynamic. The powerful and economical FSI and TDI engines and the A5’s wholly new highprecision running gear and innovative, luxury-class equipment features make Audi’s new offering in the coupé segment truly peerless.

With a length of 4.63 metres, the Audi A5 clearly belongs to a superior

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class of coupé. Four comfortable seats and an ample load volume of 455 litres make this car a spacious long-distance tourer. The dynamic performance is supplied by FSI and TDI engines with rated power ranging from 125 to 195 kW (170 to 265 bhp).

For coupé customers, the design is decisive in their choice of car. And on that point the Audi A5 speaks for itself – it takes Audi’s progressive and stylish design language to new heights. The sporty silhouette, the precisely drawn lines, which gracefully interact with the powerful surfaces, the expressive front face, and the equally distinctive tail end yield a wholly desirable coupé.

“The Audi A5 is the most beautiful car I have ever designed,” says Walter de’Silva, Head of Design, with absolute conviction.

Revenue from Privatization 2.4 Billion Euros total of 2002 companies have been privatized in Serbia and a revenue of 2.44 billion euros has been earned from the sales. The data of the Privatization Agency are that the book value of the privatized firms was 2.316 billion euros and about 100 million euros less than the

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achieved total selling price. The level of guaranteed contractual investments was 1.18 billion euros and 276.6 million euros of social welfare programmes.

Severtrans to be Auctioned n auction to sell 52.2% of capital of the auto-transport company Severtrans is scheduled for September 20. The profit of Severtrans last year was 22 million dinars. The starting price for 52.2% of capital of Severtrans is 36.7 million dinars. The capital of Severtrans that’s being sold is estimated at 153 million dinars, i.e. 1.9 million euros, and the buyer will be obliged to invest at least a further 80.9 million dinars.

Source: Beta

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’Raiffeisen Akcije’ Open Investment Fund Successfully Completes Public Offer he open-ended investment fund „Raiffeisen AKCIJE“, managed by Raiffeisen INVEST a.d. Beograd, Investment Fund Management Company, successfully completed the public offer which lasted from July 27th to August 9th, 2007. During the public offer, private individuals as well as corporates were able to buy investment units of the open-

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investment fund “Raiffeisen Akcije” at a price of 1,000 dinars.

After the public offer, during which RSD 641.952.224,26 were collected, the „Raiffeisen Akcije“ fund was formally entered into the Investment Fund Registry of the Commission for Securities of the Republic of Serbia on Thursday, August 16, 2007. It officially began operating on the day it was entered into the registry of investment funds.

During the public offer, the fund acquired 1,664 members, 85% of which are private individuals and 15% companies. The fact that Raiffeisen banka was the first bank in Serbia to found a company for asset management, signified its importance already during the public call, because the interest and confidence shown by clients was very high. Also, the wide network of Raiffeisen banka’s branches made it possible for interested citizens throughout Serbia to become fund members. However, interest was shown not only by citizens and companies locally, but also from abroad.

New Branches of ProCredit Bank ince the start of the year ProCredit Bank opened seven new branches, and by the end of the year they plan to open ten more. With that, the network of ProCredit Bank will have a total of 67 branches in 45 cities. After a month and a half of a special action project for savings in ProCredit Bank in which citizens entrusted the bank with over 20 million euros worth of their savings, the bank prolonged the action until the end of August. Depending on the fixed-term amount the interests ranged between 5 and 5.5 per cent on term deposits with a period of six months or 6 to 6.5 per cent of effective interest rate on term deposits with a period of twelve months.

billion euros, which is 168.6 percent more compared to June last year.

Source: Republika Delta opens Serbia’s first Costa Coffee he company Delta Sport opened the first café in the Costa Coffee chain of cafes in Njegoševa Street in Belgrade.

Costa Coffee, with its 573 outlets, is the largest cafeteria chain in Great Britain.

A 15-year franchise contract to open a cafeteria chain in the Western Balkan countries and Slovenia was signed between the British company and Delta Sport on 5th July. “The plan is to build 100 cafeterias in the next five years and to invest 200 thousand euros in each of

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are nonsense”. The director of Serbian Railways, Milanko Sarancic, announced recently that negotiations would start with the second placed company on the tender to build Prokop – Energoprojekt Holding, if the first placed Trigranit doesn’t soon start to fulfil its contract obligations.

Bobvos said that the company had had a series of objections to the continuation of construction of Prokop, based on the concept from the tender documentation, and that they had suggested changes on several occasions, but they had never received any answers either from the Railways or the ministry in charge. Bobvos emphasized that company Trigranit still had a good will to negotiate the construction of Prokop with the authorities. Source: Beta

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Montenegrin Deficit Highest in Europe alance of payments current account deficit in Montenegro was 358 million euros in the first five months according to the data of the Central Bank of Montenegro. That deficit is, when measured by relative indexes, the highest in all Europe. In Central Bank of Montenegro they say that they expected the current account deficit to be so high, because as long as the inflow of direct foreign investments is high so will the current account deficit be high. In the first six months, the net worth of direct foreign investments was 284.8 million euros and compared to the same period of last year it was 78.1 percent higher. According to preliminary data, Montenegrin banks approved credits in the amount of 1.502

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costa coffee has become the first international coffee chain in serbia

them, i.e. around 20 million euros in total,” said Goran Karić, General Manager of Delta Sport. In Serbia this year, according to his words, nine Costa Coffee cafeterias will be opened, which will offer a great choice of quality coffee beverages, sandwiches and cakes. Delta Sport also owns the Costa Coffee franchise for Croatia – where they will invest around four million euros in the first five years – Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Macedonia and Albania.

Source: B92 Trigranit Has No Obligations to the State he company Trigranit announced that it had never signed a contract with the government of Serbia to build Prokop railway station. The regional director of that company, George Bobvos, stated that the deadline to close the final and binding contract expired on September 30 last year, three months after the signing of the preliminary agreement and that “since then neither of the sides has any obligations toward each other and that’s why the statements by the heads of Railways about setting deadlines for Trigranit

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A Loan of 372 Million Euros to NIS eneral Manager of Serbian Oil Industry (NIS) Srdjan Bosnjakovic, said that he expected that the loan of 372 million euros for the company for planned investments would be approved by the end of August. Bosnjakovic highlighted that he was completely convinced that the loan would be approved and estimated that it wouldn’t affect the process of privatization of that company. He explained that no guarantees for the payback of the loan had been required of NIS, or mortgages, and the credit would be approved with the grace period of three years and the deadline for payment of over 10 years. He stressed that the loan amount was incomparably smaller than the total value of the company. Taking a loan, as he said, would be a part of the new or changed strategy of privatization which would be the basis for the making of the law of the privatization of NIS. Bosnjakovic explained that a loan was the only way for NIS to secure the money to modernize its refineries and renew and rebuild the retail network, whilst maintaining its present share in the market by so doing.

Source: Beta

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CorD / Septembar 2007 53

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Terra Lazarica: Wines with a Crown n the Balkans there are lots of myths that have grown from local legends to become a part of the identity of civilization as we know it today. All myths are inseparably related to the identity of countries and people who cherish and respect them. Our wine is not simple: it is a wine from Lazar’s land, special, unique in its taste, colour and aroma within its bouquet.

We present you dedication to the idea that the world, that is - global wine types, can spread their roots in Serbia, and that from such fruits we in Serbia can create a new quality that the world shall recognise and by which it would identify us.

It will identify experts, connoisseurs, and wine growers in the true sense of that word. It will identify the people who manage to fight their battles in the vineyard, but also the people who monitor and apply world achievements in production, care and maintenance of wines. It will identify Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc as wines with a crown.

Those wines are crowned by their uniqueness, which is derived from micro-localities in the already famous RUBIN vineyards in Preševo, Lučina, Bačina and Suvaja. We have very carefully studied the areas in those vineyards, measured and analyzed them, each foot of those vineyards has been studied; each drop of rain that has fallen on those vineyards has been recorded, as has every gust of wind.

All that has been processed and put

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under the magnifying glass of new, in winegrowing world, affirmed methods, and with new technologies that we introduced to our practices over the past few years, giving the best of the best.

So far, Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc from RUBIN have won everything that can be won in this country.

Recognitions from the 71st International Agriculture Fair in Novi Sad testify that Cabernet Sauvignon vintage 2002, as well as Chardonnay vintage 2003, are without equal – they are the champions of the Fair evaluation of wines. When we add champion’s title for cognac RUBIN 5 V.S.O.P to this, then it is clear why our wines have a crown.

Takovo Insurance Being Sold group of joint majority shareholders of Takovo Insurance from Kragujevac decided to sell their shares to that company. In 2006, the value of the recorded gross premiums was 18.3 million euros. The shareholders consortium is offering to sell at least 51 percent and at the most 90 per cent of the share capital of this insurance company from Kragujevac, and the deadline to send letters is 7th September. Buyers can be insurance companies and banks with more than 20 percent participation in banking or insurance in at least one European country, but they can also be firms that are united in consortiums, with the condition that the leader of the consortium has a minimum of 51 per cent direct participation in the consortium. The condition for insurance

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rubin’s wines have won every award available to them 54 CorD / Septembar 2007

companies is that the gross value of recorded premiums in 2006 was at least 50 million euros, and for the banks that they have balance sheet assets of at least 200 million euros. In the case of investment funds, they must have 100 million euros of assets at their disposal. The transaction will be organized in two phases, i.e. first there will be a tender to choose the best strategic partner, and then the sale of the majority package of shares will be done through a public takeover bid, according to the Law on takeover. Source: Tanjug ITM Soon to Get License for Fund TM company has announced that it would soon get a license for the operation of the open investment fund from the Securities Commission. ITM already founded a closed investment fund two months ago. The chairman of the company, Toplica Spasojevic, said that the fund was being founded together with the Slovenian financial group Poteza and the Belgrade brokerage house Sinteza. That will be the third open investment fund in Serbia, on whose market Delta Plus and Fima Proactive are already doing business. The company ITM founded a closed investment fund two months ago with the British group Lion, and in the meantime the fund took over two companies – Paracinka from Paracin and Lofolen from Loznica, one of the factories from the Viskoza system.

Source: Beta

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Measures of the National Bank of Serbia he National Bank of Serbia (NBS) has decided to limit the approvals of non-purpose cash loans to two years and this measure will become effective on August 27, said the Governor of NBS Radovan Jelacic. This measure will not affect the amount of interest on those loans, but only the total value of approved loans, said Jelasic, speaking at a press conference. Limiting the payment deadline for non-purpose cash loans is one of the measures of NBS which it will apply in order to suppress the growth of public spending, which stimulates inflation, reduce the trade deficit and strengthen the core capital of banks, explained Jelasic. Loans went up 116 billion dinars in six months this year, and during the whole of last year that growth was 107 billion dinars. At the end of June, cash loans, amounting to 95 billion dinars, represented a third of all loans that were approved for citizens. A new measure of NBS, which will be applied from next year, is the reduction of the limit to loans to citizens from the present 200 percent to 150 percent of a bank’s core capital.

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Trade Skopje. “By developing its own distribution on the Macedonian market, Atlantic Group continues the strategy of regional expansion. Atlantic’s system of distribution today covers the markets of Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Macedonia and so insures distribution services of the highest standard to the principals on all markets”, explained Srecko Nakic, vice president of the Distribution division.

Source: Bankamagazin Croats Equipping Kosovo Mobile Operator pko Net, the second mobile network operator in Kosovo, and Ericsson Nikola Tesla are starting a new GSM network which will cover entire Kosovo.

The leading Croatian ICT exporter, Ericsson Nikola Tesla company, announced that it all concerns a contract, the value of which is around 37 million euros, and it covers delivery, implementation and management of the GSM communication and transmission system and all connected services. The investment project, which is starting from scratch, is a continuation of the concessions agreement which was signed in March this year by the representatives of the Kosovo Telecommunications Agency and the consortium which consisted of Telekom Slovenije, Mobitel and Ipko Net. It is expected that the first subscribers will join the network at the end of this year, which is several months ahead of deadlines defined in the concessions agreement, says the president of the Management Board of Ipko Net and deputy president of the Management Board of Telekom Slovenije, Dušan Mitić. The building of the new network’s infrastructure will begin immediately, and the commercial start of operation of Ipko Net services is expected by the end of this year. Covering the entire territory of Kosovo is planned for the next three years. The penetration of mobile communications in Kosovo is about 35 percent, which makes that market an area of great potential for further investment and development.

Source: B92

I

alpha bank’s sports bazaars to entertain the citizens of serbia

ALPHA BANK TO DELIGHT CITIZENS LPHA BANK “Sports Panorama” – the exciting travelling sports bazaar sponsored by ALPHA BANK GROUP – has become the main summer attraction of the local municipalities in Greece over the last seven years.

For the first time this year, ALPHA BANK Srbija will host this Greek roadshow attraction on the main squares of Belgrade, Novi Sad, Zrenjanin and Nis. This October, every weekend, ALPHA BANK “Sports Panorama” will make stopovers in one of the four cities where athletes will demonstrate numerous sporting activities and games, educating the public about their main rules and allowing those willing to test their own strength and ability to do so.

During the three day periods of sheer fun and entertainment Serbian citizens will be able to try and enjoy different sports like windsurfing, rowing, extreme trampoline, shooting, football, basketball, formula 1, play station 2, WRC wireless remote control car games, NASA Training Simulation. Also they will have a chance to participate in various amusing contests, to win unique gifts and to get a lot of surprises - all this free of charge, compliments of ALPHA BANK. ALPHA BANK “Sports Panorama” will cover the area of about 2.000 square metres, where DJs will make sure that the atmosphere is great.

Amongst many colourful sports kiosks, there will also be an ALPHA BANK information stand, where up-to-date information about the Bank’s products and services will be provided.

A

Basler Insurance he National Bank of Serbia granted an operating license to the Non-life Insurance Company Basler with its base in Belgrade. Core activities of this Company are non-life insurance, including accident insurance and voluntary health insurance, as well as other forms of property and liability insurance. The majority founder of the company is Baloise Holding from Basel, Switzerland, which recently also founded a life insurance company in Serbia. In this way, the founder has completed its range of services which it intends to offer to its target consumer group in Serbia, and those are primarily physicians, dentists and other medical staff.

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Holcim Buys Plovanija Kamen Quarry in Croatia olcim Croatia, ex cement factory Koromacno, has bought another quarry, Plovanija Kamen from Buj, while the town has retained a ten per cent share. The sellers were private investors, who asked of Holcim not to disclose the details of the price of the transaction. Holcim, at the beginning of last year, took over the quarry in Ocura from IGM from Lepoglava, because, along with construction material, they want to develop the production of aggregate(s), like crushed stone, sand and gravel.

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Atlantic Group buy Macedonian company tlantic Group has taken over the Macedonian firm Viciski Komerc, one of the leading distributors on the Macedonian market. By entering the Macedonian market through the acquisition of Viciski Komerc Atlantic Group is rounding off its system of distribution in the Southeastern Europe region and a 20 percent growth of turnover is already being planned in the new company under the name of Atlantic

A

Polo Remiks Campaign n 20th August saw the official dealer for Volkswagen – Porsche SCG – launch a new campaign. The campaign, under the name “Polo Remiks”, offers free five-year Casco insurance and savings of €750 when buying a Polo. The save refers to the Trend package which contains a radio, four doors and air-conditioning.

