Diplomacy and Commerce No. 41

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July 2019 | ISSUE No. 41 | Price 350 RSD

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I PERSISTED IN MAKING PAINTING MY LIFE CALLING GALA ČAKI Painter

12 JUN

RUSSIAN EMBASSY MARKS NATIONAL DAY

I’M SHOWING THE ABSURDITY OF SERBIAN POLITICS DRAGOLJUB LJUBIČIĆ MIĆKO Actor and comedian

THE SUBJECTS OF MÜNCHAUSEN, LENIN AND SHERIFF Reportage by Robert Čoban

EXCLUSIVE

WE RECOGNIZE THE NEEDS FOR MUTUAL CONNECTIVITY AND COOPERATION ZORAN ZAEV

Prime Minister of North Macedonia

US DOESN’T HAVE A SOLUTION FOR KOSOVO - SERBS AND ALBANIANS HAVE TO FIND IT THEMSELVES

WE’VE BEEN THROUGH SIMILAR CHALLENGES

Former CIA Deputy Chief for the Balkans

Palestinian Ambassador to Serbia

STEVEN MEYER

T OPIC

I N

FO C US

180 Years of Diplomatic Relations: Macron in Serbia

H.E. MOHAMMED NABHAN

Montenegro

Montenegro & Serbia

EXCELLENT ECONOMIC RELATIONSHIP

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EDITORIAL

CONTENTS

Chernobyl, 33 Years Later The planetary success of the HBO series "Chernobyl" triggered numerous debates whether such a catastrophe could have occurred only in a closed socialist system like the USSR in the 1980s.

Is such a thing possible in capitalism, in the "free world" in which, as Fukuyama said "the end of history" happened? Is the same possible today?

Many who watched the series forgot the tragic events involving the Challenger space shuttle in 1986. Although there weren’t as many casualties, there were similar attempts to cover up the cause of this catastrophe.

Just like 33 years ago, all big countries and all major corporations today are trying to hide problems in their functioning, at the cost of causing tragedies and a large number of human casualties. Is it possible that, in the digital era and the era of social media when news circles the globe in matter of a few seconds, one can quickly rebut news without communist secretaries or the heads of NASA, the FBI and the CIA putting a stop to it? At a time when an employee of some other ‘Chernobyl’ can take photos or film his superior giving him orders leading directly to a disaster?

Numerous events in the past few years have demonstrated that no matter how much has technology progressed and changed our lives, human nature remained the same as in 1986, when, one day in April, pressing a button at the Vladimir Ilich Lenin nuclear power plant put a whole continent into a huge peril because of which millions of people suffered decades later.

Pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath and sloth are not just the "seven mortal sins" based on which many Hollywood thrillers were filmed. Each of these "deadly sins" combined with modern technology and unfortunate circumstances can still bring the world to the brink of cataclysm.

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WE RECOGNIZE THE NEEDS FOR MUTUAL CONNECTIVITY AND COOPERATION ZORAN ZAEV

GOVERNMENT DEDICATED TO COMBATING VIOLENCE AGAINST ELDERLY PEOPLE

Prime Minister of North Macedonia

World Elder Abuse Awareness Day

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WE’VE BEEN THROUGH SIMILAR CHALLENGES H.E. MOHAMMED NABHAN Palestinian Ambassador to Serbia

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REFORMING PUBLIC ENTERPRISES IS A CHALLENGE VLADIMIR VUČKOVIĆ

Member of the Fiscal Council of Serbia

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ROBERT ČOBAN Director

US DOESN’T HAVE A SOLUTION FOR KOSOVO - SERBS AND ALBANIANS HAVE TO FIND IT THEMSELVES www.diplomacyandcommerce.rs

TANJA BANKOVIĆ

Editor in Chief

JOVANA MARKOVIĆ

Advertising manager

tanja.bankovic@color.rs

jovana.markovic@color.rs

SANJA ŠOJIĆ

DRAGANA RADOVIĆ

sanja.sojic@color.rs

dragana.radovic@color.rs

ILIJA PETROVIĆ INDIGOCHILD

JELENA RANĐELOVIĆ

Journalist

Art director

indigochild.ilija@gmail.com

NATAŠA NEŠIĆ

Advertising director natasa.nesic@color.rs

Advertising manager

Advertising manager

jelena.randjelovic@color.rs

VANJA KOVAČEV

PR&Event support Nord Communications vanja.communications @gmail.com

RUŽA RISTANOVIĆ Magazine director

ruza.ristanovic@color.rs

ROBERT ČOBAN Director

robert.coban@color.rs

Photos

GORAN ZLATKOVIĆ

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I’M SHOWING THE ABSURDITY OF SERBIAN POLITICS DRAGOLJUB LJUBIČIĆ MIĆKO Actor and comedian

47

I PERSISTED IN MAKING PAINTING MY LIFE CALLING GALA ČAKI Painter

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WE ALWAYS GO BACK TO SHAKESPEARE NIKITA MILIVOJEVIĆ

STEVEN MEYER

Former CIA Deputy Chief for the Balkans

Theatre director and creator of the Shakespeare Festival

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FOCUSED ON PROJECT IMPLEMENTATION VLADIMIR GALIĆ

Provincial Secretary for Urbanism and Environmental Protection

THE SUBJECTS OF MÜNCHAUSEN, LENIN AND SHERIFF Reportage by Robert Čoban

Translation SNEŽANA BJELOTOMIĆ Print

ZLATNA KNJIGA Jagodina, Bagrdanski put bb

”Color Media Communications” LTD, 21132 Petrovaradin, Štrosmajerova 3 TIN 107871532 • Matriculation number 20887303 · Phone: +381 21 4897 100 • Fax: +381 21 4897 126 Office: Vase Čarapića 3/IV/38, Belgrade • 011 4044 960 CIP - Katalogizacija u publikaciji Biblioteke Matice Srpske, Novi Sad 33 Diplomacy & Commerce / glavni i odgovorni urednik Žikica Milošević, 2016, br. 1 (mart)-.Novi Sad: Color Media Communications, 2016 - , -33cm Mesečno.

ISSN 2466-3808 = Diplomacy & Commerce COBISS.SR-ID 303269895

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POLITICS

Why the European Union Should not Ditch Bilateral Investment Treaties With populists corrupting courts, foreign investors need safeguards

After the fall of the Berlin Wall and before central and eastern European countries began joining the European Union in 2004, officials in Brussels strongly encouraged bilateral investment treaties (bits) between the bloc’s members and their neighbours to the east. bits are inter-governmental agreements that govern disputes between foreign investors and host states. Their purpose is to protect investors against discrimination and expropriation (disputes between companies are handled separately). The European Commission hoped they would stimulate investment in the region to the benefit of both investors and newly liberated former Soviet-bloc countries. They did. Thanks in part to these treaties, inflows of capital soared. Germany, in particular, became a big investor in Hungary and the Czech Republic. bits have become a common way to seek redress in bust-ups originating in the region, with 145

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IN PARTS OF CENTRAL EUROPE THE DOMESTIC JUDICIAL SYSTEM IS NEITHER FAIR NOR EQUITABLE, BECAUSE IT IS INCREASINGLY UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF POLITICIANS cases filed since 1989.

Over time, however, the Eurocrats have grown cooler towards bits, primarily because they are unhappy with where they are resolved. Arbitration is conducted by the International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (icsid), a World Bank body based in Washington. The European Commission argues that this is the wrong forum for all-European investment disputes. It prefers local courts to rule on them, with the European Court of Justice (ecj) as the last resort. Its stance received a boost in March 2018 when the ecj decided against Achmea, an insurer that had sued Slovakia for breach of the Dutch-Slovak bit after a change in Slovak law pro-

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hibited the distribution of profits derived from private health insurance. A German court had referred the case to the ecj, arguing that the arbitration clause in the treaty was incompatible with eu law. In the wake of the Achmea ruling the commission proclaimed that all of the more than 190 intra-eu bits must end by December this year.

The desire to resolve disputes at home rather than in an obscure court across the Atlantic would be understandable if courts across the eu could be trusted. But they can’t.

In parts of central Europe the domestic judicial system is neither fair nor equitable, because it is increasingly under the influence of politicians. In Poland the governing Law and Justice party has sub-

jugated courts by stacking the Constitutional Tribunal with its cronies and by letting parliament, rather than other judges, choose members of the National Council of the Judiciary, the body that handles judicial appointments. In Hungary the prime minister, Viktor Orban, has amended the constitution to cow the country’s judges. Last week he shelved plans to create a parallel judicial system, which would have handled cases brought against state bodies, only because he worried it would lead to his party’s expulsion from the eu parliament’s European People’s Party (it is already suspended). And the Czech prime minister, Andrej Babis, recently replaced the justice minister with a loyal foot soldier who he hopes will prevent or delay his indictment for the misuse of eu funds.

In light of the politicisation of the judiciary in much of central Europe, the thought of bits being dismantled at the end of the year fills many investors with dread. If the treaties disappear, so will much of the investment from western neighbours on which the region still heavily relies. Not surprisingly, Germany, France and Austria—all countries whose firms have big investments in central Europe—are opposed to the abolition of intra-eu bits, whereas Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary are all for it.

One solution would be the establishment of an eu body, modelled on the icsid, to specialise in investment disputes. But this would take years to set up. In the meantime, the eu should stick with bits. If it does not, investors will either steer clear of countries with unreliable judicial systems or structure their deals from countries outside the bloc that have bilateral treaties with those within it.