Free Casco is realised through cooperation with Porsche Leasing. The Polo Remiks campaign will last until 1st October and all Volkswagen dealers in Serbia are participating in it. n

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CorD / Septembar 2007 55

Region: Montenegro

Super Marina

The exciting Porto Montenegro project, an exclusive marina leisure centre and super marina, is about to start taking shape on a spot that used to be occupied by a military shipbuilding yard.

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By Vojislava Vignjević orto Montenegro, the result of a massive investment, worth €600million and led by successful Canadian businessman Peter Munk, is set to turn this Montenegrin port and airport city into a magnet for the world’s most well-heeled Yacht-setters.

Indeed, Porto Montenegro is not only the single biggest investment in Montenegro to date by far, it is also set to place Tivat

56 CorD / Septembar 2007

amongst the planet’s most exclusive marine tourism destinations.

Munk’s Montenegrin subsidiary, Adriatic Marinas, is being partnered in this ambitious project by Brisbin Brook & Beynon (BBB), Architects and Camper & Nicholson, the world’s oldest and most successful leisure marine company.

The project has already been presented to the Montenegrin public through comparisons to Italy’s Portofino and Santa Mar-

gherita Ligure, amongst other exclusive destinations. Adriatic Marinas executive director, Oliver Corlette, says: “We have the best marine architects on this project.

With them, and with the co-operation of the Government of Montenegro, we will make an important marine touriss destination here in Tivat”.

The first stage of Porto Montenegro, which includes construction of the marina – with approximately 200 initial berths – two hotels, three small plazas and numerous exclusive high-class accommodation facilities, is set to be completed in May 2009.

The whole project, which is planned to be completed in four years, will manifest as a completely new town within Tivat – complete with leisure, tourism and accommodation facilities of the highest class, and a super marina with a total of over 800 berths: 200 berths will be set aside for mega-yachts and other vessels in excess of 50 metres in length, while the remainder will serve smaller pleasure boats and six will be reserved for the most extravagant yachts in the world.

According to Brian Bisbin, BBB partnerin-charge and chief architect of the project, Porto Montenegro will be a massive marina, but will also have charm, intimacy and the character of small Mediterranean ports like Portofino. We will ensure the complex

retains its links to the existing environment by preserving everything of historic or aesthetic value to this part of Tivat. Thus, guests visiting Porto Montenegro will feel experience it as a location with character.

Coping with the growth in mega-yachts has proved difficult for the world’s marine leisure destinations. As of January this year, 777 mega-yachts currently being built – representing a growth of more than twice what it was a decade ago. When it comes to boats that are being constructed right now – 154 of them are longer than 50 meters.

Indeed, with 154 yachts in excess of 50 metres in length currently being built, yachts “growing” incredibly fast. This has caught many marinas and shipbuilding/repair yards worldwide unawares, seeing them unable to secure sufficient capacities for the huge needs and demands of huge yachts.

Porto Montenegro is set to overcome the three main problems affecting marine leisure centres globally: limited capacity, lack of adequate repair facilities and unfavourable taxation policies within the yachting business.

Upkeep Profits With some of the many potential profits to local industry in mind, it is worth noting that repair and general maintenance of a mega-yacht can cost an average between 10 and 15 per cent of the yacht’s purchase price every four years, while the cost of annual maintenance and seaworthiness can total six to eight per cent of the yacht’s value.

Around 40 per cent of those costs are accounted for by staff salaries, but the bulk of the other three-fifths mean profits for the marina and port services, particularly for supplies, minor repair jobs and services.

It is with these figures in mind that the project’s leaders are setting out to attract to Porto Montenegro the most expensive and exclusive pleasure boats, which regularly tour the coastal hotspots of France and Italy.

Noting the need for ample repair facilities within easy reach of Porto Montenegro, Corlette says that the solution will include the existing Adriatic Shipyard at nearby Bijela. “When the Government decides what to do with that shipyard, we will make known our opinion about what is best for us to do when it comes to repairing and maintaining yachts.” Corlette adds that Peter Munk is very interested in the Adriatic Shipyard at

The Super marina will have over 800 berths, but only six will be reserved for the most extravagant yachts in the world.

PORTOFINO - THE ITALIAN PORT HAS PROVIDED THE INSPIRATION FOR TIVAT

Bijela and the chance of transforming into one of the leading yacht repair centres on the Mediterranean.

The diverse opportunities for trade and services within the resort will ensure that all sorts of businesses will join the marina’s operator in generating profits for themselves. When Porto Montenegro is finished, around 1,200 visitors and yacht staff will be constantly settled on boats in Tivat, while another 6,000 will be housed in apartments on shore. With their needs in mind, plans are afoot to construct a golf course within the vicinity of the marina.

Moreover, during the winter season Montenegro will be able to provide possibilities for skiing on nearby mountains. These natural and constructed assets will guarantee success for the decision of Tivat and Montenegro to hedge its bets of the luxury yachting industry.

When Porto Montenegro is completed, the owners and planners expect it to provide around 6,000 new workplaces and contribute around €80million to Montenegro’s annual GDP. The national budget contribution of Porto Montenegro is expected to be between €17.6 and €221 million – excluding contributions gained by the Tivat municipality from local taxes.

Corlette insists that this investment is massive and, as such, has opportunities for profitability that can be valued from different angles. The most obvious boost will be the arrival of the high roller guests of Europe and the world – guests who demand

Porto Montenegro should provide around 6,000 new workplaces and contribute €80million to Montenegro’s annual GDP

Around 1,200 visitors and yacht staff will be constantly settled on boats in Tivat, while another 6,000 will be housed on shore

the most exclusive and highest standard leisure options.

The project will be boosted by national infrastructure developments currently underway in co-operation between the Government of Montenegro, the EBRD and other financial development institutions.

According to Porto Montenegro‘s investors, this project will help kick start a wave of investments that will help Montenegro both fulfil its national tourism development strategy and develop infrastructure and additional tourism and leisure options.

Corlette explains that the limited capacity of a small country like Montenegro ensures that attracting the wealthiest visitors, i.e. mega-yacht owners and their guests, makes the most economic sense. These guests, Corlette clarifies, arrive on floating six-star hotels and spend a great deal more during their stay than regular hotel or cruise guests. Moreover, he emphasises, yacht owners pay healthily for the annual supply and maintenance needs of their vessels.

After considering the natural beauty of Montenegro’s Boka Kotorska (Fjord of Kotor), Corlette is convinced that the republic can see the creation, along with Porto Montenegro, of an exclusive, unique and highly diverse marine tourism industry in the next few years. Insisting that diverse beauty and location single Boka Kotorska out from other marine centres in Europe, Corlette says: “Mr. Peter Munk has been discussing the importance of creating a complete offer with the Government of Montenegro and the municipality of Tivat for some time now. [This complete offer] …will include the existing airport, to ensure easier access to Tivat, the building of the prestigious marina for European mega-yachts, the establishing of a repair and maintenance centre in Boka Kotorska, construction of a golf course in the Tivat area and the provision of top transport links to the beautiful mountains and ski centres of Montenegro”. n CorD / Septembar 2007 57

Faces & PLACES

Serbian President Boris Tadić pictured shaking hands with German Foreign Minister’s Frank Steinmeier in Ascona, Switzerland. The event saw President Tadić receive this year’s ‘’European award for political Culture’’ of the Swiss Hans Ringier foundation.

Top businessman Toplica Spasojević, pictured with lady members of a U.S. Congress delegation that paid a visit to the headquarters of his ITM Group.

Russian Ambassador, H.E. Alexander Alekseev (centre), pictured on 22nd August accepting his honorary membership in the ‘Društva srpskih domaćina’ (Society of Serbian hosts) from Society president Nikifor Aničić (right).

Belgrade’s annual Beer Fest is formally presented at a Kalemegdan press conference. Pictured left-to-right are: Aca Seltik, Orthodox Celts frontman, Sonja Šainović, PR of the Belgrade Culture Network, Dejan Grastić vicepresident of the Belgrade Culture Network, Dejan Veselinov, PR of the Tourist Organisation of Belgrade

Indonesian Ambassador in Belgrade, H.E. M.Abduh Dalimunthe, welcomes Dr. Young-Hee Kim, Ambassador of the Republic of Korea, to a festive reception at his ambassadorial residence marking the 62nd anniversary of the independence of Indonesia on 21st August.

58 CorD / Septembar 2007

The cake shot from H.E. Ambassador Michael Polt’s farewell 4th of July reception at the ambassadorial residence. Pictured left-to-right are: Eurovision winner Marija Šerifović, Serbian President Boris Tadić, Ambassador Michael Polt, Serbian PM Vojislav Koštunica and Deputy PM Božidar Ðelić.

Mrs. Kimberley Matthews, wife of the U.S. Steel Serbia director, formally hands over a U.S. Steel Serbia donation of four air-conditioning units to a representative of the the Clinical Centre of Serbia – on 1st August.

H.E. Adel A. Mohamed Naguib, Ambassador of Egypt, welcomes Hellenic Ambassador, H.E. Christos Panagopoulos, to a 23rd July reception at the Egyptian ambassadorial residence marking Egypt’s National Day.

Ambassador of the Republic of Belarus, H.E. Vladimir Matskevich, welcomes Tomislav Nikolić, vice-president of the Serbian Radical Party, to a 2nd July reception marking Belarusian National Day at Belgrade’s Hyatt Regency.

Deputy Mayor of Belgrade, Radmila Hrustanović (in hat), leads a press conference on Belgrade’s Great War Island to draw attention to the sanctuary islet and present plans to further protect and improve its natural environment.

CorD / Septembar 2007 59

Faces & PLACES

A statue of late PM of Serbia, Zoran Ðinđić, is unveiled in the town of Prokuplje on 1st August. The presentation of the statue, unveiled by Ðinđić’s mother Mila, was attended by Ðinđić family members, Serbian President Tadić, Deputy PM Ðelić, Parliamentary Speaker Dulić and Ministers Ljajić and Šutanovac.

Attendees of a festive cocktail reception at the Greek Ambassadorial Residence in Belgrade on 9th July. The reception, hosted by Ambassador of Greece, Christos Panagopoulos, welcomed Ambassador Kiriakos Rodousakis, head of the Diplomatic Academy of Greece, and Ambassador Božin Nikolić, director of the Diplomatic Academy of Serbia.

H.E. Haakon Blankenborg, Norwegian Ambassador in Serbia, pictured (centre) in Gračanica, Kosovo, after signing an agreement on the ‘Naša Kuća’ (Our Home) Project. Naša Kuća aims to advance income generation among minority communities in Kosovo.

Ambassador of India in Belgrade, H.E. Ajay Swarup, welcomes Canadian Ambassador, H.E. Robert McDougall, to a 15th August reception celebrating the 60th Anniversary of India’s Independence.

M. Khalil, Assistant Foreign Minister of Egypt, and H.E. Adel A. Mohamed Naguib, Ambassador of the Arab Republic of Egypt, pictured at a festive dinner to mark the visit of an Egyptian MFA delegation to Belgrade.

60 CorD / Septembar 2007

H.E. Kamal Faqir Benaissa, Ambassador of the Kingdom of Morocco in Serbia, pictured cutting the cake to mark Moroccan Fete du Trone (Throne Day) at Belgrade’s Hyatt Regency on 30th July.

Left-to-right: H.E. Maciej Szymanski, Polish Ambassador in Belgrade, pianist Biljana Milin, and Colonel Jan Aleksander Ciećka, Polish Defence, Military, Naval and Air Attaché – pictured at a festive reception marking Polish Armed Forces Day on 16th August.

Bojan Pajtić, President of AP Vojvodina, welcomes participants of European Youth Week to Novi Sad’s Provincial Assembly Hall on 20th August.

Politicians close the annual Guča Trumpet Festival on 12th August. Pictured at the microphone is Republika Srpska Premier, Milorad Dodik, while also pictured (far right) are Serbian Infrastructure Minister Velimir Ilić and Serbian PM Vojislav Koštunica.

Serbia’s Minister for Diaspora, Milica Čubrilo, pictured on 31st July at the opening of summer garden club “Naša bašta” (Our Garden), which is located in the courtyard of the Ministry.

A fond farewell is wished to H.E. Ambassador of Finland Anna-Maija Korpi (2nd from right) by (left-to-right), H.E. Hasan Servet Oktem, Turkish Ambassador, H.E. C.H.Saw, Malaysian Ambassador, and A.S. Babar Hashmi, Pakistani Charge d’Affaires a.i. at the Finnish residence on 16th August.

NEWLY ACCREDITED H.E. Clare Birgin, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Australia Clare Birgin is a career officer with Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and was most recently Australia’s Ambassador to Hungary, a position she held from 2004 to 2007.

Throughout her career, Ms Birgin has focused on political and trade relations with the countries of Eastern Europe, the United States and the Middle East, disarmament and multilateral trade issues.

Ms. Birgin’s overseas postings include service in Warsaw, Moscow, Geneva and Washington.

Ms Birgin was born in Sydney. She joined the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in 1982, after completing an honours degree in arts and a Master’s degree in international law at the Australian National University.

CorD / Septembar 2007 61

society

shoulder and said, “Samo nešto da pitam” (I just need to ask something), darted to the free desk, asked his question, and then was invited to sit down, where he stayed and carried out his transaction! This actually happened once again before my friend finally had the sense to reply to the next question-asker “It’s my turn!” in English, but he got the point.

In short, if you’re not fast enough to pipe up when it’s your turn, or leave a breathing space between you and the customer in front of you, someone else may just squeeze in.

It’s getting better that now most banks have clearly-marked erbs don’t need as much personal space as Westerners. The lanes to see a cashier. But if you change money at a bureau concept of lining up single file with some breathing space de change, people will rarely allow you the personal space is alien to most Serbs. Most queues begin as (or soon become) you’re accustomed to. Many a time I’ve had people looking two-three abreast. An exception to this is grocery stores or right over my shoulder or leaning over me to “ask supermarkets, for some reason, though you have the a question”. To keep my temper and sanity, I’ve occasional person pretending to look through the soap developed extended legs and elbows—shifting feet near the check-out counter, furtively inching his way to prevent someone from infringing on my territory between you and the person in front. where I’m standing and elbows to spread out over The newer supermarkets have express lanes for 15 the counter on either side of me. I’ll also often or fewer items, but harried checkers still often serve place a bag on the counter to further discourage the guy with 50 items who’s probably pretending he onlookers. It’s certainly unnerving to change a didn’t see the sign or, even more likely, feels it doesn’t large amount of foreign currency, watch the clerk apply to him (“The Law” will be the subject of an count out the equivalent mass of dinars to you, and upcoming column.) On the other hand, when there is stuff the whole wad in your purse or wallet right in no express lane, most folks don’t seem to let even a kid front of several other people, but so far I’ve never with a slowly-melting ice cream pass in front of them. been mugged. You must remember, however, that Occasionally, if someone does cut in front of a

By Pat Anđelković such proximity doesn’t indicate that the person is Serb (and they’ve got a better chance of being let curious or has ill intentions, but it’s just a cultural go if they’re under 10 or over 80), they do so very difference. He figures that if he doesn’t move in subtly, and sometimes even go unchallenged unless the item close, someone else will take his place and he’ll be pushed in question is an absolute necessity. This was true during the further back.

The polite person is often served last here.

NATO bombing, when cutting in for bread, milk, and cigarettes In other instances, as when filling out forms or asking (Yes, they’re a necessity... Did you read March’s column on questions at an information counter, those near you will “Smoking”?) was likely to cause more bodily harm than a be listening in, often ready to offer advice, which actually cruise missile. sometimes I find quite helpful. Oddly enough, in most Recently, a newly-arrived friend of mine dropped by one of restaurants Serbs don’t want to share tables as the French do in Serbia’s cell phone providers to sign up for a phone. There were cosy restaurants. This is probably because Serbs like to make four desks of clerks serving customers. She was fifth in line and themselves comfortable, spread themselves out over their soon there were a few people waiting impatiently behind her. “territory”.

Soon one desk was free. A man behind her tapped her on the

Tales from the Big Plum

Concepts of order, space & privacy S

QUEUES: The concept of lining up single file with some breathing space is alien to most Serbs 62 CorD / Septembar 2007

Privacy, as Westerners know it, is alien to Serbs. Look it up in Morton Benson’s dictionary and you’ll find something like “osamljenost,” which translates as “loneliness”. Since the Serbs don’t even have their own word for privacy (they use “privatnost”), that’s clue enough that the concept doesn’t exist or at least isn’t important.

Privacy too, as Westerners know it, is alien to Serbs. Look it up in Morton Benson’s dictionary and you’ll find something like “osamljenost,” which translates as “loneliness”. Since the Serbs don’t even have their own word for privacy (they use “privatnost”), that’s clue enough that the concept doesn’t exist or at least isn’t important. If an outright statement “I want to be alone” doesn’t work for us, we send out all kinds of signals such as closed doors, unresponsive stares, monosyllabic responses, and sometimes even desperately post “Do not disturb” signs when we don’t want to be bothered.

Here when a friend is alone, his pals feel something is wrong and want to cheer him up by smothering him with company. Extended families being what they are here, the housing situation in Serbia does little to alleviate this since three generations may be living under one roof in a small apartment and are simply accustomed to having others around them, sharing the highs and lows of life. It would be rude to actually tell someone you wish to be alone for fear of appearing unfriendly. Only after a very long time here, when people get to know you and your idiosyncrasies, can you say you want to be alone and not offend.

When I arrived in Belgrade in 1977 B.C. (Before cellies), it was difficult to obtain a telephone; there just weren’t enough lines. If you were phoneless, calling someone to see if you could drop by was next to impossible, since possibly your friend didn’t have a phone either and few public phone booths were blessed with operational phones. (Some had even been ripped out—I always expected to see one hooked up in some resourceful Serb’s apartment.) Just when you were settling down for a quiet evening at home (or sometimes even ready to turn in), the doorbell would ring and there would stand a group of smiling, uninvited guests. Coming from a country where rendezvous are planned almost down to the minute, at first I resented this intrusion, but soon began to appreciate the spontaneity, flattered that friends

would risk finding my husband and me at our very worst, with often nothing to offer them except Turkish coffee and crackers. We, of course, took our revenge by visiting them the following weekend at an even more ungodly hour. Now more phone lines and cell phones have come along to spoil the thrill of unexpected visits and, believe it or not, somehow I’m sorry.

When I was first married, my husband and I would occasionally plan a trip together (I naïvely imagined a romantic weekend), and several times right before we left I found that he’d invited another couple to join us without consulting me.

That I was angry at this came as a big surprise to him---after all, the more the merrier, thought he. Not I. Serbs used to ask each other “Koliko ti je plata?” (How much do you earn?) – though the arrival of western companies and western ways has changed this to some extent – and I thought this was shockingly rude until my husband explained that then salaries were pretty much fixed—everyone knew what an engineer with two years’ experience or what a surgeon earned, which made me wonder, “then why ask?” If someone now asks you, it would be polite to smile and say either “To se ne pita,” (You don’t ask that) or To je lična stvar,” (That’s personal.)

But the grand Lack of Privacy Award has to go to an otherwise wonderful independent health clinic here in town.

Great service, courteous staff and top-notch physicians, and an otherwise totally professional atmosphere. But if there’s anywhere you want to have something kept private, it’s at the doctor’s! However, since the clinic’s reception desk is also in the waiting room, the results of your tests and samples are cheerfully announced in the presence of other patients, some pretending not to listen (but you know they are!), some openly interested. I’ve tried whispering when picking up results, hoping that the nurse will get the hint, but alas, to no avail. So much for Patient Privacy! n CorD / Septembar 2007 63

society

Ivica’s edge

Terrorising tourists And where did you go to the seaside?” -- every year I end up dedicating the month of September to endlessly answering this seemingly harmless question. I start the psychological preparations as early as July, because I know that September will be full of curious friends full of the desire to know exactly where and how I spent my holiday.

“Where did you go on holiday”, therefore, becomes September’s ultimate beginning of social conversation and the month that sees those who went on some sort of holiday terrorising those poor souls who didn’t go anywhere.

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he scope of the terror inflicted on the admit that it was excellent: the museums were hapless few who didn’t go on holiday half empty (because everybody had gone to the by the boastful holidaymaking majority is so seaside) in the records shops I could search for great that I seriously estimate that “Those Who rare records in peace (because everybody had Do Not Go to the Seaside” deserve a chain of gone to the seaside), I could have a chat with the international non-governmental organisations owners of small wine cellars in peace (because which would deal with the protection of their everybody had gone to the seaside) and I could human rights. Namely, responding that you did even find a kindred spirit because everybody not go to the seaside is equal to social suicide; if else was at the seaside somewhere. The lucky you manage to maintain all of your friendships circumstance was that, at that time, we did not during September, then they will certainly last need visas for that. But that’s a whole different for a long time, and if you avoid being declared story that I’m not going to get into.

By Ivica Petrović a misfit, you’ve done really well.

I recently realised to what extent the It is enough to start from the question itself: international concept of the holiday has become at the beginning the question implies that you certainly sea-centred, whilst browsing in a chemists in Belgrade. went to some place near the sea, and that there is no reason After purchasing something small I automatically picked not to go there. In that question there is no alternative, and up one of the fliers. The Pharmacists Institute had issued if you carelessly admit that you did not go to the coast, a leaflet entitled “what to take on holiday”. You can guess remember well the expressions of horror on the faces of your that everything referred to a seaside holiday; sun protection collocutors and follow the transformation of their behaviour. creams, after-sun lotions, remedies for jellyfish stings…, “Those people didn’t go to seaside! There must be something then various medicines for diarrhoea, vomiting, travel wrong with them!” At least that’s what it seems like they are sickness, allergies, antibiotics, drops for bodily orifices telling you, whilst attempting to speed up the end of the light and so on. Apart from holiday preparations sounding like conversation and to get as far away from you as possible just the preparation for going to a war zone, the Sea itself is, of to make sure that the dangerous anti-coast virus won’t get course, the central focus. Jellyfish will not sting you on a them too. mountain, and those dear pharmacists probably do not even You will hardly manage to say anything in your defence, know what might attack you or sting you there. Who at all, in because they will not even listen to you. If they are willing full command of his faculties, spends the summer holidays on to listen to you, you could tell them that sunbathing is a mountain?! increasingly unhealthy, that the seaside is more boring than being at home and that after two days of reading summer lobal warming is paradoxically the only hope of an end to September’s social terrorising for those who don’t literature (books which you rightly never read) you do like/can’t stand/ don’t want to spend their summer holidays not know what to do with yourself. The friend to whom I suggested a holiday at a spa during the summer scornfully at the seaside. The winter practically doesn’t exist anymore, even in the traditionally cold areas, and heat waves are replied that such destinations are for pensioners. I didn’t increasingly frequent and longer. And if boiling to death at want to go into it too much, I just reminded him that, even 40°C at home doesn’t cure you of the need to join an even at the seaside, he doesn’t drink alcohol, doesn’t go to discos bigger crowd at 50°C, then I really don’t know if there is and is usually in bed by 9pm – all of which are, of course, any help for that phenomena. In any case, if any resident the real spa regime! But, nobody will admit that is the case, of Belgrade feels the desire to go to the seaside after such because at the seaside everybody suddenly becomes a great a hellishly hot summer in the city, then they deserve expert seducer and heart breaker; at the seaside everybody suddenly attention. becomes the main hero in love stories, and of course nobody Serbia and the sea, however, have some different, deeper sleeps there. Somehow I naively believe that if the year has connections which even touch the Serbian national psyche 365 days, we don’t need to wait for those 10 days to enjoy but, once again, that is a different story. As a country without life. a coast line, Serbia has spent its recent history searching I have to admit that even as a student I tried to avoid the for some lost seaside for holidaying: the time of the former usual summer routes. While everybody was rushing to the Yugoslavia meant going to Croatia, while the development south, I spent my time travelling around Western Europe: I

G

64 CorD / Septembar 2007

Global warming is paradoxically the only hope of an end to September’s social terrorising for those who don’t like/can’t stand/ don’t want to spend their summer holidays at the seaside... if boiling to death at 40°C at home doesn’t cure you of the need to join an even bigger crowd at 50°C, then I really don’t know if there is any help for that phenomena.

of the Yugoslav crisis saw the popularity of the Montenegrin coast increase. As the independence of Montenegro become more certain, the citizens of Serbia discovered the seaside of Turkey and, of course, Bulgaria.

Traditional friends, the Greeks, have always had a stable demand as regards package holidays to the seaside, therefore one of the main preoccupations for Serbs was to ponder which seaside would welcome them next year. Because of that, Serbia has invested very little in developing its own tourism. Unaware of anything else, and wrongly believing that a country without the sea is dead for tourism, the

people in Serbia have missed out on the chance of learning something from their neighbours who have managed to make an attractive tourist offer without the sea. But that is the case with every obsession.

The worst thing of all is that time at the sea leaves lots of space for meditation. It is simply unbelievable that a nation which has spent so much time lying on beaches around the world has not thought about some alternative to such a whole-day attraction, whose main qualities are staring at the sky, cooking lunch in a camp of food brought from home and hiding from the sun with newspapers over their faces. n CorD / Septembar 2007 65

Jovan Ćirilov, Art Director of Bitef - Belgrade International Theatre Festival

New circus conquers the world Last year dance closed the festival, and this year it will open it -- as though the Belgrade International Theatre Festival (Bitef) didn’t stop at all. But the difference between last year and this is that this year should see Bitef confirm itself as a true brand of Belgrade, recognized globally.

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By Novo Tomić his month CorD speaks to Jovan Ćirilov, Bitef Art Director and Selector, the man representing the alpha and omega of this Festival, and its founder together with Mira Trailović. Indeed, to date Bitef and Jovan Ćirilov have gone hand in hand for 41 years.

r Bitef started to deal in modern dance since its first decade, with top representatives like Alwin Nikolais and Merce Cunningham. The voices that have disputed to us the idea to show this form of stage performance as well have today remained in the minority.

n BITEF has always taken us to the new theatre worlds. Does it bring to us this year something Belgrade didn’t see yet? r This year’s Bitef has a subtitle “That is also theatre.” Alluring to the fact that the programme also features shows that some might dispute as being theatrical. One of the obvious novelties for Bitef, but not for the world, is the so-called “new circus” stemming from France with the Jacques Lang initiative, and which is spreading today also in other countries. So the new circus has found fertile ground in Finland and this year two Finnish artists, Ville Valo and Kalle Hakarainen, use the juggling skill to say something about their impressions about the world.

n And the circus as a method of new stage opinion! Can it really be considered a new stage (not to say theatre) genre, and in which measure has it already won Talija’s premises in the world? r New circus is winning the world festivals this season. The Russians even thought of dedicating a whole season of their international festival to the new circus, and they are completely right. Of course, this is not a theatre in the full sense of its meaning, but it is the thing underlined by “new circus”. And don’t we see that at the Venetian Painting Festival there is no easel painting.

All arts are changing their basic definition, and the festivals like Bitef have to follow that new and which isn’t definable by the old criteria, despite conservatives in their environment.

n Recently, your fondness for dance, in particular ballet, has become obvious.

You say that “This is also theatre” but some think that you are infringing on others’ territories! What do you reply to them?

n Where are the limits of theatre today and is the expansion of its territory widening or shrinking the audience? r Festivals searching for something new do not have a role to widen and to amass the theatre audience. They are the meeting CorD / Septembar 2007 67

CULTURE of everything related to search, stimulating our processes in search for new forms and means of expression. More young audiences are coming to Bitef because they are assured that they are going to find something new that’s happening in the world. n Is there a common thread linking this year’s ten shows with the previous ones? r Only as much as this Bitef continues to break down the limits between drama, dance, pantomime and non-verbal theatre.

This Bitef is exactly that - only in greater measure. However, in this year’s introduction Anja and I have made one kind of salto mortale, saying that the formula “This is also theatre” means that theatre is the theatre, sometimes just seemingly realistic. n The programme of this year’s Bitef has been decreased. Did you have problems in “closing the financial agreements”, were you tormented by “mere wishes”,

BITEF’S PLAYS WILL HAVE WIDE APPEAL

and how much help did you find from the foreign culture centres and Embassies? r Foreign culture centres are very helpful to Bitef when they are assured that this is the right choice. The longest serving supporter, and the one we quickest reach agreement with, is the Goethe Institute.

Excellent cooperation has been established with Italians and Belgian people, but we also understand when a certain embassy won’t subsidize affirmed troupes, but only new good ones which are not so well known. That is the case with the Israel Embassy. But we still care to show this year, despite serious expenditures, already top notch troupe Bathsheba, which is always innovative.

There is a system in this logic. The general financial situation is better since the democratic bloc came to power, but they still don’t have sufficient funds... It is important, for instance, that JAT is generously helping us by transferring our guests from all over the world. n Bitef traditionally conquers new areas.

This year this would be earlier general store “Kluz”. How did you discover this place?

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Mini-interview

Welcoming Spirit Andrea Paciotto, Italian theatre director and co-selector of the 41st Bitef ’s Showcase Programme n The Showcase programme, to be warmly and of the whole tour Belgrade staged within the context of BITEF, was the city that left the strongest impresis aimed at a specific audience. What sion on me. Its history fascinated me, the message about the Serbian theatre culture, but my encounters with the people scene are you hoping to portray to this was extra special. I recognised something that was familiar to me. foreign audience?

From that moment on, I r…Bitef shows a very followed the events in the positive welcoming spirit, Balkans with even more ata very stimulating and tention. In 2000, thanks to productive attitude of exthe support of the DasArts change and confrontation; it Center in Amsterdam, I had demonstrates the intention the opportunity to develop of opening up culturally to some workshops and colthe rest of the world. This laborations with artists and is a very positive attitude organizations from Serbia. and it will certainly offer During three I years vismany future opportunities. ited Belgrade on several For this reason we have faoccasions and developed voured those performances Andrea Paciotto that are not solely based SHOWCASE CO-SELECTOR a performance called “Bed Bugs Bite” inspired from on dialogue, but interestingly combine elements of theatre, music, these journeys. Then last year I received the invitation from Nemanja Ranković dance, movement and visuals.