Either way, Europe would lose.

From The Economist, published under licence. The original article, in English, can be found on www. economist.com

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EXCLUSIVE

INTERVIEW

We Recognize the Needs for Mutual Connectivity and Cooperation North Macedonia and Serbia are friendly countries. We all work towards the same goals: peace, prosperity, better life for the citizens, reinforced regional cooperation and accelerated Eurointegrations. The investment in stability and prosperity of the Western Balkan means investing in safety and future of the Union itself ZORAN ZAEV Prime Minister of North Macedonia

It is very important, on our joint path towards EU, to alleviate and to improve the lives of our citizens. In each country of the region individually, but also in the region as whole. To have infrastructure connectivity, to simplify the procedures, for example, of customs control. To promote the region as an investment whole for foreign investors. And here, I must mention the lowered roaming prices in our region – this is a great example for regional cooperation.

In June you completed the reconstruction of the Government.

How satisfied are you and why did reconstruction ever occur?

— Two years from the work of the Government are behind us. We have left behind the deep political crisis using the necessary deep and serious reform processes in order to overcome the “captured society” and to reinstate the trust in the

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institutions, to restore the democratic environment.

The international community has recognized this, acknowledged our actions. It recognizes us as an equal partner, as a regional factor, in Europe and the world. This year we received the most positive report so far, as of the moment when we became a candidate country for membership; a report with clear and unconditioned recommendation for the European Union

policies and the results are visible.

Last year we had 737 million dollars in foreign direct investments compared to 205 million dollars from last year or, by 260% bigger compared to the average of the previous years. The labour market is significantly stirred. The unemployment is decreasing on fast rate. The State Statistical Office has announced that the unemployment in the first quarter is 17.8%.

This means that the unemploy-

WE HAVE LEFT BEHIND THE DEEP POLITICAL CRISIS USING THE NECESSARY DEEP AND SERIOUS REFORM PROCESSES IN ORDER TO OVERCOME THE “CAPTURED SOCIETY” to commence the membership negotiations. The NATO Accession Protocol is in its final stage and we expect in December, on the London NATO Summit to become the official 30th member-state.

The economy is free, the entrepreneurs feel the positive tide of changes; they accepted the measures from the economic growth

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ment has been decreased by 4.8% in the last two years.

Bold decisions, courageous solutions are ahead of us, for additional benefits for all citizens – in the social area, in agriculture, regarding wages and measures from the operative plan for new jobs.

Our next task in the following period is increase of wages. I believe

that towards the end of the year we will have sufficient financial capacities to increase the pensions, starting as of January 1st next year.

I remain on my viewpoint that I do not look at the people in the Government as people who come from a political party, from the experts areas, from the civil sector or any other party. I look at them as people who must deliver.

To me, the highest criteria is how much their job is making a positive difference from the previous policies; Whether the performances of the institution that they manage have been improved, whether they work in the interest of the citizens. This is what I expect in the future period.

During a meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin, you had received a pledge that the German Bundestag will approve the start of the North Macedonia's accession talks in September. You called the EU "the sexy lady who is attracted and motivated by the countries of the Balkans to change posi-

tively". In which way a membership of your country in the European Union would be to the benefit of your people?

— We must be sincere and admit that the fact that our country has been in EU’s waiting room for too long is not due to EU’s fault, but due to the previous government’s actions which in 11 year has not done anything to close the status of a candidate country with membership in the Union. The EU membership does not come as a gift. It must be earned. The merit comes after serious reforms conducted to achieve EU’s standards.

This means that first we must Europeanize and there is nothing wrong with that. On the contrary: one must resolve all disputes with neighbours, EU does not want to “import” problems. That is why one must establish rule of law: EU does not want “enfant terrible” among its lines. EU is solidarity based, but it does not want countries which will bring the Union their own social unresolved issues, etc.

Therefore, the Western Balkan countries were offered the Berlin

Process. A political process that complements the Euro-integration processes. It is a platform for European dialogue and cooperation; a platform that provides support to EU Enlargement Policy. It is a frame of mutual reconciliation of the Western Balkan countries using close regional cooperation and all in line of achieving economic growth and development, open

the neighbourly relations with a special emphasis on Prespa Agreement achieved with the Republic of Greece. We remain committed to the realization of the reforms in key areas such as the judiciary, intelligence and security services, fight against corruption and reforms in public administration.

This is the choice done by the Republic of North Macedonia. This

THE GOOD-NEIGHBOURLY RELATIONS AND THE REGIONAL COOPERATION MUST BE SHARED PRIORITY AND STRATEGIC OBJECTIVE AND WE MUST GO TOGETHER market economy i.e. enhanced reform progress in the interest of accelerated EU integration.

The Republic of North Macedonia, instead of waiting the EU membership to fall from the sky as a gift, started working. Today, the country has no open disputes with any of its neighbours. EU welcomes the continuous progress in all key reform areas. They especially welcome the progress of the plan for enhancement of

choice has no alternatives. The completion of these processes is just a matter of time.

The European Union is the strongest economy in the world.

This is a market of 500 million consumers. Having equal approach and having equal benefits from that market bears great significance for the country. The investment in stability and prosperity of the Western Balkan means investing in safety and future of the

Union itself. The Euro-integration processes will greatly impact the future generations. New possibilities will open for the young people: they will be free to study and work in any of the member-states.

Our citizens will have all rights and obligations, as the other citizens of the EU. North Macedonia has reached the top 20 of the EU's top achievements. What does that mean for you?

— This is a strong motivation for us, for the citizens, for our country.

First, because we received a recognition for the great, historic decisions that we adopted in only two years as of the date when this Government took power, a recognition for the accomplished reforms, for the great role that our country has played in relaxing the situation in our region. For the period after taking power, we were given homework and we were told: Deliver and we will deliver!

Even without this, we knew that we must complete the reforms and implement the Prespa Agreement and the Agreement with Bulgaria.

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We delivered reforms and full cooperation. We showed that we are ready to make bold, historic decisions and to show political maturity and European manners.

Today we are ready, both politically and institutionally. We have fulfilled our tasks, from A to Z and we are fully ready to start negotiating. Now, the EU member-states and institutions should make their move. It is Europe’s turn to deliver. We strongly believe that we deserve the trust and the decision which EU will make based on our merits.

The delivery of clear attitude on the start of the negotiations process by opening the chapter is in the interest of the European Union; for the role of EU as a global player, for its foreign policy, for the future perspectives of the region.

Opening of EU accession negotiations is the single guarantee for maintaining the domestic stability and the reform impulse in North Macedonia which will bring positive effects for the whole Western Balkan Region.

Can the Greek-Macedonian recipe serve as an example for solving the remaining disputes in the Balkans?

— Yes, the most influential leaders of the international community have recognized it as a model for resolution of the most delicate and risky political issues. This agreement has shown that not all stereotypes are rule of thumb and that when these stereotypes are broken, it creates energy for new models of behaviour and for establishment of new friendships and relations between the countries and the politicians.

While we were looking for the best solution, we chose to leave solutions for our citizens and for our societies, not for us or for our political parties. These are the features of a European leader. Europe today is a result of bold decisions of the leaders who have left traces to remember on the political stage, traces which enable us to enjoy the fruits of their vision.

What would have Europe been today if the political stage is filled with only vain and self-sufficient, short-sighted politicians who have no vision? The good-neighbourly relations and the regional cooperation must be shared priority and strategic objective and we must go together, using our ambitions for EU integration. We must unite around the fact that the history is a significant part of our identities,

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sides security and safety, means greater political, and thus, economic security.

The economic growth largely depends on the country’s capacity to secure sustainable peace and stability i.e. long-term security and political stability. The NATO membership provides greater security that improves the possibility of the country to secure political and economic stability. The EU membership shall mean entering a great and developed market thus increasing the perspectives for economic growth. This is a potential for new investments, for new jobs and reinforcement of the competitiveness of the domestic economy.

NATO membership and EU accession accelerates the progress in the democratization of the society and good governance. These are the preconditions for faster growth and development; it creates conditions for enhancement of the standard of life and quality of life of the citizens.

THE NATO MEMBERSHIP PROVIDES GREATER SECURITY THAT IMPROVES THE POSSIBILITY OF THE COUNTRY TO SECURE POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC STABILITY but it must not take the place of our future. That is why it is important to turn to the future!

North Macedonia is ready to become a member of NATO. This defence-alliance was created during the era of the Cold War between East and West. Do you think that it is still effective today?

— The small countries can hardly influence the policies and the decision making on global level. The only way to increase the impact is through integrations in supra-national organizations. By becoming

a NATO and EU member state, following the principle “equal among the equals” and the principle of solidarity, we will have the opportunity to influence the equal decision making processes in these organizations.

Besides, one must not neglect the fact that the threats on the security and peace today are not the same as those in the times of Cold War. Especially with regards to the cyber space; there is no traditional declaration of war, there is no distinction between war and peace.

One must take into consideration that the NATO membership, be-

WE ALL WORK TOWARDS THE SAME GOALS What are your relations with the authorities in Serbia?

— North Macedonia and Serbia are friendly countries, our peoples are friends and we are constantly improving the mutual cooperation and respect. The democracy must be developed and reinforced in the countries in the region. That is why we need dialogue, commitment and constructiveness on part of the parties in power, the opposition and the civil society.