There is another important parallel ob- and the National Theatre of Užice to dijective that is worth mentioning: through rect a play with their company. It resulted the showcase programme Bitef is also in the performance “Pilad”, by Pier Paolo promoting and stimulating the produc- Pasolini, during which I had the opportution of new and innovative contemporary nity to work also with Jovan Cirilov, who collaborated as a dramaturge and translaworks of theatre…

It seems to me that in Serbia also the tor, and with fantastic architect/designer theatre is undergoing an inevitable trans- Mia David. formation, investing all aspects of the theatre process, from artistic to organi- n How would you compare the Serbian zational. I think that the performances and Italian theatre scenes? chosen for the showcase are in some r I always try to avoid these kinds of ways examples of this tension-intension. questions, because to make a serious arEach of the chosen performances relate in tistic comparison is a quite complex task some significant way to the national cul- and it requires a deep study. I am also an tural, social, theatrical tradition and back- outsider of the Italian theatre scene, since ground, but at the same time each presents most of my work has been developing a theatrical form and aesthetic that makes abroad. Only in the last three years have I returned to live and work in Italy. it accessible to international audience.

I could make a comparison that inn Your links to Serbian theatre are ex- volves more the different conditions of tremely interesting. When did you first working in the theatre. While in Serbia become connected to theatre in this there is still a strong tradition of the percountry and how did that link come manent ensemble theatre, where actors are permanent employees of the theatre, but about? r It is true, there is something that keeps generally in Italy this does not exist. The bringing me back to Serbia. I was in Bel- theatre works develop project by project, grade for the first time during the summer in an everlasting condition of continuous of 1996. At that time I was a resident di- economical struggle. Also, the theatre rector of La MaMa Theatre in New York developed in Italy as a travelling art and and we were touring through Europe and still today most companies survive thanks the Balkans with the Company. In Bel- to the possibility of touring from town to grade we performed in Kalemegdan with- town. These conditions inevitably carry in the Bitef festival. It was a memorable consequences in the way theatre is created experience. The audience received us very and produced.

Us or someone else

Culture Calendar: Program of the 41st Bitef

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Saturday, 22nd September, 5pm Yugoslav Drama Theatre, Belgrade Tesla, total reflexion Production: Jugokoncert and Jugokoncert with Yugoslav Drama Theatre, Belgrade.

Director: Miloš Lolić Modern opera, coupled with authorship by the group of the most interesting composers and performers of younger and middle generation (and as a special guest star, Žarko Dančuo renowned singer of old town songs). Without ambitions to deal in biographies from the life of the renowned scientist, the show is based on musical and dramatic representation of the unusual moments of one unusual destiny.

Ksenija Radulović, Manageress of the Theatre Museum and Co-Selector of the Bitef Showcase programme s in the previous years, the aim of the Showcase programme is to provide insight into one segment of the Serbian theatre and stimulate interest for our plays amongst our foreign colleagues, guests of Bitef.

We hope that the selected part of the production shall make our colleagues interested – regardless if it is going to be channelled into the direction of a certain play as a whole, or possibly, towards its individual segments or, more precisely, certain artists in its authoring team.

We have selected the creations from the latest production. All of them have been for the first time played during the last season, and those are the ones with certain common places with Bitef tendencies, which in different ways correspond to the already established theme of Bitef.

Those two peculiarities are - together with, of course, certain achieved artistic results - the only common things that can be found between the selected production segment. That is to say that five shows of Showcase mutually differ by poetic, genre related and aesthetic characteris-

tics: modern opera (Tesla), show deriving based on drama text (Ja ili neko drugi – Me or somebody else), modern ballet (La capinera), one man dance performance (Moja privatna biopolitika – My private biopolicy) and finally, specific research method of the leading Serbian non-institutional troupe (Priča o čaju – Tea story).

We are especially pleased that the majority of those achievements, besides else, show by their performance techniques certain peculiarities of our environment. Saying this, we do not think at all about pretty common experience of our region by stereotype, and not rarely unilateral semi-exotic mythologies: on the contrary, we believe that peculiarities of one environment can be shown in artistically relevant, serious, and contemporary way regarding its stage appearance. And that only such approach can trigger the interest of our colleagues from other environments.

Only to paraphrase - the title of one of the selected plays - title of this year’s Showcase could be Us or somebody else...

New theatre tendencies - special programme of the 41st Bitef for foreigners SHOWCASE,

Saturday, 22nd September, 8pm Pozoriste na Terazijama (Theatre in Terazije) La Capinera Production: Pozoriste na Terazijama Libretto/choreography/direction: M.Merola Modern ballet covering peculiarities of the environment in which it has originated, but far from any superficial “Balkan region exotics”.

Sophisticated mix of female and male dance, formed by the music of Kiril Dzajkovski, artist with significant European references in the field of author and applied music.

Sunday, 23rd September, 5pm Centre for Cultural Decontamination Moja privatna biopolitika (My private biopolicy) Production: PER.ART org., Novi Sad Author and performer: Saša Asentić Re-contextualization of the domestic and global, micro and macro performer’s stage, in the form of short dance performance of one player. The young artist is using words and moves in Serbian or English language, together with unusual turns, to present his view of the modern performing practice.

Sunday, 23rd September, 8pm Yugoslav Drama Theatre, Belgrade Ja ili neko drugi (Me or somebody else) Production: National Theatre, Novi Sad Author: M. Pelević; Director: K. Mladenović Amidst the story is media manipulation (global phenomenon of the modern world) and relativization of the concept of true freedom after confession of the kidnapped Austrian girl, whose touching destiny has recently moved the world public. By using several plans of actors’ play - from high stylization almost to realism – and eliminating the sharp limits between the scenographic and costimographic elements, the director builds up an exciting stage story about the most acute problems of the modern man.

A SCENE FROM THE BITEF PLAY ‘MY PRIVATE BIOPOLICy’

r There is always someone in Bitef with a happy idea regarding the premises, as I was in my time for powder magazine in Kalemegdan or for the unfinished Protestant church that is now the location of Bitef theatre at Mira Trailović Square.

Thanks to Filip Zepter, who is today the owner of the ex-Kluz. Zepter, as a well known culture promoter, has understanding for Bitef. The space is almost ideal for

the Zagreb artists, as they say. n Which play from this year’s program of Bitef do you prefer, and why? r Of special interest is the Zagreb play, but I would more easily answer this question after Bitef. Hungarians are serious competitors for the Award, because they satisfy the tastes of both the wider audience and sophisticated connoisseurs. n

Sunday, 23rd September, 10pm Dah Teatar (Breath Theatre), Belgrade Prica o čaju (Tea story) Production: Dah teatar Direction and dramaturgy: D. Milošević Variation of the topic of Čehov’s Three sisters, played by one of the leading domestic non-institutional troupes. The train by which the sisters are trying to reach long desired metaphoric place, besides different missed opportunities – in the form of train stops along the way – leads them to the lost places, languages and people, to the cruellest truths towards which adequate relationship is impossible to reach.

CorD / Septembar 2007 69

Site Specific Culture

The Open Arc Theatre Festival Established with the aim of liberating the theatre from an institutional framework, the Open Arc Theatre has created a space where artists from throughout Europe can come to practice new tendencies in theatre in an environment that fosters the basic principles of free creation.The town of Užice has embraced the movement of actors, technicians and producers who come to South-western Serbia for workshops and performances that challenge audiences with new technology and alternative spaces.

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Text & photos by Alex Papke žice lies in a valley surrounded by tree covered mountains, occasionally baring a white face of rocks. Above the Ðetinja River, on 50 metre cliffs, is the old town, once a medieval defensive fortress along the road between Serbia and Bosnia. Below a city has grown up, with tall apartment complexes in a style and pattern that mimics the surrounding hills. Trains pass through Užice several times a day on their way from the north through to Montenegro, echoing whistles reminding of their passage. In 1900, just a year after Nikola Tesla built a hydroelectric power plant on the Niagara Falls, the second plant in the world to follow the scientist’s principle of alternating current was constructed in Užice.

A century later the dam has been retrofitted to be operational, while also discovering a new talent, that of stage for a Slovenian theatre troupe who came to Užice to partici-

Information on the Open Arc Theatre Cluster can be found on the website: www.openarcfest.org

70 CorD / Septembar 2007

pate in workshops of new media in theatre that culminated in a performance at a magical place along the river. Hosting the performance is the Open Arc Theatre Cluster (OAT), which brings together artists working in the field of new media theatre for exploration and performance beyond the confines of existing and traditional cultural spaces. Now in its first summer of a full programme, OAT is setting to define itself as an important gathering point in Serbia and Europe. Much in the way they’ve taken the theatre out of the theatre and into open space, the organisers spearheading the event are also looking beyond the festival format and are seeking to include the community stakeholders who have primary and ancillary benefits from staging the event in Užice.

The festival has many inspirations, from the organisers seeing the possibilities on study trips to Corsica, to promoting Užice as a tourist destination, bringing artists to a community they might never have heard of

Additional information about arts programmes in the region at: www.e761.org

a shot from ‘I Dream Mokra Gora’

and developing local talent. Working with a team of talented art directors, the managing board comprised of Milojko Knežević and Aleksandar Ðerić work tirelessly to make sure each performance and workshop is a success, from fund raising to promotion.

Knežević, a French-Serbian translator and experienced project director, theatre producer and director, hosted CorD in Užice, explaining to our readers how such a festival came to be in his hometown. n How has OAT succeeded in liberating the theatre? r By simply leaving a theatre building for outdoors both the theatre makers and the audience soon get familiar with the idea that the whole town is a wide art space, a huge art scene which unveils itself, showing visible and invisible beauties of its spots and sites as the performance(s) go on. Though very simple, such a ‘discovery’ is also very challenging. Neither the theatre makers

Užice is located about four hours by train from Belgrade, a bit less by car or bus.The city has an excellent website for tourist information about the city and surrounding area, which also includes the mountain resort of Zlatibor, Mokra Gora and several other unique villages that offer historical and ethno tourism opportunities.

For more information visit: www.turizamuzica.org.yu

Hawks, performed in uŽiCE

Interactive media for theatre performance, a three-week workshop led by Paul Verity Smith, senior lecturer in Electronic Arts and Performance at Brunel University in London and Martin Dupras, lecturer in Sonic Arts at the University of the West of England in Bristol, also coached by Matthias Oostrik, interactive media designer, graduate of NFTA (Nederlandse Film en Televisie Academie in Amsterdam), was an opportunity for all the attendants to learn about the new media used in contemporary theatre practice. Interactive performance – Empty Spaces: Slaughterhouse Five, directed by Fahrudin Salihbegovic (creative director of the Amstersdam Cyber Theatre) – was produced as an outcome of the workshop, offering to the attendants an ideal opportunity to apply in practice some of the new skills they have acquired.

open arc moves performances out of theatre buildings

nor the audience can stick to their common attitudes, those related to the theatre art in general, or those related to the town (place) they live in, taking its existence for granted. When making or simply watching an outdoor, site-specific or street performance, everything changes. At least we feel as if the things have been changed and the feeling itself is liberating. Wanting it or not, one gets the chance to change the view, to see the same things different. All of the site-specific productions that we have made up to the present had such an effect. A few days ago, when adapting their site-specific performance Lunatic to the front yard of the old hydroelectric power station in Užice, the members of the Slovenian theatre group ‘Samosvoj’ made mise en scène changes so substantial that they surprised not only the local audience but themselves too. They actually brought the old railway bridge, the river and the rocks all around into play. It is

obviously the spirit of the place (site, location) that rules an outdoor performance. n What were some of this year’s highlights? r OAT 2007 brought together more than 50 younger theatre makers and multimedia artists coming from eight European countries (UK, Netherlands, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Greece, Macedonia, France, Serbia) and Canada. Several workshops (theatre, audio, video, mural painting) along with presentations open to the public; three special sitespecific productions made as a result of the workshops; six theatrical events (out of which four were premieres) offered to the local public and guests in two and a half months (from July to mid-September 2007); local inter-sector cooperation (public institutions / private businesses / civil society organizations) was established; and intercultural cooperation initiated.

n Can you explain the idea behind ‘revitalisation of the monument complex inherited from the Yugoslav era’? r It is actually a simple idea that no historical (cultural) heritage should ever be neglected. Though the attitude towards historical events and heritage changes in time, the monuments are but the witnesses of the times. They should be protected and preserved rather than destroyed. In the last two decades we have been watching former Yugoslavia falling apart. Should we now simply continue watching its monuments falling apart in turns? Instead, we propose a realistic, wise re-considering of the times and events symbolised by those monuments that – seen from a different angle – could even be used as elements for a possible re-building of the former Yugoslavia’s cultural space. n What will the future bring for OAT? r We like to think the financial support granted this year by European Cultural Foundation, Royal Netherlands Embassy in Belgrade, Swiss Cultural Programme Serbia (Pro Helvetia / SDC), Ministry of Culture and Ministry for Diaspora of the Republic of Serbia, as well as by the Municipality of Užice, the donors to which we express our special thanks, shows they have recognized the high potentials of OAT as a future platform for cultural cooperation at least at the regional if not at the European level. n CorD / Septembar 2007 71

Culture News SAVA CENTRE INVITES his August saw the Sava Centre, Belgrade’s culture and business centre, publish an invitation to project authors who would like to implement their projects in the SC, within the work of SC in 2008. The invitation has been sent to art associations, authors and art organisations to deliver proposals of their projects, which according to their contents and idea support the notion of intercultural approach.

Intercultural attitude understands enhancing respect for cultural differences, variations, adopting cultural diversities, stimulating thinking of differences of sexual, ethical, cultural and religious nature, fight against prejudices, as well as peaceful coexistence of nations and nurturing the values of the European culture – has been quoted in Sava Centre statement.

Eligible shall be projects from film, music, new media, festival programs...

Project proposal should contain project description, answer why the project suits the topic of multiculturalism, quoted technical and other production needs of the project, estimated budget amount, which would be necessary for project implementation and company profile, that is Project author’s CV. Works should be sent in hard copy to the address: JP (PUC) Sava Centar, Sluzba za marketing i PR (Marketing and PR Service), Milentija Popovica 9, 11000 Belgrade. Deadline for delivery of proposals is 10th September 2007.

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TENDER BY THE GALLERY 030NE ender for artistic projects that would be implemented in Gallery O3one in Belgrade during 2008 – in the form of exhibitions, lectures, presentations, workshops and other activities shall be opened from September 1st to 15th. Gallery 03one nurtures a program where it presents domestic and foreign artists who show new tendencies in modern art – the gallery programme covers all artistic forms – of painting, design, photography, new media, performance, sound and ambience installations and other experimental forms.

Tender projects should have a high degree of innovation and should add to enhancing the modern art scene, and the tender covers all artistic forms – has been stated during publishing of the tender.

For tender participation it is necessary to submit complete documents containing: completed form that can be downloaded from O3one website (www.o3.co.yu), Project summary (basic idea, work technique /medium, visual material), detailed specification of the necessary technique,

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72 CorD / Septembar 2007

o3one seeks artists

short documents about previous works of the authors, or team of authors, author’s CV or CVs of the authoring team.

Right of participation is granted to domestic and foreign authors, individuals and groups with projects in the field of contemporary art and modern culture in wider sense, and the tendering project shouldn’t be exhibited previously, that is, published in Belgrade.

Tender results shall be published on the website www.O3one.co.yu, from September 25th 2007.

FESTIVAL UMBRIA JAZZ BALCANIC WINDOWS estival Umbria Jazz Balkanic Windows shall be held in Belgrade this year during August 31st and September the 1st in basketball terrains of Crvena Zvezda (Red Star) in Kalemegdan. Two Italian bends appear at the Festival, Slovenian trio Lolita and Belgrade Dvojac bez kormilara (Pairs without coxswain).

Quartet of saxophone player Francesco Bearzati represents a new project “Tinissima”, dedicated to actress, model and photographer Tina Modotti. Contrabass player Lelo Pareti shall also play, who cooperated with Enrico Rava, Antonella Salisa and Stephan Bolani.

Organizers of Umbria Jazz Balkanic Windows Festival are Multikultivator and Ring Ring Promotions, in partnership with Umbria Jazz Foundation, with the support of Italian Embassy and Italian Culture Institute from Belgrade, Belgrade City Assembly and Savski Venac municipality.

Umbria Jazz Festival is held in Perugia already for over 30 years, and similar festivals have in time originated all around the world. Since 2005 it has been started also in Belgrade and Novi Sad.

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HENKEL ART AWARD orks of five young industrial designers from Serbia - Denis Bostandžić, Jovan Topalović, Tatjana Djorđevic, Jasmina Mitrović and Milan Jovanović, have entered the competition for Henkel Art award, together with the works of artists from 28 countries of Central and Eastern Europe.

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Their works have been selected by the expert jury in Belgrade, within the project Henkel Art Awards of Henkel Company for Central and Eastern Europe (Henkel CEE).

The winner of HENKEL ART AWARD shall have his exhibition financed in his country, and he shall have also monetary award in the amount of 7,000 euros. Besides that, company Henkel CEE shall in cooperation with the organization CulturContact from Austria, choose from the received works the work whose author

HENKEL SUPPORTS ART

shall be awarded the award for young and talented artist from Eastern Europe (Young Artist’s Prize). That award understands stipend for three-month stay in Vienna, organization of the exhibition and monetary prize of 2,000 euros.

Expert jury of Henkel Serbia has chosen the works of five young artists amongst more than 400 applicants.

The jury consisted of Professor Kosta Krsmanović, Head of Cathedra for Industrial Design of the Faculty of Applied Arts (FPU) in Belgrade, Assistant Professor at FPU Nikola Knežević, Industrial Designer Branko Lukic, RTS journalist Maja Tucakovic and Manageress for Corporate Communications of Henkel Company Jelena Šarenac.

Award winners for 2007 shall be proclaimed at Gala ceremony on November 15th in Vienna.

Trying to contribute to the process of European integrations, Henkel Company is for six years already awarding Henkel Art Award to the artists from Central and Eastern Europe and central Asia, affirming and bringing closer to the European Union public the works of artists from those parts of the world. Henkel is operating for over 130 years now, and according to the research by the American magazine “Fortune” this company has been classified amongst 500 most respectful world corporations. Henkel’s field of operations covers three strategic segments – home chemistry manufacture, of personal hygiene means, as well as the sector of technologies and adhesives.

Henkel Art Award is alternatively awarded in three fields of contemporary art - painting, photograph and design. This year, the award shall be awarded in the field of industrial design. n

Culture Calendar

7.35pm Hladno pivo 9pm Gary Moore 10.30pm Obojeni programme 11.50pm Happy Mondays 1.20am Darkwood Dub 2.40am Marchelo Saturday, 8th September 2007 4pm Demo bands (3 bands) 6.20pm Let 3 7.35pm Plejboj 9pm Ian Brown 10.30pm Partibrejkers 11.50pm Surprise concert 1.20am Disciplin A Kitschme 2.40am Queen Tribute Band

FESTIVALS BITEF – Belgrade Theatre Festival 15th to 30th September 2007 Main programme: NEW THEATRICAL TENDENCIES Saturday, 15th September, 8pm Batsheva Dance Co, Tel Aviv, Israel “Three” Choreography: Ohad Naharin Length: 1h Sava Center Sunday, 16th September, 8pm Monday, 17th September, 8pm Katona József Színház , Budapest, Hungary “Rattledanddisappeared” Direction: Viktor Bodó Length: 3h Sports and Recreation Center Pionirski grad Tuesday, 18th September, 8pm Wednesday, 19th September, 8pm Societas Raffaello Sanzio, Cesena, Italy “Brussels #04“ Direction : Romeo Castellucci Length: 1h Yugoslav Drama Theatre Wednesday, 19th September, 8pm Thursday, 20th September, 8pm Maska Production, Ljubljana, Slovenia “Pupilija Papa Pupilo pa Pupilichki“ Concept and direction: Janez Janša Length: 1h 20’ Centre for Cultural Decontamination Friday, 21st September, 8pm Dalija Aćin, Belgrade “Handle With Great Care” Choreography and concept : Dalija Aćin Length: 50’ Belgrade Drama Theatre Monday, 24th September, 8pm Tuesday, 25th September, 8pm Sud Costa Occidentale, Palermo, Italy “mPalermu “ Direction: Emma Dante Length:1h Atelje 212

Tuesday, 25th September, 8pm Wednesday, 26th September, 8pm Ville Walo and Kalle Hakkarainen, Helsinki, Finland “Discussions“ Composing of performance: Work group Length: 1h Theatre on Terazije Wednesday, 26th September, 8pm Thursday, 27th September, 8pm Formalny Theatre, St. Petersbourg, Russia “Between Dog and the Wolf ” Direction: Andrey Moguchiy Length: 1h 40’ Yugoslav Drama Theatre Thursday, 27th September Friday, 28th September Saturday, 29th September (10am to 6pm) Bacači sjenke /Shadow Casters/, Zagreb, Croatia “Ex-Position” Authors : Boris Bakal Co-Authors: Bacači sjenke Ex Shopping Center Kluz

Tickets for the Jelen Pivo LIVE festival will soon be available for presale at Billet service ticket offices and IPS stores.

Ticket prices are RSD1,200 (one-day pass) or RSD2,000 (two-day pass).

A limited number of tickets will be made available.

EUROPEAN HERITAGE DAYS: WATER 11th to 30th September 2007 Programme -Guided tour:The City of Belgrade Assembly - Old Palace Kralja Milana Street 14 Sunday, 12th September, 12pm & 1.30pm Monday, 13th September, 12pm & 1.30pm reservation required

Guided tour:The Dedinje Palace Compound Royal Palace and White Palace Bulevar Mira Street 66 Saturday, 11th September, 11am & 2pm Sunday, 12th September, 11am & 2pm Monday 13th to Friday 17th September, 11am Saturday, 18th September, 11am & 2pm Sunday, 19th September, 11am & 2pm reservation required Guided tour:The Republic of Serbia Presidency - New Palace Andricev Venac Street 1 Saturday, 11th September, 10am & 12pm Sunday, 12th September, 10am & 12pm Saturday, 18th September, 10am & 12pm Sunday, 19th September, 10am & 12pm reservation required Guided tour: Serbian National Bank Kralja Petra Street 12 Saturday, 11th September, 11am & 12pm Sunday, 12th September, 11am & 12pm Saturday, 18th September, 11am & 12pm Sunday, 19th September, 11am & 12pm reservation required

Saturday, 29th September, 8pm Sunday, 30th September, 8pm Schauspielhaus Düsseldorf, Dusseldorf, Germany “Macbeth” Direction: Jürgen Gosch Length: 2h 40’ Serbian National Theatre, Novi Sad BITEF Tickets are now on sale!

Contact BITEF office at 29/1 Terazije street from 10am to 4pm Information: +381 (0)11 3346160 and +381 (0)63 7233466 Jelen Pivo LIVE Festival BELGRADE Kalemegdan Fortress Park, Belgrade 7th and 8th September 2007 Jelen Pivo LIVE festival will include rock music in all its forms and variations, while the participation of a large number of famous rock stars will create a great atmosphere and make this music event a true spectacle.

Friday, 7th September 2007 4pm Demo bands (3 bands) 6.20pm Time Dado Topić CorD / Septembar 2007 73

Culture Calendar

Guided tour:The casemates of Kalemegdan Inner Stambol Gate, Kalemegdan Fortress Daily from 9th to 19th September, 10am & 4pm Kalemegdan Powder Magazine – featuring the works of Marko Radosavljević Daily from 11th to 19th September, 10am & 4pm Kalemegdan Roman Well 13th, 15th 17th September, 5pm – 1.5hr tour (including special programme for mobility-impaired visitors) & Daily from 11th to 19th September, 10am, 12pm & 2pm Guided tour: following the waterways of Kalemegdan Tuesday, 14th September, 5pm Thursday, 16th September, 5pm Departure in front of the Belgrade City Library, Knez Mihajlova Street.

Guide: Ms. Maja Stamenković Duration: two hours Kalemegdan waterways Saturday, 11th September, 12pm Saturday, 18th September, 12pm Departure in front of the Belgrade City Library, Knez Mihajlova Street.

Guide Mr. Vladeta Vučković Duration: two hours Guided tour: Belgrade under Belgrade (Tašmajdan Caves) Saturday, 18th September,10am,11am,12pm,1pm Sunday, 19th September,10am,11am,12pm,1pm Guide: Mr. Vidoje Golubović Duration: one hour Guided tour: Sava mala Sunday, 12th September, 11am Monday, 13th September, 11am Departure in front of The Ascension Church.

Guide: Ms. Beba Stanković Duration: two hours Guided tour: Underground passageways (Zemun) Saturday, 11th September, 11, 11.30, 12, 12.30 Sunday, 12th September, 11, 11.30, 12, 12.30 Departure in front of the Central Hotel, 10 Glavna Ulica, Zemun Guide: Mr. Vidoje Golubović Duration: two hours Sign up via the Zemun Tourist Society Guided tour: Artesian Wells of Zemun Saturday, 11th & 18th September, 5.30pm Sunday, 12th & 19th September, 5.30pm Departure in front of the Central Hotel, 10 Glavna Ulica, Zemun Duration: two hours Sign up via the Zemun Tourist Society Walking Tour of Great War Island for young ecologists Saturday, 11th September, 10am to 1pm Sign up via the Zemun Tourist Society 74 CorD / Septembar 2007

Guided tour:The Vračar Tour Saturday, 11th & 18th September, 10am to 12pm Sunday, 12th & 19th September, 10am to 12pm Guided tour: Jevremovac Botanical Garden Saturday, 11th & 18th September, 10am to 1pm Sunday, 12th & 19th September, 10am to 1pm Wednesday 15th & Thursday 16th September, from 1pm Departure from the main gate Lecture:The Great War Island Saturday, 11th September, 11am to 1pm Lecturer: Dr. Dušan Mijović of the Serbian Nature Protection Institute Venue: 20 Cara Uroša Street Exhibition:The Flow of Time -Water and the Romans Saturday, 11th & 18th September, 12pm to 8pm Sunday, 12th & 19th September, 10am to 6pm Venue: the Atrium of the National Museum Exhibition: Water (drawings, photographs, albums, documents, postcards, maps, books, etc.)

Monday 13th to Friday 17th September, 8am to 8pm Saturday, 11th & 18th September, 8am to 4pm Venue: The National Library Film screening: Water as Inspiration Saturday 11th to Thursday 16th September, 8pm Venue: The Yugoslav Cinematheque Museum, 11 Kosovska Street Exhibition: From Water to Beer 11th to 19th September, 11am to 2pm Venue: The Belgrade Brewing Industry (BIP) Exhibition: From Roman Waterworks to Modern Belgrade Waterworks Saturday, 11th & 18th September, 8am to 2pm Venue: Belgrade City Library, 56 Knez Mihajlova Street Event:The Magical Control of Weather Friday, 17th September, 5pm -- Music Pavilion at Belgrade Fortress Saturday, 18th September, 7pm -- The Ethnographic Museum, Princess Ljubica Palace Songs, dances & rituals for bringing and stopping rain

By Professor Olivera Vasić Duration: 30 minutes Entrance to all events is free More information on www.tob.org. yu and www.danievropskebastine. com CLASSICAL MUSIC EVENTS Concert: 50 years of the Belgrade Cultural Centre 20th September, 8pm Kolarac Hall (Gallery) Featuring Nemanja Radulović –

violin, Lore Favre Kahn (France) – piano, Belgrade Chamber Orchestra – Maestros - String Players Conductor: Dejan Mihajlović Programme: Felix Mendelson Bartoldi Entrance is Free Concert: PACO DE LUCIA

28th September, 8.30pm SAVA CENTER, Grand Hall ART EXHIBITIONS Exhibition of paintings: Alain Boyer (Paris)

preparing delicate sauces, seasoning and simmering each dish to absolute perfection.

RATATOUILLE

Directed by Brad Bird Animated feature film Voices: Patton Oswalt (Remy), Ian Holm, Lou Romano Remy is a young rat in the French countryside who arrives in Paris only to find out that his cooking idol is dead. When he makes an unusual alliance with a restaurant’s new garbage boy, the culinary and personal adventures begin despite Remy’s family’s skepticism and the rat-hating world of humans I NOW PRONOUNCE YOU CHUCK AND LARRY

10th September to 20th October French Cultural Centre, 31 Knez Mihajilova Exhibition of dance photographs: Forgotten Time – Goethe Institute / BITEF 07 5th to 20th September Opening: 5th September at 7pm Gallery HO3TEL, 10 Andrićev venac FILM PREMIERES THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM Directed by Paul Greengrass Starring Matt Damon, Julia Stiles, Albert Finney Bourne dodges new, superior assassins as he searches for his unknown past while a government agent tries to track him down.

NO RESERVATIONS Directed by Scott Hicks Starring Catherine Zeta-Jones, Aaron Eckhart, Eric Silver A master chef, Kate (CATHERINE ZETA-JONES) lives her life like she runs the kitchen at upscale 22 Bleecker Restaurant in Manhattan--with a no-nonsense intensity that both captivattes and intimidates everyone around her.

With breathtaking precision, she powers through each hectic shift, coordinating hundreds of meals,

Directed by Dennis Dugan Starring Adam Sandler, Calvin James Two straight, single Brooklyn fire fighters (Sandler, James) pretend to be a gay couple in order to receive domestic partner benefits.

DISTURBIA D.J. Carusso Starring Shia Le Beouf, Sarah Romer, Carrie-Ann Moss A teen living under house arrest becomes convinced his neighbour is a serial killer.

RUSH HOUR Directed by Brett Ratner Starring Chris Tucker, Jackie Chan, Max Von Sydow After an attempted assassination on Ambassador Han, Lee and Carter head to Paris to protect a French woman with knowledge of the Triads’ secret leaders.