We all work towards the same goals: peace, prosperity, better life for the citizens, reinforced regional cooperation and accelerated Euro-integrations. We encourage processes that bring mutually acceptable solutions for each party in a given dialogue. The dialogue, the political will and mostly, creating trust and friendship are the base for good, mutually acceptable solutions.

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Citizens of Serbia are confused.

In Serbia, we were intimidating citizens with the possibility of a Macedonian script, and people do not know what it is. They thought that if the candidate of the ruling coalition did not win, there would be some unrest in Serbia. How do you comment on this situation?

— Each country in the region chooses it own path for its development and future. This path must be an expression of the people’s will and an obligation of the leaders, no matter the side influences and interests of third parties. The Western Balkan countries need policies and leaders who have sincere approach, who are energetic and committed and who know how to assess what their citizens need, and beyond; Leaders who are ready to set the countries on the right path, without calculations.

I believe that if sometimes the Western Balkan was united and strong in its views towards the shared future, then that is now.

This is the shared future in the EU and every country in the region reaffirms this through its participation in the Berlin Process. This is a very important moment. We recognize the needs for mutual connectivity and cooperation and we have shown Europe that it is whole, safe and stable, but only with full integration of all countries which belong to it – geographically, historically, and culturally.

NATIONAL DAYS

in July & August

ARRIVALS & DEPARTURES

JULY

KIMMO LÄHDEVIRTA

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New Ambassador of Finland in Belgrade

Ambassador Kimmo Lähdevirta (59) has started his diplomatic career in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Finland in 1990. He served as Second Secretary at Permanent Mission of Finland to the UN from 1991 to 1994 in New York, then at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs from 1994 to 1998, as First Secretary at United Nations Unit and European Correspondent at Political Department. From 1998 to 2003, he was a Political Counsellor at the Embassy of Finland in London. From 2003 to 2005, he was at the position of

Director of the European Correspondent Unit, while from 2007 to 2007, he was a Director at the Unit for Security Policy in the Ministry. From 2007 to 2011, he was a Minister and Deputy Head of Mission at the Embassy of Finland in Beijing, while in 2011 he was appointed Ambassador of Finland to Vietnam. Prior to his appointment as Ambassador of Finland to Serbia in 2019, he was holding a position of Director General, at Department of the Americas and Asia at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs in Helsinki.

Declaration of independence from Spain in 1810

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BELGIUM

Leopold of SaxeCoburg-Saalfeld takes the oath as the first King of the Belgians in 1831

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EGYPT evolution Day, the R revolution of 1952

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VIRGÍNIA PINA New Ambassador of Portugal in Belgrade

Virgínia Pina was born September 30th 1969, in Barreiro, Portugal. She graduantion Law Faculty, University of Lisbon, in 1992. Pina joined the Portuguese diplomatic service in 1996. She served in the Ministry for Foreign Affairs (until 2000), in the Portuguese Delegation to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), in the Portuguese Embassy in Brasilia (Brazil). New Ambassador of Portugal in Belgrade was

COLOMBIA

LIBERIA

Proclamation of the Republic: independence from the United States in 1847

Advisor for International Relations of the President of the Portuguese Republic. She served in the Portuguese Representation to the European Union, in Brussels, from 2010 to 2014. Pina was Senior Diplomatic Advisor of the Portuguese Prime Minister, from 2014 until November 2015. She was Deputy Director-General for External Political Affairs of the Portuguese Ministry for Foreign Affairs, since December 2015.

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PERU Declaration of

independence from Spain in 1821

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MOROCCO Independence Day

MOCHAMMAD CHANDRA WIDYA New Ambassador of the Republic of Indonesia in Belgrade

H.E. Mochammad Chandra Widya, born 17 May 1965 in Jambi, earned his B.A. in International Relations from Padjajaran University, Bandung, Indonesia, before starting his diplomatic carrier in 1993, initially serving as an official of the Directorate of International Organisation at the Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He held various posts from 1997 to 2019: Second Secretary at the Embassy in Lon-

don, UK; Deputy Director of ASEAN Functional Cooperation at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Political Affairs Counsellor at the United Nations in New York; Director for ASEAN Political and Security Cooperation at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He has been appointed Ambassador of the Republic of Indonesia to the Republic of Serbia, concurrently accredited to Montenegro, as of 2019.

AUGUST

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SWITZERLAND

National Day, alliance between Uri, Schwyz and Unterwalden against the Holy Roman Empire in 1291

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MACEDONIA Republic Day

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BOLIVIA Proclamation of

16 NEWLY APPOINTED AMBASSADORS ON A NON-RESIDENT BASIS Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic received letters of credence from 16 newly appointed ambassadors in June, representing their countries on a non-resident basis.

New ambassadors are H.E. Dr Ahmed Abdulrahman Al Saati, Ambassador of the Kingdom of Bahrain, H.E. Abdus Sobhan Sikder, Ambassador of the People's Republic of Bangladesh, H.E. Carlos Aparioio Vedia, Ambassador of the Multinational State of Bolivia, H.E. Maria del Carmen Gonsales Kabal, Ambassador of the Republic of Ecuador, H.E. Kristi Karelson, Ambassador of the Republic of Estonia, H.E. Arturo

Romeo Duarte Ortis, Ambassador of the Republic of Guatemala, H.E. Sitong Zhitnotin, Ambassador of the People's Democratic Republic of Laos, H.E. Sidi Mohamed Hamed, Ambassador of the Islamic Republic of Mauritius, H.E. Ramesh Prasad Kanal, Ambassador of the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, H.E. Eniola Olaitan Adzaji, Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, H.E. Raul Salasar Kosio, Ambassador of the Republic of Peru, H.E. Maria Fe Tanabe Pangilinan, Ambassador of the Republic of the Philippines, H.E. Gardelito Gordon Ruben Hju A Ki, Ambassador of the Republic

Republic (independent from Spain) in 1825

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JAMAICA Independence Day

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ECUADOR Independence Day

of Suriname, H.E. Elizabeth Paul Napeyok, Ambassador of the Republic of Uganda, H.E. Dang Tran Fong, Ambassador of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam and H.E. Kristin Kaseba-Sata, Ambassador of the Republic of Zambia.

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PAKISTAN Independence Day

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INDIA Independence Day

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INTERVIEW

We’ve Been Through Similar Challenges Palestine and Serbia are celebrating 30 years since the establishment of diplomatic relations

H.E. MOHAMMED NABHAN Palestinian Ambassador to Serbia

The Ambassador of Palestine, H.E. Mohammed Nabhan has been linked to Serbia for several decades - he studied in Belgrade, his children were born here, and since 2006, he has been the Palestinian ambassador. In an interview with Diplomacy & Commerce, the Ambassador talks about the celebration of 30 years of diplomatic relations between the two countries, while hoping that Serbia will soon open an embassy in Ramallah, as well as about what connects the two peoples who have gone through similar challenges.

In the 1960s and the early 1970s, numerous students from Arab countries studied in Serbia, yourself included. How would you describe that phenomenon?

— Back then there was Yugoslavia, which was the leader of the NonAligned Movement and was developing the relations with the Arab and other countries that made the

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Movement, in all possible aspects.

The exchange between the then Yugoslavia and those countries, especially the Arab ones, was enormous in all areas, including culture, tourism and education, and this explains the phenomenon of a huge number of people from Palestine, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Libya and other Arab countries studying in Belgrade and other centres of former Yugoslavia. I can vouch that the students who graduated in Serbia now occupy high positions in society, the administration of

What connects Palestine and Serbia? How would you rate the relations between them?

— Palestine and Serbia are connected by adherence to international law and international legitimacy. Our states are trying to use international law to achieve and consolidate their independence.

Both countries are under the pressure of great powers while trying to preserve their independence. It's not easy. That is why Palestine and Serbia have a wide political space for cooperation and mutual assis-

TODAY, A COUNTRY’S WORTH IS MEASURED

BY HOW MANY FRIENDS IT HAS their countries and represent the bridges of friendship and cooperation between their respective countries and Serbia. For instance, the former Palestinian Minister of Foreign Affairs was a former Belgrade dental student and there were also five ambassadors who studied in Serbia. These people are now renowned businessmen and members of local governments in the Palestinian cities they live in.

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tance. This year, the two countries are celebrating thirty years since the establishment of diplomatic relations, and they will both mark this jubilee in their own way.

We are going to have a lot of guests from Palestine and hold a series of meetings which will improve the relations between our two countries in all directions.

The opening of the Serbian Embassy in Ramallah is also expected

to contribute to the improvement of relations in various segments.

I hope that that will come soon.

Palestinians are diligent and educated people and as such, they are present in the economies of many Arab countries, especially in the Gulf States. Wherever they are, they seek to develop economic relations between the said countries and Serbia, which is clearly seen in the investments that the Gulf States made in Serbia. The external trade between Palestine and Serbia is also developing but it is difficult to express it in numbers because Palestinian business people often come and make business deals in Serbia as citizens of other countries.

How similar are the mindsets of an average Serb and an average Palestinian?

— Serbs and Palestinians have gone through similar challenges.

Both of them had a part of their territory snatched away, they were treated badly by certain great powers, some of their people have been turned into refugees, and they were both targets of aggres-

sion and attacks. That's why their view of the world is similar. They see the world through the filter of justice, morals, honour and the values that are, unfortunately, increasingly less present in politics.

They are sensitive to the issue of their independence and national identity. The explanation for this probably lies in the fact that they were, in some ways, deceived by many, as well as by those which they thought were the closest to them. Palestinians and Serbs have never been a source of evil, nor have they participated in conquering other territories and aggressive wars. That is why they feel that they suffered from somewhat unfair treatment, while both of them have been trying to exercise their inalienable rights and using peaceful methods to achieve them.