CorD RECOMMENDS

««««« THESE

FINE HOTELS Hotel Šumadija ad Šumadijski trg 8 11000 Belgrade, Srbija Tel. 011/3054-100, 355-42-55 Fax: 011/355-43-68 office@hotelsumadija.com www.hotelsumadija.com

POŽEŠKA 31, 11000 Belgrade, Serbia tel: 011/3555-458, 3549-986, 3058-317; fax: 011/3556-296 website: www.mg99.net

HOTEL N

Hotel „Le Petit Piaf“ Skadarska 34 11000 Belgrade, Serbia Tel +381-11-303-5252 Fax +381-11-303-5353 office@petitpiaf.com www.petitpiaf.com

Hotel „Union“ a.d.

Belgrade, Serbia Kosovska 11 tel. + 381 11 3248 022 fax + 381 11 3224 480 www.hotelunionbelgrade.com office@hotelunionbelgrade.com

Bilećka 57, Belgrade, Serbia Tel: +381 (0)11 39-721-83 Fax: +381 (0)11 39-555-55 www.hotel-n.co.yu E-mail: office@hotel-n.co.yu

Salaš 137 Medjunarodni put 137 21233 Cenej, Serbia 021/ 714 497, 714 501, 714 505 salas137@genco.co.yu www.salas137.co.yu

HOTEL ROYAL KRALJA PETRA 56, BELGRADE tel. +381 11 26 26 4 26 toplice@net.yu www.hotelroyal.co.yu

CorD / Septembar 2007 75

leisure & lifestyle

Party on

the Water

76 CorD / Septembar 2007

They’re the epitome of Belgrade nightlife in summer - cool, adventurous and open. At the first sign of spring and a return to the warmer seasons, it seems to Belgrade’s foreign community that the city’s residents empty themselves from the centre and pour out onto the banks of the Sava and the Danube for sun, swimming and splavs. It’s a concept that seems at first glance wonderfully novel to an expat; a complete social scene of cafes, restaurants, bars and clubs all floating on the water, but it’s more than a novelty to the Serbs who frequent them.

By Richard Wordsworth Photo: Jelena Seferin irst off, as a proud owner once told me, splavs are practical. Unlike in major European capitals, the laws on what can and cannot be built along the riverbanks of Belgrade have always been very lax, and the exact ruling over ownership of the riverbanks is murkier than the rivers themselves. So while there are the occasional isolated legal disputes, the advantages of building a restaurant or nightclub on the water far outweigh any potential risk. For a start, the location – away from prime development areas in the centre – means that construction is comparatively cheap, and perhaps even more importantly the location away from residents means that venues can make as much noise as they like and stay open as long they want. The heat is another major factor in the success of the splav culture, with inner city basement clubs moving onto rafts for the summer to take advantage of the cool breezes off the river and the fresh air. From a club owner or restaurateur’s point of view, the splav is not just a viable alternative to establishing a venue in the city proper - it’s often preferable. The only thing that can really go wrong is if it sinks.

If you build it, they will come. The number of splavs keeps growing with each passing summer, as does the number of people who forsake the central clubs in favour of riverside partying. From the point of view of the clientele, splavs couple all the benefits of their favourite clubs and restaurants with benefits of a day at the beach. Dancing or dining within touching distance of the water - even if you have no intention of diving in - is a great way to enjoy the warm weather, and because of the location away from the city there is next to no traffic and there are impressive views, especially at dawn, which is when many such venues stay open until.

As with all evening entertainment in Belgrade, choice is the principal problem facing expats who are new to the city and want to get a taste for the splav culture.

F

There are dozens of splavs spread along the riverbanks through Belgrade, some the chic and shiny projects of local “businessmen”, others little more than rusted, bobbing shacks which seem to remain afloat by the owner’s willpower as much as buoyancy aids. There are - fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it - far too many to give an overview of each one in this article. But what we can do is divide them up to give you a better overview, and pick out some of the highlights, to ensure that the close of your summer season goes with a splash.

Restaurants The greatest number and range of floating restaurants can be found on the river bank next to the Hotel Yugoslavia (or Yugo-splavia, to those in the know). From this starting point (the easiest place to direct a taxi to) you can wander in either direction, and sample whichever splavs take your fancy. The great thing about the splav culture is that because they’re all built next to each other you can very easily “splav hop” from one to another until you settle in one that you like. If you do need some guidance though, two good starting points are Amphora and Amsterdam.

Amphora is one of the most inviting splavs on the Yugo-splavia strip, built to look like a Mediterranean villa on the water. Outside seating is somewhat limited, so if you’re dead set on fresh air and people-watching it pays to arrive early or to book ahead. But it’s the inside which really gets Amphora its mention here.

The Amphora restaurant does away with chairs, and instead surrounds its tables with armchairs and couches. In the slightly dimmed evening lighting it achieves a kind of cosy lounge chic, a bit like having a dinner party in your living room if your living room was afloat and full of affluent strangers. The food is typical Serbian fare: steaks and meat dishes, but the waiters here have the distinction of seeming to actually care how you want your food cooked, unlike some restaurants, and actually see to it that those details reach the kitchen.

The bar, proudly placed just inside the CorD / Septembar 2007 77

leisure & lifestyle

The greatest number and range of floating restaurants can be found on the river bank next to the Hotel Yugoslavia (or Yugo-splavia, to those in the know)… The great thing about the splav culture is that because they’re all built next to each other you can very easily “splav hop” from one to another, until you settle in one that you like. entrance, is also well stocked and staffed by barmen who can whip up anything from the restaurant’s long list of cocktails.

You’ll find Amsterdam a short walk along from Amphora. It’s open during the day, but you’ll only do it justice in the evening, when the underfloor lights come on and turn a pleasant river cafe into a stylish restaurant that tries just hard enough to be glamorous. What’s more, Amsterdam is one of the increasingly popular mixed-breed “club restaurants”, so if you’re willing to eat later you’ll catch the transition when the beautiful people come to pose, sip cocktails and dance the night away.

Clubs Then again, maybe you’re a traditionalist. Maybe you think restaurants are for eating, and nightclubs are for dancing. Fortunately, the majority of Belgrade’s splav owners agree with you, and there are plenty of floating nightclubs if you prefer your night broken up into discernible stages. Splavs exist to suit everyone’s taste, but ask around and there

Splavs couple all the benefits of your favourite clubs and restaurants with all the benefits of a day at the beach 78 CorD / Septembar 2007

are a few names that crop up over and over again as having the best music and crowds.

Exile, Freestyler and Sound are good examples of splav building mentality building lots of clubs next to each other with partygoers either staying in one exclusively or moving between them. But despite the night’s inter-splav immigration, the venues and their respective crowds are not totally interchangeable. Exile packs in the youngest crowd, and is devoid of all pretence - the people come here to dance, not to be seen dancing. Freestyler aims for a glitzier crowd, and both it and Sound are better lit to show off their well-groomed clientele. But don’t be put off - this is still a long way from the ostentatious displays of wealth to be found in other European cities.

All three clubs have a great view across the river to the lights on the bank leading up into the city centre, and all three were included as choices on nadlanu.com’s poll to find Belgrade’s best nightclub.

If you don’t feel like splav hopping, and are content to spend one evening in

Relaxing within touching distance of the water is a great way to enjoy the warm weather

Because of the location away from the city, there is next to no traffic and there are impressive views

one place, another splav to check out is Plastic Jam. It’s not close to anywhere else we’d recommend, but the more savvy among you will have already made the connection between this place and its sister club, Plastic, back in the city. Plastic Jam is where Plastic’s clubbers come to see and be seen on the hot summer nights, and the site is worth the trip. Between them, Sound and Plastic Jam seem to draw in a disproportionate amount of Belgrade’s beautiful people, but even the most rigid cynic would have to apply himself to make that into a jeer. What you get with Plastic Jam is its clubbing pedigree; its sister Plastic throws some of the coolest parties in the city during the winter when the splav is closed.

Finally, we round off the list with Blaywatch. No point beating about the bush with this one, Blaywatch (a clever linguistic contraction of the American TV show “Baywatch” and the Serbian word “blejati” meaning “to chill”) is Belgrade’s number one turbo folk splav. If you are one of the select few who have never experienced the delights of Serbia’s domestic folk music, you’ll probably be forgiven by most Serbs - the lyrics are so shallow and the female voices so syrupy that it’s a bit like being held face down in a bowl of treacle. Still, this sugary Balkan-pop has accumulated a massive following, as well as its own radio and TV stations, which alone makes Blaywatch a worthwhile place to visit, if only for reasons of cultural curiosity.

However, rumours abound that on selected nights Blaywatch also offers turbo folk karaoke. You don’t have to go to that.

We’ve never experienced it, but we imagine that would be like being held facedown in a bowl of propane jelly. While smoking. n

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FASHION

Mura woman

Play with silhouette – this is the advice of designer Štefka Varga Radič, who made sure that the LeOna autumn-winter collection is full of fine colours, fabrics and textures; besides the unavoidable black, she is a fan of metal nuances of gold, bronze and silver.

Mura man

Natural fabrics and extremely high quality mixtures of wool, cashmere and cotton of innovative design are still the most important items in the Mura collection. Designer Sonja Šterman enriched it for the autumn-winter season.

80 CorD / Septembar 2007

CorD / Septembar 2007 81

FASHION

82 CorD / Septembar 2007

CorD / Septembar 2007 83

leisure & lifestyle

84 CorD / Septembar 2007

Welcome to

Devil’s

town!

In the heart of southern Serbia, 89km south-west of Niš and 27km south-east of Kuršumlija, lies the uniquely appealing Đavolja varoš – a natural phenomenon that includes the distinctive rock formations pictured here and two natural springs of exceedingly sour mineral water (The Devil’s Water and Red springs).

T

he brutal, yet mystical landscape of Ðavolja varoš, juxtaposed to the undulating tranquillity of the surrounding landscape, has prompted the local Kuršumlija Tourist Organisation to nominate the Djavolja varoš locality for the World’s Seven Natural Wonders competition, currently being organised by the NewOpenWorld Foundation (see www. natural7wonders.com) This month CorD and the Tourist Organisation of Serbia recommend that you pay a visit to this unique natural monument and the nearby town and municipality of Kuršumlija. Ðavolja varoš comprises 202 natural stone towers, known as the Devil’s Pyramids and ranging between two and 15 metres in height and 0.5 and three metres in width.

Their shape and distinctive stone ‘hats’ are the result of a specific erosion process that has lasted for centuries and sees the figures form, grow, change, shrink, disappear and re-emerge.

This geomorphologic phenomenon is unique in Serbia and very rare in the world.

In Europe there are similar phenomena in the Alps (on both sides of the Brenner saddle in Austria and Italy near Bolcan,

in Valerijen in the Upper Savoja province, in France etc.). However, the “towers” in Đavolja varoš have greater dimensions and are much more stable, making this the most famous natural monument of its kind in Europe. The most famous in the world is the so-called God’s Garden in the U.S. This valuable location has been formally protected since 1959, and in 1995 Djavolja varoš was declared a natural resource of exceptional importance and was placed in the first category of protection by a decree of the Government of the Republic of Serbia.

How to get there? Turn off the Niš-Priština-Peć Highway at the Rudare Motel onto the asphalt road to Dobro Selo.

After the village of Zebice (5.6km), continue along the dirt road for three kilometres until you reach the vicinity of Đavolja varoš. From this point one must continue 900 metres on foot to the “Devil’s Pyramids”.

Numerous transport routes cross through the Kuršumlija borough. The most important is the Niš-Priština road, the so-called Toplička Magistrala, which goes through Merošina, Prokuplje, Rudar, Rača, Merdare and Podujevo.

CorD / Septembar 2007 85

leisure & lifestyle

Visit Kuršumlija Kuršumlija was inhabited in prehistoric times. In Roman times Kuršumlija was called Ad Fines, which means “at the end” because it was situated on the border between two provinces, Dalmacia and Gornja Mezija. At that time this was one of the most important stops on the famous Niš-Lješ Roman road.

In the Byzantium era it was called Toplice and was the headquarters of the episcopacy (first mentioned in written documents in 1019, when the Toplička Episcopacy was established).

The borough of Kuršumlija is a hilly area. The height above sea level ranges from 300 meters in Ključ near Donj Točan to 1,073 m at the top of Pilatovica (the highest peak in the district). Around 85% of the territory is hilly-mountainous and 15% is plain.

Tourists visiting Kuršumlija will experience the special atmosphere of the town centre, as well as the most important cultural monuments. The city centre, with the city park, is the oldest part of the town –

created after the areas liberation from the Ottoman Empire in 1878.

According to the relief geography of the territory of the Kuršumlija Borough, which spreads over 952 km2, it can be divided into distinct parts. Rodopi is an old mountain range consisting of Sokolovica (1,050m/asl) and Radan. Three stunning dormant volcano cones (Sokolov vis, Ivanova kula and Trpeška glavica) dominate a landscape that is otherwise adorned with woodland area and the phenomena of Djavolja Varoš.

Toplička podgorina is a system made up of two main and several smaller branches of Kopaonik Mountain. It contains numerous deep valleys and ravines in the Gornja Toplica river basin.

The mountain area is crossed by a dense network of river and stream valleys, which separate the valleys of Toplica, Lukovska Reka, Banjska and Kosanica. The most inhabited centres places, Kuršumlija, Rača and the three spas (Lukovska, Kuršumlijska and Prolom) are located in the small valleys.

Contact information: Kuršumlija Borough Tourist Organisation tel: 027 380 963 fax: 027 381 785, 027 381 344 url: www.kursumlija.org Address: Kosovska 17, 18430 KURŠUMLIJA 86 CorD / Septembar 2007

The most important tourist spots in the Kuršumlija borough are the spas: Prolom Banja, Kuršumlijska Banja and Lukovska Banja, which all boast ample accommodation facilities.

The transit points of Rudare, Kastrat and Pepeljevac are of lesser importance, though are still significant for recreational visitors.

The famous natural phenomena at Djavolja varoš are of the greatest importance among the localities in the borough.

Within the protected zone of Djavolja varoš, there are two springs of water of unusual characteristics. One is the Djavolja Voda (Devil’s water), a cold and extremely acidic spring (pH 1.5) with high mineralization (15 g/l water) which is located in the Djavolja ravine.

“Crveno vrelo” (the Red Spring) is the second spring, next to the pedestrian zone, in the middle of the protected area with pH 3.5 and lower mineralization of 4.372 mg/l.

Such waters are very rare in the world and are used in spa treatments. n Phone numbers: Prolom banja Tel: 027-88-111 Lukovska banja Tel: 027-381-344 Kuršumlijska banja Tel: 027-381-420, 381-481

CorD / Septembar 2007 87

leisure & lifestyle

Homesteads away from home This late summer, and all year round, you can experience ideal respite from urban stress at Vojvodina’s salaši farm homesteads.

L

By Aleksandar Ivanišević & Dragan Stojanović ocated outside villages and including a house and outbuildings utilised to ensure the upkeep of the sizeable estates they occupy, many salaši have been renovated to handle modern tourism needs. This has seen them 88 CorD / Septembar 2007

equipped with pools, stud farms, sports terrains and fish ponds to ensure they are now proper mini resorts on the Vojvodina plain.