I hope that this will be enabled to them soon.

advocate it for Serbia as well. The Serbs have always been tied to Kosovo. However, the Jews did not live in Palestine until the end of the First World War, more specifically after the implementation of the Balfour Declaration. Since then, the suffering and injustice done to the Palestinian people culminated in the creation of the state of Israel in 1948 and the expulsion of nearly a million Palestinians from their towns and villages. The very fact that Palestine and Serbia have a political issue for which they seek support on the international plane has created conditions for the coordination

How would you comment on Serbia supporting Palestine’s bid for UN membership?

of activities and mutual support in various international organizations and institutions, which, in turn, required regular harmonization of stances and collaboration in many segments.

— Of course, Serbia supports Palestine in front of the international institutions whenever it can, and Palestine highly appreciates this, both its President Abbas and all the Palestinians. For this reason, Palestine also, wherever it is deemed necessary, votes in favour of Serbia, and advocates respect for Serbia’s right to rectitude and territorial integrity. We have been helping each other regarding this issue.

We also seek the implementation of Security Council resolutions relating to Palestine. You cannot ask something for yourself, and not for the others.

International legitimacy must apply equally to all. Since we want that for our country, we have to

mined and they cannot be defined to suit everybody’s taste - there is already international law in place, and there is the UN that is responsible for peace and security in the world and possesses tools for resolving international disputes.

This organization adopted a series of resolutions concerning the Palestinian question and the issue of Kosovo. We must adhere to these resolutions.

If everyone wants to push their version of the solution, we will get chaos or strained relationships.

As far as the Palestinians and the Israelis are concerned, and there are a total of 14 million of them

THE OPENING OF THE SERBIAN EMBASSY IN RAMALLAH IS ALSO EXPECTED TO CONTRIBUTE TO THE IMPROVEMENT OF RELATIONS IN VARIOUS SEGMENTS

Do you think that the peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians, and the Serbs and Kosovo Albanians is attainable?

— I am convinced that the peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians, and the Serbs and Kosovo Albanians is attainable. We all need to look towards the future and not live in the past, because you can learn a lesson from history, but you don’t have to live in it. We need to agree on the criteria and the platform in order to reach a solution. These criteria and platform cannot be arbitrarily deter-

today (of which 7 million Jews and 7 million Palestinians), all living in a narrow strip stretching between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea which the Israeli call Israel and the Palestinians call Palestine, there are two possible solutions.

Firstly, they can divide this strip of land into two neighbouring friendly states in which two peoples would foster good neighbourly relations and cooperate, or have all 14 million people live in a democratic country as equal citizens. There is no third solution.

The both nations are forced to find resources to live together as good people in that narrow space that God has not promised to one at the expense of other because God is not a real estate dealer. I hope that this reality will quickly be

absorbed into the consciousness of people who govern Israel. Ability to compromise is a virtue of wise people, and I believe there is enough of it both among the Palestinians and the Serbs.

Since you have spent many years in our country, are you familiar with all socio-political developments here in order to give a comment about Serbia's current position on the global political scene?

— Serbia now occupies a very high position on the international scene. Serbia opening to the world, renewing friendship with all countries, finding investment partners, maintaining the policy of peace and giving everybody in the region and the world a helping hand demonstrates that Serbia is the most important factor of stability in the Balkans. With the help of the Serbian President, Foreign Minister, Ivica Dačić has been very active in trying to reinstate the relations that Yugoslavia once had with Africa, Latin America and Asia in all segments, and this is commendable because, today, a country’s worth is measured by how many friends it has.

You have been living in Serbia for such a long time. Which country feels more like home – Palestine or Serbia?

— Yes, I have been living here for a very long time. I graduated in Belgrade, my three sons were born here and it is only normal that I feel I have two homelands, Palestine and Serbia. It would be great if I could split my retirement days between Palestine and Serbia. This has always been my wish and I hope it will come true.

STUDYING IN SERBIA You came to Belgrade in 1978 to continue your studies at the Faculty of Political Sciences. How did Belgrade and Serbia look then, and how do they look today?

— I have very good friends from that period. People were more open back then. It was a different system. We were treated as one of you. We lived in homes, families, dormitories. Many foreigners got married here. It seems to me that life back then was simpler and more humble. I lived in the 4th April Dormitory for a certain period and there were Chinese students in the room next to mine. When I became the Palestinian Ambassador to Serbia, I was pleasantly surprised to find out that the Chinese Ambassador, who recently ended his term in Belgrade, was my neighbour in the dormitory.

We laughed a lot about that and reminisced

about our student days, about eating pasulj in the cafeteria and about everything that we remember fondly from those days. We also remember eating hotdogs and hot burek in Belgrade that we didn’t have to pay for. That was Belgrade back then which we remember as a city with wide streets, without too many people and not much hustle and bustle. In those times, Belgrade looked beautiful and unassuming. There were many students from Africa, Southeast Asia and Latin America staying at dormitories. Young people were hanging out at dances and went to the disco. Nevertheless, Belgrade now looks much nicer, more modern, more open and offers an interesting tourist programme to foreigners. Also, today’s Belgrade strongly aspires to become one of the main tourism metropolises in Europe justifiably so, which is very nice.

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INTERVIEW

Reforming Public Enterprises is a Challenge When we sum up our experience with the last seven years, which is how long the Fiscal Council has been existing, it is a common practice for the government to implement measures suggested by the Council a year or two earlier VLADIMIR VUČKOVIĆ Member of the Fiscal Council of Serbia

The Serbian Parliament adopted the Fiscal Council’s reports for 2018. At a public hearing, it was said that this year’s state budget would be balanced or could even record a small surplus and that the public debt would decrease in relation to the country's domestic product and in relation to the country's income. We have talked about the budget redistribution and the fiscal consolidation with Vladimir Vučković, a member of the Fiscal Council of Serbia.

Is the government more open to the Fiscal Council’s recommendations and what can we expect to see in the upcoming period?

In which way can Serbia's economy grow?

— The temporary reduction of pensions was abolished and this was one of the recommendations of the Fiscal Council for 2018.

Now, a new investment plan is announced for next year, with utility infrastructure in focus, which should already have been a priority for this year as we wrote about it earlier. When we sum up our experience with the last seven years, which is how long the Fiscal Council has been existing, it is a common practice for the government to implement measures suggested by the Council a year or two earlier.

For instance, we proposed freezing civil servant salaries and pensions

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as early as 2012, the government refused it at the time, and in late 2014, it found itself in a situation where it had to reduce them. This is the price one pays when implementing decisions is postponed.

The announced investment programme could be extremely important for Serbia's economic growth. Public investments increase economic activity in the short term because construction operatives are hired. In the long run, such investments create conditions for the development of the private sector, because entrepreneurs need basic infrastructure to be able to do their business.

Fixing the business environment is also equally important for economic growth, as is solving a huge

diciary is just as important. Can people count on the protection of their rights and contracts and how quickly will the injustice that they suffer be corrected?

What hinders the process of fiscal consolidation?

— Fiscal consolidation has been successfully implemented and Serbia and for two-three years now, the country has had public finances. We are now in the situation when we are changing the structure of public revenues and expenditures and we are no longer talking about savings. The future growth of current expenditures in the structure of current expenditure, i.e. civil servant salaries and pensions, should be limited and

WE ARE NOW IN THE SITUATION WHEN WE ARE CHANGING THE STRUCTURE OF PUBLIC REVENUES AND EXPENDITURES AND WE ARE NO LONGER TALKING ABOUT SAVINGS number of problems that bother business people such as various bureaucratic obstacles, unreasonable demands from ministries, customs, inspections, corruption, slow administration; namely, everything that stops people from doing business and investing, and makes them regret that they launched a business in the first place. These stories are not interesting in terms of macro-economy, but they are the bottom line of the Serbian economy’s slow growth.

Furthermore, the issue of the ju-

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the state should boost the significance of budgetary investments.

In the past, this process was slow and difficult – the disbursed salaries and pensions are immediately visible and are politically attractive, while investment works, by definition, are demanding and take a longer period. We need more efficiency and commitment in all stages of investments, from designing investment projects to implementing them. This requires political support, but also greater expertise.

What do you think of the redistribution of Serbia’s budget? Is the money being spent on the right things?

— The total budget expenditures, amounting to around 40% of GDP, are at the appropriate level.

Looking overall how is this budget being spent, we can see that changes are needed. Fewer subsidies, moderate growth of wages in the public sector and pensions, and a more pronounced increase in investments are the key components of a more prudent budget spending. In order to achieve this, it is necessary to reform state enterprises and to support all types of public investments, which we have already talked about. Another area that the Fiscal Council regularly focuses on is salary tax and contributions.

Two options are outlined in the 2018 Report: an increase in the non-taxable part of the earnings and a linear reduction of taxes and contributions at the expense of employers. Is there a fiscal space for further relief for businesses?

— On the public revenue side, there is no room for great relaxation, i.e. reduction of taxes and contributions. As for expenditures, we can talk about a change in the structure. This means that if we want a greater reduction in salary tax and contributions, we need to think about increasing the VAT. When we compare the tax rates in Serbia and the corresponding countries, we can see that we are

around average. In other words, our salary tax and contributions are not too big as it can often be heard publicly. What could be done is reducing the salary impost a bit more than in 2019. The extent of this reduction will depend on other decisions, and also on how much the next year's expenditures will increase. This is like the principle of communicating vessels - you cannot substantially reduce taxes if you don’t increase expenditure that the money generated from taxes covers.

The Fiscal Council has recommended on several occasions that the state should not spend money on a substantial increase in civil servant salaries and pensions, but rather that the budget funds should be spent partly on investments and partly on lowering the tax burden on salaries. In light of this, what do you think of the announced increase in salaries and pensions, and the government not introducing pay grades?

THE GROWTH OF CIVIL SERVANT SALARIES AND PENSIONS SHOULD BE CONCOMITANT TO ECONOMIC GROWTH — The growth of civil servant salaries and pensions should be concomitant to economic growth.

That is the only healthy principle which entails a 6% to 7% growth per annum because this is the projected growth of the so-called nominal GDP that is actually a benchmark for the mentioned dynamics. While pensions should be increased equally for everyone, in terms of salaries there are several strong reasons not to carry out the increase ad hoc. All civil servants should be given a coefficient that would be used to objectively assess their job and that can be used as a guideline when it comes to increasing their salaries.

This is what pay grades are all about and their implementation has been delayed for years. This is not good since we still have a system that is rife with huge illogical-

ities and disparities. Nobody even knows how much civil servants actually earn. All we have are certain averages that give a very vague picture. Pay grades are the only segment that we are not happy with.

There are coefficients determined for some civil servants but not for all. The employees of the Interior Ministry were a separate category.

There is no reason for employees who both work in administration and are doing the same job but in different ministries to have different salaries. And that is the case in Serbia today.

The Fiscal Council says that the state budget weathered the storm. What challenges lie ahead?

— Reforming public enterprises is a challenge. They need to be more successful and more professional

in order to invest more funds and spend less on the wrong things.

Public enterprises should be part of a successful development story, not a constant threat to the budget.

It is, therefore, necessary to reduce the number of employees in them, control salaries, expel political influence, and reduce corruption.

Another important area is the construction of communal infrastructure and advances in the field of environmental protection since we live in a country that is extremely polluted and where people do not have the basic prerequisites for a normal life. I am talking about water supply grids, sewer, landfills, wastewater treatment and the like.

As much as people and business community are damaged by a low living standard, they are perhaps even more damaged by the living conditions that are unworthy of the 21st century Europe. The third thing is to keep controlling salaries in the public sector and pensions this was most often the reason for the destruction of public finances in the past.

FINANCIAL SITUATION IN LOCAL SELF-GOVERNMENTS The Fiscal Council has repeatedly warned about a poor financial situation in certain cities and municipalities. What's the situation like today?

— The situation is better because some local authorities have begun to collect more responsibly their respective public revenues and behave more prudently towards costs. Local public enterprises now operate better, and they are less dependent on local budgets. However, this is, for a good part, a result of favourable circumstances like, for

instance, a good ratio between a favourable price of gas and payment of heating bills. These and similar circumstances could change, which shows that local public finances are not permanently well-regulated and that there is still much work to be done.

Local public investments are lacking and the state is expected to help with that. This fact shows that future public investments will be demanding and that strong coordination between all levels of government will be required.

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INTERVIEW

US Doesn’t Have a Solution for Kosovo - Serbs and Albanians Have to Find it Themselves If you look at US history in Balkans since 1992 on, they made a mess of things ton, Milošević was there not really so much to represent Serbia in the discussion, but to represent Bosnian Serbs. Interesting thing is that Bosnian Serbs never approved that; that was not something that they wanted. It was just a deal struck between the US and Milošević.

But what it meant for Milošević, at least what he thought it meant for him, was that he had a strong ally in Washington. As time went on Milošević became less important for the US. Washington was less interested in supporting him. Of course, by the time 1999 and Kosovo issue came, he no longer was America’s guy. As a matter of fact, America disowned him. He wasn’t useful anymore.

Looking back, would you change anything regarding your work in the Balkans? What does it look like from your perspective today?

STEVEN MEYER Former CIA Deputy Chief for the Balkans

In an interview with Diplomacy and Commerce, Steven Meyer, former CIA deputy chief for the Balkans, talks about the current situation in Kosovo, Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as America’s influence in our region.

What were the CIA's tasks in the Balkans in the late 1980s and early 1990s?

— It was to collect intelligence.

In very early days in the 1980s, the task was to collect as much intelligence about what was going on in Yugoslavia as possible because we saw danger signs in the collapse of Tito`s system, and we had to collect as much as we could information.

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In the 1990s, we were here more, because of the war, and it was again mostly to collect information. We tried not to favor anyone's side, because that made it easier for us to go to all three ethnic groups.

That got a lot more difficult as time went on, to stay neutral.

At that time, Slobodan Milošević was in power in Serbia. Did the US administration play a pivotal role in him becoming the president?

— No, well, that is a different question. We did not actively help him to become president, but he was an American guy at one point in time.

Richard Holbrook went to Milošević to use him to influence the Bosnian Serbs. So, in that sense, he was an American guy; in the sense that he said he could deliver Bosnian Serbs. When he went to Day-

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— That’s a great question and yes, I think there are things that CIA and intelligence could have done better; collect better from all three sides. But the more difficult question is a question of policy. There were often strong disagreements

lims.” CIA argued very strongly that if we kept doing that, the Muslim army would become stronger and that would be an incentive for them to attack the Serbs, so the war would continue. That was one example of something that we felt we could have done better. There were several things along the way, but that was an important one.

Another important thing was the impact of the Dayton; an annex form which is the constitution of Bosnia, which was negotiated with Milošević, Izetbegović and Tudjman, but no Bosnian Serb representative. Nobody represented them except Milošević. Some of us were arguing that the objective was to create Bosnia as a multiethnic, democratic, free enterprise country, but when we analyzed the Dayton accord, we said that it would have the opposite effect, mainly you would structure two entities and they would have, by the constitution, a special relationship with their mother countries.

CIA realized that if you create these entities and you say that Croatian entity can have a special relationship with Croatia, and the Serb entity can have a special relation-

INSTEAD OF MEETING WITH ENGEL, VUČIĆ AND THACI OR DAČIĆ AND HARADINAJ SHOULD MEET between the State Department and CIA, and the White House also.

The White House and State Department decided, at one point, that Bosnian Serbs were much stronger than the Muslim army and that we had to train and equip. That was a program - to make the Muslim army even with the Bosnian Serbs.

CIA argued that two armies are equal, but the White House and State Department said no – “we still have to do more for the Mus-

ship with Serbia, you are already establishing ethnic communities, and that was not what we were supposed to be doing according to the White House. We argued this but it was not accepted. As a matter of fact, Richard Holbrook became very angry when we reminded him that this would probably happen.

The main point was that although many people here thought that the all departments in the US government had the same position, and

that was not true. There were a lot of disagreements and a lot of anger and a lot of disappointments, and it was not just CIA. Sometimes, the Department of Defense would argue with us. So, it was train, equip and Dayton agreement.

What is your assessment of the situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina?

— What you have now is essentially a fictitious country, the country on paper. There is no national government since the last election.

And that is because the national government is not that important, as the real power centers are in ethnic communities and the entities - especially the Serbs and the Muslims. Croats are a little different - they are a declining population and and they are much smaller and concentrated in Herzegovina. If you look around Banja Luka, what you have is all the trophies of the state, a large complex of the government buildings. The US embassy was very opposed to Dodik and Bosnian Serbs buildings. The US wants Bosnia to be the state. That’s not going to happen. The American policy has not been changed for 25 years. Everything around changes but not the US policy.

What do you think of the recent meeting between President Vučić and US Congressman Eliot Engel?

— It is not going to resolve anything at all. The US has had the same policy since 1999. They recognized Kosovo as an independent state in all its boundaries, including the area north of the Ibar River.

It is a matter of leadership in both Pristina and Belgrade to keep looking to the major powers, to the US, Russia and the EU for answers, but the problem is they don’t have an answer. Instead of meeting with Engel, Vučić and Thaci or Dačić and Haradinaj should meet. And I know that that is very difficult for the Serbs because they are pictured

as war criminals in Serbia. But my take is this - for next couple of years, progress is not going to be made in Kosovo until Belgrade and Pristina sit down and talk. It will take two-three years. They should say to the US, Russia and the EU to stay out and to not be included. I know there are people here who say “well, we have to bring the US in”. That is a mistake in my view.

They are not consistent in what Serbia wants, so I don’t understand why the Serbian government wants to include the US. If you look at the US history in Balkans since 1992 onward, they made a mess of things. The US policy has never understood this region, and they particularly have never understood the depth and the importance of ethnic identification.

So, they think that it is very easy to create Bosnia and very easy to cre-

and recognized its borders. That is a border change. That is a violation of Helsinki final accord. But there are areas where they say no, and we are not going to recognize border change. When I gave a lecture at Banja Luka University, the students talked a lot about these issues, we talked about it, and I said why couldn’t there be a referendum. I asked three questions. Do you want to be a part of Bosnia? Do you want to be independent? Do you want to be a part of Serbia? There are problems with each of those. Being a part of Serbia would require Serbia to want it, but the Serb government doesn’t support that. They don’t support it because they are afraid of the western reaction.