Some salaši are still home to the families that have owned them for generations, and here visitors can enjoy domestic specialities, wines and the unforgettable hospitality of the hosts. Small households, lonesome on

the plain, are today an important tourist attraction of Vojvodina.

Of the many salaši offering rural relaxation, some stand out in terms of facilities and overall offer. These include Salaš 137 at Čenej, Katić Salaš near Senta, Gabrić Salaš in Palić, Čika Nikolin Salaš in Naradin, and Vrbić Salaš near Bačka Palanka.

Just a few kilometres from Novi Sad lies an oasis of tranquillity, the perfect location for rest and recuperation that can invoke the spirit of old times coloured by modern elements. Here you can try Vojvodina food, enjoy the good wine and sounds of tamburitsa players or practice sport fishing.

A warm recommendation for a peaceful retreat far from everyday hustle for visitors from Belgrade and Novi Sad. The most famous salaši, carrying the numbers “137” and “84”, are situated in the vicinity of Novi Sad. Peace and quiet, a stomach full of classic Vojvodina specialities, the crackle of fire in tile stoves, a traditional coach ride … These are the

MAJKIN SALAŠ IS PROVING A LURE FOR TOURISTS TO VOJVODINA

factors that make salaši so special and unique.

Located only twelve kilometres from Novi Sad, beside the old road to Subotica, is an inconspicuous board which reads “Salaš 137”. Just below the homestead’s name it offers, in English, “Slow food”.

The host at Salaši 137, Dušan Galović, proudly points out that their menu contains only Vojvodinan cuisine specialties.

Appetisers are served as they used to be – on wooden kitchen chopping boards.

Salaš “84” has been recently renovated and restored. As it was before, everything is made from wood and brick, with handfinished thatched roofs made from reeds growing on the homestead. The renovated lake has been beautifully landscaped with islands and bridges, and is fully stocked with game fish.

Dimče Gulevski, owner of Salaš “84”, is proud that his homestead is only seventy metres from the location of a villa where Mileva and Albert Einstein stayed during summers from 1903 to 1914. Indeed, the

mulberry tree under which the theory of relativity was created still stands nearby.

“In our safe we keep three artefacts from the Einstein family: the pipe that Albert smoked in 1904 and gave as a present to Mileva’a father, their Wedding Certificate and the photo-camera they used to make photos with. Those artefacts were presented to us by the Physicist Đorđe Krstić, one of the greatest connoisseurs of the work of Mileva and Albert Einstein.

Here also you can eat well. Everything is domestic, made according to the old recipes. House specialties are kulen, sausage, ham and bacon, from „mangulica“ (a special species of pig).

Salaš “84” is more expensive than other similar places, and the homestead lacks electricity, water and telephone lines.

However, the guests are unbothered and unaware that light bulbs and all devices work on power packs, and that the water comes from a well 63 meters underground.

“We have been awarded a Perfect Place Certificate from the American Government, as one of the ten perfect places in Corridor 10,” says Gulevski proudly. “because of this the official state road signs marking our location have been placed from the direction of Subotica, Novi Sad, Belgrade and Zrenjanin, helping visitors find us more easily.

Besides these two, Vojvodina is home to a couple more salaši that can be described as Class A. Debeli lad (Thick shade), Žabalj Debeli lad completely conjures the ambience of Vojvodina as it was. In the winter it is cozy by the fireplace, and in the summer you are in thick shade beside the River Tisa. The staff wear traditional folk costumes and the homestead is home to herds of cattle and sheep.

Cvejin salaš, Begeč Only 18 km from Novi Sad, the Cvejin family have restored the almost extinct

homestead way of life. Today an island of domestic food and Backa hospitality, every guest is received cordially with a glass of rakija and cheese pie. The homestead is in the vicinity of the Danube, forests, an orchard and vegetable gardens.

Roko salaš, Hajdukovo A century-old environmentally arranged homestead on the eastern bank of Ludoš Lake which today is a protected culture monument. It is enriched with a valuable collection of authentic artefacts which have at one time been used by people in village inns. Currently the collection has 800 artefacts showing the means and tools of traditional occupations from the vicinity of Ludoš Lake. The majority of foodstuffs are their own products, and domestic wines are from the vineyard along the northern bank of Danube.

Majkin salaš (Mother’s homestead), Palić Majkin salaš is a traditional Vojvodina restaurant with original cuisine. Adorned with authentic furniture and everyday items, both for the homestead and for home furnishings, domestic dishes are served and one can listen to domestic music and drink domestic drinks. In this homestead one can try the famous ajvar and rakija, while also enjoying traditional potato pie, veal cutlet and domestic dough with cheese.

Didin salaš, Sombor Close to Sombor, the family Hornjakov maintain the Bunjevac tradition in the best way. Didin salaš is home to a seat of the Association of homestead lovers and a workshop for old crafts. The separate small house with kitchen, porch, caldron and wine cellar make a unique whole.

Within the homestead you can hear domestic animals. In this homestead one can drink mulberry rakija and white wine, and the main courses are roasted duck “a la Hornjakov,” guinea fowl soup and pumpkin pie. n CorD / Septembar 2007 89

techno talk

17-inch iMac G5 Apple has gone for a minimalist look with this new desktop’s sleek tablet form. This five-centimetre-thick computer accommodates a scorchingly quick 1.8-GHz G5 processor, and also makes room for extra optional Bluetooth and AirPort adapters.

According to Apple, “The all-new, all-in-one iMac packs a complete, high-performance computer into a beautifully thin design. Available in 20- and 24-inch widescreen models, it includes built-in wireless, Mac OS X and the new iLife ’08. So within minutes of opening the box, you’ll be doing everything from sharing photos to creating movies to building websites.”

Apple, www.apple.com/imac Price: €1,110

Mio DigiWalker H610 The Mio H610 is pretty compact and weighs less than 110 grams! Thus this one offers true mobility in every sense and can also be taken along bicycle rides or long walks!

There are three Million Points Of Interest in its database and one can also add their own POI with addresses and phone numbers. Further navigational functionality includes; turn-by-turn voice, text navigation (in 16 languages including English, French and Spanish) and multiple navigation modes.

The H610 is not just a GPS device and has some great Multimedia capabilities. Not only does it have a Music Player, but it also has full video capabilities in addition to 3D gaming. There is also a Digital Photo Viewer present on the H610 and an SD/ MMC slot for storing and transferring of files.

Mio-Tech, www.miogps.com Price: €370

Dell XPS M2010 With its Intel Core 2 Duo processor and 20.1-inch display, the Dell XPS M2010 offers pretty much everything you need in a laptop computer. Its display and keyboard are all connected. The wireless Bluetooth keyboard detaches smoothly from the base of the system, which also acts as a charging station. You will need batteries, though, for the system’s Bluetooth mouse. A comfortable-to-use touchpad is located on the keyboard and sits between that and a number pad. Annoyingly, the keyboard and mouse frequently go to sleep, creating a slight pause upon wake-up.

Despite several promising features, including its groundbreaking design and slick engineering, the Dell XPS M2010 is way too expensive for a desktop and far too heavy to be considered a truly portable notebook. No doubt it will appeal to a small cadre of media-centric folks who don’t travel, need a big screen, and have money to burn.

Dell, www.dell.com Price: €1,700 90 CorD / Septembar 2007

KEF KIT100 Instant Theatre A pair of slick die-cast-aluminium “front” speakers and a subwoofer deliver the experience of Dolby 5.1 surround sound on anything you put into the combined DVD-CD player and AM/FM tuner. The trick to the minimal speakerage is a marriage of high-tech acoustics and an array of flat-panel speakers that take advantage of the sound-reflective properties of your walls.

According to advocates of the Instant Theatre, two speakers, when backed-up by this powerful subwoofer, really are enough to provide a surround-sound experience that’s second to none. The system’s detractors, meanwhile, argue that the Instant Theatre is overpriced and difficult to set up just right to take full advantage of the KEF speakers.

KEF, www.kefinstanttheatre.com Price: €1,110

Pentax OptioWP With a body of just 22mm, the OptioWP can be easily slipped into and out of a pocket, and its well-designed grip ensures the camera remains safe and stable in the hands when shooting. Waterproof performance enables approx. 30 minutes of continuous underwater shooting at a depth of up to 1.5m. The perfect companion for watersports, skiing and other outdoor leisure activities, the OptioWP also allows the user to shoot in places that would be too dirty to take other cameras.

The OptioWP incorporates an optical lens unit specially designed to suit underwater photography. Delivering 6.3-18.9mm 3X optical zooming performance, it provides a focal range covering angles of view equivalent to those of a 38-114mm lens in 35mm format. The lens of the OptioWP offers excellent imaging performance.

It is also composed of nine groups of 11 elements to achieve optimal compensation for aberrations and make the most of the impressive 5.0 effective megapixels.

Pentax, www.pentaximaging.com Price: €260

Zen Vision: M The new Vision: M integrates all the functionality of the original (except for the CF card reader) into a more pantfriendly package – at about the size of a deck of cards. The Vision: M’s contrasty 2.5-inch screen does a pretty good job fighting the glare that plagues most players of this type, but unless you sit alone with the shades drawn all day there are going to be times where the sun will veto your viewing.

What really makes the Vision: M stand out from the iPod is the quickness (thanks to the USB 2.0 interface) and simplicity when it comes to importing videos onto it, and the inclusion of an FM tuner and voice recorder are nice cherries on top of this multi-media sundae. Plus: No super-irritating hipster-laden commercials!

Creative, www.creative.com Price: €245

CorD / Septembar 2007 91

teCHno talK

Philips 50-inch Ambilight Tv If you like to watch HD programming in a dark room, the Philips 50-inch Ambilight TV uses a superb, innovative ‘Ambilight’ system that employs surrounding ambient light panels that glow to match the colors on the screen.

The lights also help to reduce the strain of watching TV on your eyeballs, i.e. eye fatigue, by allowing for more consistent light levels in the room. The picture quality is great on the and it has a wealth of connectivity options, along with a built-in memory card reader.

One of the most mentioned downsides of the Ambilight is that the transition between light and dark light on screen causes a loss of detail that results in quasi pixilation.

Philips, www.philips.com Price: €2,750

SkyCaddie The SkyCaddie - formerly known as the “Skygolf gPS” or the “Sg2” - can make the abbreviated process a reality. Though use of a yardage-measuring device is currently illegal for tournament play,, the SkyCaddie can be used in handicap rounds and casual play.

The SkyCaddie uses freely and widely available gPS signals to calculate to within one yard your precise location on the planet Earth. If you’ve also programmed in other points of interest - such as the location of the middle of the green - the SkyCaddie can tell you exactly how far you’ve got to the middle of the green.

The SkyCaddie unit is a bit larger than your average flip cell phone. The buttons are easy to press and the display is easy to read. It clips nicely onto your belt or golf bag strap. laser-based range finders are bulky, and compared to them the SkyCaddie is rather svelte. skycaddie, www.skygolfgps.com Price: €260

Sony hdR-Fx1 hd dv camcorder The Fx1 records in full wide-screen high-def (1,080i) on a standard MiniDV cassette. Inside, you’ll find three 1.12-megapixel imaging chips (compared with just one on most other camcorders) and a 12x optical zoom.

The highly anticipated competition to JVC’s HD camcorders, the 1st generation Sony HDR-Fx1 attempts to set the standard in a new frontier, the HD market.

While there is a small HD camera market due to its still high prices, the Sony HDR-Fx1 sets a milestone in its affordability, delivering HD quality below Professional HD cameras priced at $50,000 and up. While more people purchase HD television sets, the HD market is expected to grow tremendously, eventually replacing its older counterparts. sony, www.sony.com Price: €2,750

92 CorD / Septembar 2007

Philips PeT320 portable dvd player The lightweight Philips PET320 is nicely styled with a silver face and blue trim. It looks and feels like one of the early portable CD players, which means it’s thick compared to Sony’s and Panasonic’s high-end super-slim portable CD players.

The major downside of the PET320 is that it’s not optimized for widescreen viewing. The built-in 3.5-inch, 320x240 screen is a 4:3 display.

As it stands, if you play a wide-screen movie, it’s appears pretty small, with black letterbox bars on the top and bottom--and there’s no zoom function available. At these display sizes, it’s important not to waste screen real estate. It’s worth noting that the unit does offer support for a full panoply of discs, including standard audio CDs, MP3 and WMA CDs, JPEg and other picture discs, and the various recordable CD and DVD formats.

Philips, www.philips.com Price: €95

Palmone Treo 650 The wireless Bluetooth network unites all your Bluetooth-enabled devices to transfer data. The internal Bluetooth radio is about the size of a Tic-Tac and works independent of the radio used to transmit voice and data. The name Bluetooth comes from the 10th-century Danish king Harald “Bluetooth” Blåtand, the man responsible for uniting Denmark and Norway. We got blue teeth from sucking on Bic pens. See? We all have our stories!

The Treo’s VersaMail feature lets you download e-mail from any POP3 or IMAP account, which roughly translates into AOl, yahoo, Earthlink and basically every e-mail service on the Internet. If the Treo doesn’t have your service provider’s information in the factory presets, you can customise it yourself. Business users can even access their office e-mail if their company uses Exchange Server 2003. you can e-mail any file, from Word and Excel documents to digital stills and full-motion videos, right from the phone. One man’s snapshot is another man’s damning evidence.

Palmone, www.palm.com Price: €333

60 gb gigabeat mP3 player you really can store up to 30,000 songs on the 60 gB gigabeat MP3 player, or just fill it up with photos to view on the brilliant colour screen. The handy Plus Touch sensor is even more intuitive than the iPod’s vaunted Click Wheel.

Using Windows Media Player and your Windows xP PC (the gigabeat is not Mac-compatible), you can download movies and TV shows from Starz Vongo, Tivo to go and MTV Urge. you can even connect the player to a Microsoft xbox 360 and listen to your tunes while you game. The gigabeat includes an audio/video output to send video to a TV, and a USB input lets you view pictures from a digital camera and even store them in the player.

Music sounds great on the gigabeat. The gigabeat also has three SRS WOW simulated surround sound modes. An FM tuner with two blocks of 30 station presets each is included, but the gigabeat has no recording capabilities. toshiba, www.toshiba.com Price: €410

CorD / Septembar 2007 93

SPORT

The Partizan ban Serbian football has a new arch enemy: if it is not already enough that Serbian sportsmen suffer defeat on sports fields, racism and hooliganism are emerging as the off the field problem which is shaking the most popular sport in Serbia.

W

By Ivica Petrović hen you suffer defeat on the sports field, it is relatively easy to try to improve something: a stronger training rhythm, a change of coach, intensified condition training, and results can be expected. But, the most difficult thing to fight is the invisible enemy off the field, and Serbian football is already suffering great losses because of that.

The Partizan Football Club has already felt the UEFA’s harsh wrath. Because of the chaos and racist assaults of their supporters, Partizan have been banned from further competition in the UEFA Cup. Unfortunately, things haven’t stopped there. A similar problem is hanging over Red Star, which has already received a suspended sentence because of similar misdemeanors; the Serbian Football Association is also under the magnifying glass and will continue to be because of the racist incidents at the European Youth Cup in the Netherlands that earned the attention of the UEFA 94 CorD / Septembar 2007

FIFA & EUFA HAVE LAUNCHED A MAJOR CRACKDOWN ON CROWD VIOLENCE

Disciplinary Committee. In the case of additional incidents, the whole problem could result in the Serbian national squad being expelled from the qualifications for the next European Cup.

The European football house has therefore presented a policy of zero tolerance for racism and hooliganism on sports fields, but that kind of engagement obviously hasn’t reached Serbia. Serbia

has a new Law on Preventing Violence on Sports Fields and at Sporting Events, but this law is, as many others in transitional Serbia, just a dead letter on paper. The law is practically not implemented, and the logistics and operational support for the implementation of this law is equal to zero; supporters’ assaults are still being treated mildly and that was the reason for the Partizan Football Club to call on the strict implementation of this law. The reason was the letter from UEFA which states that the association will not hesitate to enforce the strongest penalties for Serbia in the case of any new incidents.

The expulsion of Partizan and such a strong tone were enough to launch an avalanche of theories of conspiracies in Serbia: during the time of hot political issues, such The ICTY and the “seizing” of Kosovo, as a good part of the public see that, UEFA’s behaviour was seen as a hostile act. However, it appears that there are reasonable people in the Serbian Football Association (FSS). FSS President, Zvezdan Terzić, insists that there is no conspiracy against Serbia, and that any other European club would experience the same sentence for similar incidents. According to what we heard from the home of Serbian football, domestic customs cannot be transferred to Europe.

The traditional kindly view of incidents in domestic championships, and the system of intervention for some things

SUPPORTERS REMAIN UNEDUCATED ABOUT THE DOS AND DON’TS

On one side, the clubs in Serbia have done very little in recent years to educate supporters. Instead of that, they gave in to basic instincts even in situations when it became obvious that things were gradually getting out of hand and that this way was harming themselves more than their opponents. In this way, in their desire for good relations with supporter groups, clubs were literally bribing supporters by taking them to away matches for free, providing them with pyrotechnics, and even offering money for free sandwiches. Instead of paying back clubs in a proper way, supporters chose

On 22nd August UEFA’s appeals body increased the fine imposed on the Serbian Football Association from 40,000 Swiss Francs (£16,500) to 100,000 Swiss Francs (£41,000).The fine was originally imposed on the Serbian FA following racist chanting at their Under-21 European Championship match against England.

Source: Reuters

to be forgotten, did not impress Europe; Terzić himself admitted that in this case “connections and acquaintances” do not help, and that there are no telephone calls to hush up such things. Serbian football, therefore, is paying the price for its bad (un)sporting habits.

Many bad things have been going on in Serbian football for too long, both in and outside the championship, thus the current “clash” with UEFA is just the logical consequence of the meeting between two mentalities and two worlds in which different roles rule. Even though everything should be motivated by the same supporters and sporting passion, in the Serbian case this passion is burdened with the political inheritance from the recent past, and that is a problem which will not be easy to solve.

the worst solution which mostly brings their clubs financial ruin. Sponsors, which are difficult to attract and easy to lose, quickly leave clubs which are kicked out from international games because of those types of offences. The lack of finances means less money for purchasing players, and that again means poor results and discontented supporters. The circle is, we could say, both predictable and desperate.

The problem of the Partizan Football Club is even more complicated, because all problems of unresolved ownership and other relations in sport are reflected in this club. Namely, the Club has been involved in a real war with its supporters for a long time, and they stand on completely opposing positions. The supporters blame the management for all of the club’s problems, headed by the club director,

Nenad Bjeković and long time Club secretary general, Žarko Zečević. That is a fight in which all means are used, and although at first sight the motives appear to be connected to sport, that problem goes way beyond the limits of sport.

Supporter groups claim that the heads of the Club are involved in numerous financial irregularities, and that because of that the Club is slowly being ruined.

Partizan supporters even boycotted their own stadium for a long time, trying in that way to show their disagreement with the management’s choices and very existence.

That series of mutual accusations and insults considerably harmed the Club’s image, but also presented a sad picture of Serbian sport which the transition and clearing of ownership relations has not reached yet.

We could even say that uncontrolled supporters passions are equally guilty for the racist and hooligan disturbances of Partizan’s supporters, but also, from the supporters’ point of view, that the worst possible situation can mean the fastest achievement of their goals: it is difficult to say that supporters have done this deliberately to harm the management, but the fact remains that the management and the supporters totally differ in their view of what is good for the club and at this moment the supporters can be satisfied because the Club has been suspended from the international scene.

Partizan certainly did not need this ban, but some lessons should be learned from that. UEFA is doing its job, very consistently and strictly, and if there is anything positive in that it is the fact that some things in sport in Serbia must be changed from the foundations to ensure that football arrives in the European Union one day alive and healthy. n CorD / Septembar 2007 95

SPORT

Davis cup hits Belgrade This year has seen the Serbian public turn from apathetic followers of the sport of tennis to avid fans of the world’s greatest racket sport – all thanks to the remarkable sporting exploits of three up-and-coming young tennis stars. Now Belgrade is set to welcome its sporting heroes home when Serbia takes on Australia in a Davis Cup tie in the Serbian capital.

By Željko Popivoda his year’s successful tennis season for Serbia’s young stars has not only brought financial gain to the players, it has also had the knock-on effect of improving the global awareness of Serbia as a sporting nation.

Australia is one country that has nurtured its sporting prowess as a means of enhancing its global image. Indeed, Australia is well known for its sporting excellence, and the country devotes great efforts and resources to maintaining and enhancing its national sporting achievements in many sports. “With sport being so important to so many Australians, our Government obviously sees it as a high priority and does everything possible to make the most of a very healthy national passion,” explains Australian Ambassador in Belgrade, H.E. Clare Birgin, speaking to CorD this month, ahead of the eagerly anticipated Davis Cup tie.

T

n Australia is world-renowned as a great sporting nation. How high a priority is

A national survey in 2005 found that just over 11 million Australians participate at least once a week in physical activity for exercise, recreation and sport. Not all of them are brilliant, but an average player is often rather good by world standards. Many Australians are also keen spectators and this inspires those sportsmen and women who are really gifted to greater efforts.

96 CorD / Septembar 2007

Australia is a stable, democratic, culturally diverse society with a strong and competitive economy. We are also known for our achievements in the arts - music, dance, film and the fine arts, as well as literature. We hope that the famous Australian writer Thomas Keneally - best known for the book on which the film “Schindler’s List” is based - will visit Belgrade next year. given to sport by the Australian Government and why? r Thank you. One of the reasons for Australia’s success in sport is that while excellence is encouraged and we celebrate victories as much as anyone, sport is also regarded as something for all Australians – not just elite athletes – to enjoy. The result of this is that more people participate in sport – literally everyone is encouraged to find a sport they like, whether it’s tennis or golf or surfing – and to pursue it as much as they can. The result is that many, many people are involved in sports as participants.

A national survey in 2005 found that just over 11 million Australians participate at least once a week in physical activity for exercise, recreation and sport. Not all of them are brilliant, but an average player is often rather good by world standards.

Many Australians are also keen spectators and this inspires those sportsmen and women who are really gifted to greater efforts.

At the Athens Olympics Australia won 17 gold, 16 silver and 16 bronze medals and came fourth in the medal tally behind the United States, China and Russia. Our Paralympics athletes ranked fifth in the world, with a total of 100 medals.

With sport being so important to so many Australians, our Government obviously sees it as a high priority and does everything possible to make the most of a very healthy national passion. Using sport

Australian tennis star, Lleyton Hewitt,

currently ranked World No.21, is undoubtedly one of the top players of his generation. He will lead his country’s Davis Cup team in Belgrade.

unexpected victory at this year’s ATP Masters’ Series has proved the highlight of a successful season so far for the young Serbian tennis star

DAVIS CUP TIE SOLD OUT Lleyton Hewitt will lead Australia against Serbia in front of a sell-out home crowd in the Belgrade Arena this month.

Venue: Beogradska Arena, Belgrade, Serbia Dates: 21st September – 23rd September 2007 Surface: clay (indoors) to build healthy and active communities is a major objective. Our Prime Minister, our Foreign Minister and virtually every member of the Government I can think of are great sports enthusiasts themselves.

The Australian Sports Commission is the Government agency responsible for sport in Australia. It is equally committed to developing a base of grassroots involvement in sport and to providing opportunities for developing elite excellence.

Hewitt keen to stun Belgrade Lleyton Hewitt, spurred by his painful fourth-round Wimbledon loss to Serbian No.1 Novak Ðoković, is determined to save Australia from the Davis Cup wilderness when the countries meet this month [September]. Defeat for Australia will consign the 28-time champion - the second-most successful country behind the US - to the Asia-Oceania zonal competition next year.

But Australia faces a tough task in Belgrade. Serbia boasts world No.3 Ðoković, world No.48 Janko Tipsarević and doubles specialist Nenad Zimonjić in its team, and the 19,000-seat indoor stadium that will host the tie on clay is already sold out for every session.

World No.3 Novak Djoković, whose

Hewitt described the clash as one of the toughest Australia had faced.

“This is what Davis Cups are about,” he said. “This is what you live for, causing upsets like this, and I’d love nothing more than to knock them out and give ourselves another chance next year… It’s a big one for Australian tennis, in the situation we’re in at the moment. All of our focus is just going to be trying to get back into the world group for next year.

“I don’t want to sit out the Davis Cup year, not (be) in the World Group. It just doesn’t feel right, so we’ve all got a lot of desire and fire to go out and try and get through.”

Source: AAP

n To what extent do you feel Australia’s international public image is shaped by its sporting success? r I feel that our international image is enhanced by sporting success, as any country’s would be, and as Serbia’s has been recently by success in tennis. Australians have much besides sport to be proud of. Australia is a stable, democratic, culturally diverse society with a strong and competitive economy.

We are also known for our achievements in the arts - music, dance, film and the fine arts, as well as literature. We hope that the famous Australian writer Thomas Keneally - best known for the book on which the film “Schindler’s List” is based - will visit Belgrade next year.

But it is true that our sportsmen and women have traditionally been considered the “quintessential Australians” in some respects, because they have demonstrated, by their behaviour when under pressure and under intense public scrutiny, qualities which many identified with the Australian character. One is a rather reckless courage in the face of adversity and seemingly overwhelming odds. Great Australian tennis players like Ken Rosewall, Rod Laver and Evonne Goolagong Cawley were as well known for their modest behaviour, politeness and good sportsmanship, as for their athletic achievements. n CorD / Septembar 2007 97

HOW TO…

…Fix anything?

For any problems that may occur at your property or residence, call Belgrade’s leading property management professionals and handymen, Hauzmajstor, on 011 3034034. Services range from small repairs to full contracting of all property needs, specializing in embassies and places of business. 24-hour service and insured contractors.

CROSSWORD

Solve this crossword puzzle and test your Serbian – the clues may be in English, but the answers should be entered in Serbian

…Get food delivered day and night?

Fancy some take-away food, but not sure where and what you can get? Check out the website www.donesi.com. This innovative site, available in both English and Serbian, lists restaurants by type of cuisine and provides details of the menu on offer, including prices, location, delivery zone and working hours.

…Find an English-speaking dentist?

Sick of being unable to explain just how much your tooth hurts to your Serbian dentist? Why not try out the services of dentist Katarina Gačić, a fluent English speaker. Contact Katarina on 064 3390527 or via email on katarina_gacic@hotmail.com

…Find removal companies?

Moving can be one of the most stressful events in life.

However, by being organised and by planning ahead, you can prepare yourself for a smooth move. For moving into out of or around Belgrade, you can try one of these companies. In just a few easy steps, they’ll help you make your relocation a successful one!

AGS: 011 347 2332 Allied Pickfords: 011 8787744 Interdean: 011 3808140 Move One: 011 3114221

…Find party caterers with a difference?

…Install broadband cable internet?

Is your Internet connection too slow? Help is at hand from Serbia Broadband, which is now providing fast and reliable cable internet connections. 24-hour, phone-line-free connections available, as well as cable television with extra Pay-per-view options. A modern call centre, equipped with over 60 lines, is available anytime on 011 3305252.

…Make yourself understood?

Find yourself frustrated by your inability to say simple things in Serbian? Here at CorD we are endeavouring to make your stay in the region a tad less alien by providing a few simple phrases that will help you make yourself understood: è I am trying to learn Serbian è Pokušavam da naučim srpski. è Could I talk with an English speaker? è Da li mogu da razgovaram sa nekim ko govori Engleski? è Where is the nearest all-night chemists? è Gde je najbliža apoteka koja radi non-stop? è Could you direct me towards Kalemegdan? è Možete li da mi pokažete put do Kalemegdana? è Which bureau de change has a good exchange rate? è Koja menjačnica ima dobar kurs?

Drive more carefully, please.

Molim vas, vozite pažljivije.

98 CorD / Septembar 2007

HORIZONTAL: 1. a hot water spa in Serbia, 2. the preferred suit to be dealt; Merimina’s love in folk songs, 3. bound; tram or railway road, 4. Car sign for Libya; number (abb.); gypsy, 5. sign for ampere; Russian peninsula in the Black sea; British drama writer, Bernard; 6. giant; chemical sign 7. first name of handball legend Vujović 8. sign of potassium; attack someone 9. preposition; a place in Banat known for wines; sign for litre, 10. fracture; initials of the painter Arsic; toward, 11. a town in Šumadija; title of a Scottish noblemen, 12. army command for activating weapons; a card game usually played in pairs, 13. a flag bearer VERTICAL: 1. backwards; dizziness usually followed by a loss of consciousness, 2. a person that is adored; hither (abb.); a horse with dark foxy fair, 3. a muffled sound; a type of freshwater fish; Miodrag from mercy; 4. kilo-ton (abb.); device for washing the windshield; a town in Serbia that lies on a same river of the same name, 5. beginning of the alphabet; a town in Serbia not far from the monastery Mileševo; sign for oxygen, 6. Industrial town in Serbia; peninsula in Asia; initials of the writer Nušić, 7. a freshwater fish; a river in Vojvodina, confluence of the Danube and Sava on the left side, a town in France; 8. a famous Montenegrin poet and bishop, Petar Petrović; chemical sign; a clothing accessory to hold up your pants, 9. a type of grape-wine; a place in Banat, not far from Alibunar Solutions: Niška banja, adut, Omer, Tom, Pruga, RL, Br, rom,a, krim, Šo, golijat, I, Veselin, K, napasti, od, Čoka, l, lom, Lja, ka, Arilje, tan, pali, bridž, ctegonoša.

When organising any kind of party, function or reception, hiring the services of a quality caterer is an important element, allowing you to save time, relax and enjoy your celebration.

However, finding something original, creative and slightly exotic is even more important and is no mean feat in Belgrade.

But fear not, the team at Iguana Restaurant are here to cater for your alternative catering needs for any event – from children’s parties, christenings and family celebrations, to weddings, seminars, office parties and official receptions. Contact Iguana, Bozidara Adžije 30, on 011 2443383 or 063 7448690.