I think that honest development, an honest solution would be, quite frankly, that everything north of the Ibar River belongs

THE MEETING BETWEEN PRESIDENT VUČIĆ AND US CONGRESSMAN ELIOT ENGEL IS NOT GOING TO RESOLVE ANYTHING AT ALL. THE US HAD THE SAME POLICY SINCE 1999 ate Kosovo, both multiethnic, but that is not going to work, and it is not going to work for a long time.

You see, the US, Russia and the EU are not honest brokers. They have their own agendas, and what really has to happen is that you have to have courageous leadership, in both Belgrade and Pristina, to sit down and begin to work out what the major issues are and put everything on the table.

You have supported the demarcation plan for Kosovo. Is there a realistic chance for the plan to be implemented?

— It is possible, it happened before, in Montenegro. That was something that the UN and the EU supported; they supported border change. The US is supporting the border change of Serbia. The US supported independent Kosovo

to Serbia. I know there are Serbs in the south and I am sorry and my heart is with them but it`s not going to come back. But there are enclaves, Serbian enclaves, in the south, holy places, churches, monasteries, Kosovo Polje... I think that agreement can be made that for this to be under the UN protection.

If there is an agreement like that, and if there are Serbs, living south of the Ibar River who don’t want to live under the Kosovo government, then, I think, the UN should pay for them to be moved. This has happened before. I think that the key is to respect the ethnic identity for now. Maybe in 20 to 25 years, it may be different. But if they can come to some kind of agreement like that, then they can begin to work on economic issues.

Is it possible for a country to

have good relations with the United States, Russia and China simultaneously, without major consequences?

— I have a friend in a Serbian ministry, Nenad Popović. We talked for hours about economic development across the border. This thing can be done. I like Vučić, we get along. I think he has done some things quite well. The neutral position on the US sanctions towards Russia is right. And when pressurized by the US for Serbia to join NATO, he said “no”. I think he is right on that. But I think that he and other Serbian leaders and Albanian Kosovo leaders are so afraid to make a bold step without the approval of their sponsors.

The problem with the Balkans is that for, so many centuries, it has been under somebody’s rule - the Ottomans, the Austrians, the Russians, the Germans, and even the countries that are not close to Serbia such as France and Great Britain who had a great influence. The leaders of this part of the world are not used to dealing with these issues on their own.

My suggestion is that they turn a new leaf. It has to be a new commitment. There is this feeling of victimhood - Serbs are victims, Croats are victims, everybody is a victim here. June 28th is your most important holiday, and what does it depict? The worst defeat that Serbia had which ended the medieval kingdom. And that is what is celebrated?! Nobody else does that. You celebrate your victories, your glories. What I am saying is, and this is very frustrating for me, as a person who really likes this place, to say - in this part of the world, I think the problem is there are no opportunities for countries in modern times. This is the first time that Serbia really had the freedom to determine its own future. Oftentimes, I have been asked what does Washington want, but I always answer to that with “what do you want”.

NATO Since all countries in the region have joined NATO, do you think Serbia should become a member too?

— No. What’s the point?! When Croatia joined NATO, I was wondering for what purpose - who is going to attack Croatia and who is going to attack Serbia. Nobody is going to do that now. Even if it were to happen and if both countries were in NATO, and there was a conflict, NATO would not be able to pick a side. NATO has essentially outlived its usefulness. What does

Croatia get from NATO? What does Albania get from NATO? All it means is that now the US can go to these countries and say we need soldiers to send to Afghanistan / Iraq. You know when Albania was considering joining NATO, the defense minister at the time was a friend of mine, and I kept asking him, what possible reason would Albania have for joining NATO. Well, he said, it put them at the big table. But their seat would be in the back! All NATO does is add to the making of a new cold war, because it antagonizes Russia.

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CORPORATE

Consumers’ Loyalty is Priceless

Responsibility towards consumers is the foundation of the company’s present and future success, while buyers’ loyalty is the best indicator of their satisfaction with the product and service quality

PAVEL KANDALINTSEV Director of NIS Retail Department

Pavel Kandalintsev, Director of NIS Retail Department, speaks about the latest tendencies in petroleum product retail, consumer expectations and needs and how NIS, as the leading supplier of petroleum products in the Serbian market, has been continuously improving its product and service quality.

NIS is the leader in the domestic petroleum product market and a company that has the largest network of petrol stations in Serbia. How hard is it to meet the needs of modern customers?

— Latest tendencies in petroleum product retail provide guidelines which companies follow in their market conduct. When choosing a petrol station, consumers are not only guided by fuel quality and range, but also by the degree to which the portfolio of the services offered and the quality of the offer live up to their expectations. Fortunately, we have identified such tendency on time. As a company that puts consumers first, we strive to continuously be responsive to the needs and requirements of our consumers and to improve the

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quality of services and offer at our petrol stations.

How have you improved the offer at the petrol stations?

— As a company which manages a retail network comprising more than 400 NIS Petrol and GAZPROM petrol stations in Serbia and in the region, for quite some time NIS has been aware of the importance of investing in development and modernisation of the retail network. The large investment cycle, that started in 2012, was preceded by investments into processing capacities in the Pančevo Oil

coffee, a wide range of sandwiches, drinks and cakes, developed under our own brand Drive Café, Jazak water, G-Drive energy products, G-Drive sporting equipment, etc. As a result, the market share of the mentioned products that are sold under our own brand has been continuously growing. In terms of private brands, in 2018, NIS launched no less than 23 new products, and last year, their sales at our petrol stations increased by 28% in relation to the previous year. Furthermore, we are building the consumer brand through a series of special offers, which the company uses to thank its consumers for being loyal. This means that consumers can find one of the products from a wide range of Drive Café and G-Drive products in promotional packages which are sold at attractive prices.

You have been successful in developing the Sa Nama Na Putu loyalty programme. What makes

OVER 600,000 SATISFIED USERS IS THE BEST PROOF THAT THE NIS LOYALTY PROGRAMME HAS LIVED UP TO CONSUMERS’ EXPECTATIONS AND EARNED THEIR TRUST Refinery. By doing so, we paved the way for a range of petroleum products that comply with the European quality standards at our petrol stations. At the same time, we worked hard on improving the offer by expanding the range of consumer goods and by developing the products under our own brands G-Drive and Drive Café.

These include several dozens of items available in Drive Café restaurants, such as top quality

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this programme stand out from other programmes and what does it offer to consumers?

— Four years ago, NIS launched its own loyalty programme named Sa Nama Na Putu (“On the road with us”). In this way, the owners of Sa Nama Na Putu loyalty cards can receive bonus points for each and every purchase of fuel, products, or services, which they can later use to reduce their bill at NIS Petrol and GAZPROM petrol stations,

thus having substantial savings.

Although this programme has produced remarkable results from the very beginning, we did not stop there. In collaboration with Sberbank Serbia, in early 2018, we improved the Sa Nama Na Putu loyalty card by making it a payment card, allowing consumers to make deferred payments of up to 45 days. This is a unique offer in the domestic petroleum product market. In addition to the deferred payment option, this is a quick, simple and completely automatic process of submitting an application for this payment option, which consumers can do at certain NIS Petrol and GAZPROM petrol stations without the need to go to a bank. Also, consumers can settle all of their card payables at any NIS Petrol and GAZPROM petrol stations. This improvement in our services is a result of us striving to meet the needs of our consumers while optimising their monthly expenses, but also enabling a more efficient time and budget management.

So far, the results show that we are on the right track. In 2018 alone, more than 34,000 applications for the new card were submitted. Also, the share of people using the services under the Sa Nama Na Putu programme in the company’s total sales to natural persons reached 60% last year.

Over 600,000 satisfied users is the best proof that the NIS loyalty programme has lived up to consumers’ expectations and earned their trust. It is exactly the trust of our consumers that keeps us motivated to continuously improve the quality of our products and services at our petrol stations, since this is what a leader is expected to do.

CORPORATE

How Much Does the Most Expensive Apartment in Belgrade Cost?

Photo: Promo

An exclusive location is definitely one of the key factors influencing the price per square metre of an apartment, along with functionality, equipment and vicinity of all necessary institutions, which are also factors with a strong impact on the price of living space

Can you imagine going directly down to a spa centre on your residential building ground floor after a hard day at work and returning to your apartment fresh and re-energised after relaxation?

There’s no need to imagine, because that option is right in front of you, at one of the most popular locations – the Kneza Miloša Residence complex, which will include a luxury spa centre covering 2,000 square metres within its modern condominium. The centre will offer a large swimming pool, saunas, relaxation rooms and comprehensive fitness elements.

Each of the 226 apartments is well organised with functional layout and specific focus on design.

Every apartment is a “story for itself” with secured market value.

Apartment sizes range from 30 to 180 square metres, in the form of studios, one-, two- and three bedroom apartments and penthouses,

THE KNEZA MILOŠA RESIDENCE APARTMENTS ARE BUILT UPON THE HIGHEST GLOBAL STANDARDS, GUARANTEEING MAXIMUM COMFORT AT THIS PRESTIGIOUS LOCATION with an option of having a garden, balcony, open or roof terrace.

Another advantage of living in such a complex is that each residential unit has a separate entrance with a reception desk and

marble hall. Positioned between the wings, stands a unique atrium with a space for a restaurant and small office unit.

Part of the project includes a landscaped promenade with green-

ery plateau and more than 400 underground private parking spots. It is important to note that construction quality also strongly influences the price per square metre.

Special attention in construction has to be focused on material quality and the latest technical solutions.

The Kneza Miloša Residence apartments are built upon the highest global standards, guaranteeing maximum comfort at this prestigious location.

AVRAM GRANT HAS ALREADY CHOSEN HIS APARTMENT More than a half of the apartments have already been sold, with future tenants including CEOs, diplomats, lawyers and architects. One of them is also a celebrated football coach and former sports director of the FC Chelsea from London, who led the team through the Champions League and the memorable final match in Moscow in 2008, Avram Grant.

Photo: Promo

Photo: Starsport

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CORPORATE

The Synergy of The Best Solutions

Vojvodjanska banka has become a modern and profitable bank, with successful business indicators and ambition to become the most dynamic and most promising financial institution in the Serbian market

PREDRAG MIHAJLOVIĆ President of the Executive board /CEO of Vojvodjanska banka, OTP Group

Vojvodjanska banka and OTP bank Serbia have recently completed one of the most complex integrations in the domestic financial market. The Integrated Bank is currently the sixth largest bank in the Serbian market, with almost 6% of market share, more than one million clients and the third largest branch network.

What does the integration mean for the business of Vojvodjanska banka and thus the OTP Group in Serbia?

— By completing the integration, Vojvodjanska banka has become a modern and profitable bank, with successful business indicators and ambition to become the most dynamic and most promising financial institution in the Serbian market. In the past year, despite the integration process, Vojvodjanska banka and OTP Bank Serbia achieved the overall best performance in the past ten years.

We have succeeded in uniting the tradition of Vojvodjanska banka and extremely advanced technology and innovation of OTP. And the real question is what does all of this mean for our one million clients? We have introduced and will continue introducing new services, primarily digital ones. The new Vojvodjanska banka offers an extended range of products and services to clients, representing the synergy of the best solutions, greater efficiency, excellent coverage by 148 branches across the country, innovation culture,

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and the support of the parent OTP Group as the dominant regional banking group in the Central and Eastern European market.

In addition to Vojvodjanska banka, do you have any other acquisition in your plan in our country and in the region?

— The Bank is a member of OTP Group, the largest financial services provider in Hungary and a dominant regional banking group in the CEE market. The banking group is present in 10 countries in the region including Hungary, with a client base of 18.5 million in Hungary and in its subsidiaries in Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Montenegro, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia and Ukraine. Total assets of OTP Group reached the amount

What potential for growth do you see in our market, why is OTP Group expanding in Serbia?

What are the opportunities that you see in the banking sector?

— In all markets where it is operating OTP Group takes one of the leading roles. The same ambition exists in our country to become, simultaneously through organic growth and new acquisitions, one of the most important financial institutions. We are already on this path, having in mind that the National Bank of Serbia has recognized us as a systemically important bank for the financial system of Serbia and that we are now the sixth largest bank in our country.

Consolidation is an inevitable process which is becoming increasingly present in our banking sys-

CONSOLIDATION IS AN INEVITABLE PROCESS WHICH IS BECOMING INCREASINGLY PRESENT IN OUR BANKING SYSTEM, AND IN MARKET CONSOLIDATION WE SEE OUR OPPORTUNITIES AND DON’T WANT TO MISS THEM of EUR 45.4 billion with the highest Group’s profitability among European banking groups at end-2018 of over EUR 1 billion.

OTP Group is constantly interested in further expanding and growth, thus it has recently expanded to markets of Moldova and Slovenia, while in Serbia in late December 2018 it announced the signing of the agreement to acquire 100% ownership of Societe Generale Bank Serbia. Following the successful completion of this transaction, OTP Group's market share will be even more evident in Serbia, fulfilling thereby our goals for achieving optimal size.

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tem, and in market consolidation we see our opportunities and don’t want to miss them. I will give you an example of Vojvodjanska banka, which in the first four months of this year achieved a profit of 58.7 million euros, in a period when we worked hard to complete the integration. The realised growth through enhancement of services, more competitive products and different client approach is the reason why our total retail and corporate loans achieved significant double-digit growth. I would like to emphasise that the most significant contribution both to the successful integration and gen-

erated profit was given by Bank’s employees who through their work enabled the Bank to once again become, in less than two years, a noticeable market competitor after a longer period of time.

OTP Group is in Hungary oriented to digitalization and is a leader in that area. What are the plans for development in that aspect in Serbia?

— During the integration process, we encountered numerous challenges, including those in the field of digitalization. By merging the banks, we have gained knowledge and experience of OTP Group and immediate improvements such as enhanced visual identity with improved client customer experience. OTP Group is a pioneer in digitalization and for 25 years it has proactively been operating in the field of digital transformation of its operations, and in the last three years alone has implemented a number of innovative solutions in the financial market. Specific novelties in addition to conventional mobile applications and e-banking include advanced E2E product development that is slowly replacing the current B2B principle as well as digital solutions for easier and more efficient personal transaction processing. Some of these solutions are partially present on the banking market of Serbia, but not fully adjusted to the needs of clients. However, the development of products, services or applications on an individual basis is not the essence of digital transformation for us, but it lies in the integration of the entire ecosystem of organization, consumers and impact on the markets as a whole, where the focus on client is our priority.

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INTERVIEW

Focused on Project Implementation Big environmental problems, that have been created for decades, can be solved only by planned and joint action at all levels

inadequate infrastructure for its disposal. Slow resolution of these problems resulted in the situation reaching a critical level in most local self-governments. Since we don’t have a hazardous waste treatment plant, the bulk of it is either exported or temporarily stored.

VLADIMIR GALIĆ Provincial Secretary for Urbanism and Environmental Protection

"The Environmental Protection Declaration is a document that will provide the provincial government with a legal basis to co-finance environmental protection projects implemented by local self-government units, which they had not been able to do until now," said the Provincial Secretary for Urbanism and Environmental Protection, Vladimir Galić at the beginning of the interview.

In late June, you carried out a campaign called "The Week for Cleaner Vojvodina". Can you tell us what is the current situation with environmental protection in Vojvodina like?

— “The Week for Cleaner Vojvodina” is an introduction to the activities that stem from the implementation of the Environmental Protection Declaration in the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina. The Environmental Protection Declaration expresses the readiness of the provincial authorities to identify priorities for the upcoming period, formulate strategies, projects and opportunities for cooperation, as well as to commit

20

to devising and making key policy decisions that ensure the protection and adequate management of natural values based on environmentally friendly solutions, which are the basis for sustainable development. The state of the environment in Vojvodina cannot be characterized as satisfactory, but also not as unfavourable.

Generally speaking, neglecting environmental issues in favour of economic development has led to poor conditions in many seg-

You signed the Memorandum of Understanding stipulating implementation of a project that will revitalize the Great Bačka Canal. Can you tell us more about this project?

— The Vrbas-Bezdan canal, which is also known as the Great Bačka Canal, is part of the canal network of the Danube-Tisa-Danube hydropower system. It is 118km long.

Due to decades-long industrial and communal pollution, the canal’s segment near Vrbas poses

WASTE MANAGEMENT, CHRONIC POLLUTION OF SOME WATERCOURSES, AS WELL AS INDUSTRIAL COMPLEXES WITH OBSOLETE TECHNOLOGIES ARE CURRENTLY BURNING ISSUES IN THE AP VOJVODINA ments of the environment. Waste management, chronic pollution of some watercourses, as well as industrial complexes with obsolete technologies are currently burning issues in the AP Vojvodina. There are also specific problems such as allergy-inducing plants like ambrosia. In terms of waste, the biggest problem is unregulated dumps that are located near almost all town and villages in Vojvodina, unregulated landfills, inadequate management of all types of waste and

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one of the biggest environmental problems in this part of Europe.

The canal is mostly polluted with heavy metals, hydrocarbons and pathogenic organisms. Due to sedimentation, the water depth in certain parts of the canal is only 30-40 centimetres. Sailing is impossible, the watercourse is significantly reduced, and the living conditions around the canal in Vrbas are extremely unfavourable.

The project titled "Final Solution to the Problem of Pollution and Puri-

fication of the Great Bačka Canal" is divided into three phases due to its complexity.

The first phase involves the construction of the main collector that will connect the municipalities of Kula and Vrbas, and will ensure the collection of all municipal and industrial wastewater.

The second phase entails the construction of a central wastewater treatment plant in Vrbas.

The completion of the first and second phase is a prerequisite for the launch of the third one, which envisages the most complex part of the project - remediation of the Great Bačka Canal, which is the ultimate goal of this project. The AP Vojvodina will receive 1.1 million euro from the European Union for drafting the remediation project for the Great Bačka Canal. Consequently, after this project, it will be possible to withdraw an additional 27 million euro from the EU funds for the implementation of the project itself, which will ultimately solve the long-lasting problem of pollution of the Great Bačka Canal near Vrbas.

This year, more than one billion dinars has been allocated for the construction of wastewater treatment plants in Bačka Topola, Mali Idjoš and Temerin. How are these projects progressing?

— In terms of watercourse protection, the biggest problem is the lack of wastewater treatment in almost all populated areas and branches of industry, as well as the absence of sewage in most of the populated areas. Currently, there are 27 wastewater treatment plants in Vojvodina, of which 13 are work-

ing, but only a few meet the criteria set out in EU directives. More than 65% of industrial plants do not filter their wastewater. We are going to have to build 320 wastewater treatment plants by 2041.

It has been estimated that a total of 4.9 billion euro is needed for wastewater treatment plants. Most of the funds for future plants are expected to come from the EU and other donors, while the state of Serbia should provide 47% of the amount. Currently, mechanisms for the participation of different national sources of funding are being established. In the past three years, the provincial government invested 1.1 billion dinars in drafting a total of 123 wastewater filtering projects implemented in 39 municipalities. The preparation of required technical documentation for wastewater treatment plants in Novi Sad and Temerin municipality is underway, while this year, we expect to begin the construction of municipal wastewater treatment plants in Srbobran, Bačka Topola and Mali Iđoš.

Aside from the mentioned projects, what are your other plans?

— The Provincial Secretariat for

WASTE MANAGEMENT, CHRONIC POLLUTION OF SOME WATERCOURSES, AS WELL AS INDUSTRIAL COMPLEXES WITH OBSOLETE TECHNOLOGIES ARE CURRENTLY BURNING ISSUES IN THE AP VOJVODINA Urbanism and Environmental Protection is focused on active planning and implementation of projects aimed at protecting and improving the environment. Big environmental problems, that

have been created for decades, can be solved only by planned and joint action at all levels – the state, the provincial and the local-self government - with the participation of the public and non-govern-

mental sector and in partnership with international institutions and foundations. The regions for integrated waste management have been established, and sanitary landfills have been built in Kikinda, Sremska Mitrovica and Pančevo. The regional landfill in Subotica will soon enter a trial period.

It's in the plan is also to draft planning, urban and technical documentation for the Regional Landfill Novi Sad and Sombor. The Secretariat deals with the problems related to pollution of watercourses, land and air through the implementation of joint projects for remediation, with the installation of filters, as well as with the installation of an appropriate system of automatic and continuous monitoring. The problem with ambrosia and mosquitoes is solved by conducting an organized campaign in the territory of Vojvodina, in coordination with local self-governments. The Secretariat puts special emphasis is on working with industry in order to minimize pollution and change business strategy that will be focused on a proactive, preventive approach through the issuance of integrated permits.

Government Dedicated to Combating Violence Against Elderly People Serbia marks the World Elder Abuse Awareness Day

Protecting elderly people against violence and the adequate punishment of perpetrators is an imperative of the social responsibility for each country. In order to improve the position of elderly people, as well as other vul-

nerable social groups, the principle of respect, diversity, tolerance and non-violence should be promoted more in the society. It is especially important that this principle becomes a behaviour model and spurs young people to action, because only in this way can we im-

prove intergenerational solidarity - said Suzana Paunović, Director of the Office for Human and Minority Rights at the event held in Sremska Mitrovica on the occasion of marking the World Elder Abuse Awareness Day. The event took place under the slogan „NO to violence, YES to intergenerational solidarity!“ „The Serbian government has recognized the importance of combating violence against elderly people in our society, and in this way, it wants to draw public attention to the violence and neglect that our oldest citizens face,“ Ms Paunović underlined.

She also said that the Law on the Prevention of Domestic Violence, which entered into force in June 2017, contributed to the better and more efficient protection of all victims of domestic violence, including the elderly, adding that there was still work to

be done in this field.

Ms Paunović went on to say that accepting the fact that the perpetrator was a family member was the biggest problem in dealing violence against elderly, and that it is precisely because of that that we should not be silent when we notice that kind of violence.

Apart from Suzana Paunović, Robert Čoban, Director of the Color Press Group, Professor Ranko Raičević, PhD, Chairman of the Society for Neurology, Nadežda Satarić, Head of the Power of Friendship - Amity Citizen Association, as well as the representatives of the Ministry of Labour, Employment, Veteran and Social Affairs and the town of Sremska Mitrovica spoke at the event.

The United Nations marks 15th June as the World Elder Abuse Awareness Day. Serbia, just like any UN member, also marks this important date.

21

CORPORATE

Time is Money

We can offer any solution to clients very fast

RADO ANTOLOVIĆ CEO P&O Ports

Global trade enabler DP World the manager of P&O Ports has bought the Port of Novi Sad. The company is one of the largest port and logistics operators in the world with strong foot print across 6 continents and especially in Europe. The theoretical throughput capacity in the Port of Novi Sad is over 2 million tonnes, while, currently, the Port only manages to handle around 1 million tonnes. In this interview, Rado Antolović, CEO P&O Ports talks about further plans for the Port of Novi Sad. He has over three decades of experience across the port and maritime industries. In his previous roles as CEO of JSC NCSP and a number of senior positions with DP World, P&O Ports, MOU and APL, his team successfully set-up, restructured and managed numerous ports and marine businesses in several international locations. He holds a PhD and an MBA in transport and economics.

Now let`s talk about Serbia.

This is not a large project for us but nevertheless, it is a strategic one, because Serbia is the cross road of strategic rivers as Danube, Sava and Tisa which stretches all the way to Ukraine. Basically, rivers are roads and you can transport any kind of goods on them. Water transport is also the cheapest way of transport. In addition to that, Serbia has a lot of commodities

Can you tell us how did you decide to acquire the Port of Novi Sad? What plans do you have for the Port?

OUR VALUE LIES IN EMPOWERING AND TRAINING PEOPLE, AND WE BRING THE BEST POSSIBLE EXPERTISE WITH US

— We are a global company, and we are present in over 45 countries, managing 150 operationsin 80 locations with over 45,000 people. We also have wide scope of marine services including research vessels, port tugs, pilot boats, oil & gas support vessels, barges, specialists cargo vessels, ferries and more. In summary, we cover A to Z services in ports, logistics, free zone and special economic zones, marine and transport which includes anything to do with moving goods and creating added value to our clients and end users.

22

such as food, coal, iron and grain, and these are considered strategic commodities, so obviously, they are very important to us. The Danube flows all the way to Romania where we also have ports, the Tisa River flows to Ukraine and the Sava runs to Slovenia.

There is also the so-called New Silk Road which runs from Asia, through many eastern countries like China, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, via Ukraine, Romania and Serbia, all the way to European

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countries. That is very important for us as we have many operations in Europe. The second very important aspect for us is the acquisition of the Port of Novi Sad for the period of 25 + 25 years. We don't invest short-term, as that is not our principal policy. We are long-term investors and we employ and train local people.

We also make sure that people are doing their job extremely

well, and if they prove to be good workers, there is an opportunity for them to work for any of our overseas ports. Conceptually speaking, the plan for the Port of Novi Sad is a short-term one, as the takeover will be completed in 100 days. The 100 days plan will include all aspect of business as SHEQ, HC, Commerical & BD, Operations, Technical and financial based on the existing state of affairs to create in detail a medium to long term plan.

How satisfied are you with the business environment in Serbia?

— The government’s job is both social and political, namely to take care of political issues, strategic economic issues, to ensure stability, as well as to deal with social issues such as healthcare and pensions and topics related to major infrastructure projects. The aim is to make investments which are beneficial for the state, which will bring money in the long-run and will create added value like tax revenue and new jobs. There are a lot of educated people in Serbia but some lack experience.

Business needs educated people, and we can train them. You need investors who will not only take care of their own business but also interact with the community and be beneficial for society.

Furthermore, the state needs to attract new long term investors like DP World.

What is your plan for improving the Port of Novi Sad’s business?

— We have high business and people standards assuring safe, healthy, transparent, respectful and productive working environ-

ment. Going back to the Port of Novi Sad, our aim is for it to run it effectively and efficiently. In summary our plan is to make the best out of existing company, fulfill our obligations and invest in people, technology and assets to create added values and a long term sustainable return on investment.

Do you plan to create a free zone in the Port of Novi Sad?

— I cannot give you an answer to that at the moment, because I am not familiar with the laws that regulate free zones in Serbia. We have many free zones, like the Jebel Ali free zone which is the biggest free zone in Dubai, but that is a different story. In the Jebel Ali free zone, goods are consolidated, packed and shipped to other countries.

Today, people shop online a lot so

WE ARE LONG TERM INVESTORS AND WE EMPLOY AND TRAIN LOCAL PEOPLE the services that we provide have changed too. We will see what options the Serbian laws give us in terms of forming a free zone.

I understand that Novi Sad once had a free zone but it did not bring many benefits. Also, we always cooperate with customs providers and government bodies, like river or ship management agencies.

What benefits do you generate for the companies working with you?

— Let me illustrate this by giving you an example – you go to a supermarket and buy wonderful products. You then proceed to the checkout and have to wait

in line for at least 20 minutes to pay for your shopping. Are you happy with that? Of course not, because your time is valuable. We have a port that can do a variety of things. Our first objective is to save time, i.e. make sure that our clients goods are handled in most efficient and effective way because the time is money. We are also going to invest in new technology in order to provide new services required for modern port like storage, packing , IT solutions and transport. We can offer fast solutions tailor-made to all our clients. If the client needs to store something for a period of one year, in different conditions and at

different temperatures, we can do that too. We have many available options and this is our value.

We are also looking to expand our business to include, for instance, passenger transport. River transport is becoming very popular. We see growth in Belgrade and we see growth in Novi Sad. Maybe, in the future, we can improve the passenger pier, and provide other passenger logistics such as vessels repair, management etc.

Also, we could provide a small tug boat required for movement of barges alongside the berths. I believe that the Port of Novi Sad can handle much more goods. We must attract new business and we have to make sure we get a bigger market share. In order to achieve that, we have to be competitive with services.

STRATEGY Are you planning more acquisitions in this region? What is your strategy?

— We are present in the port of Constanta in Romania, as well as in Ukraine, Turkey and Cyprus. We operate in Spain, France, Germany and Belgium.

We also have a lot of global projects in the future. We examine every one in detail, and our investments are strategic and long-term. We are also mindful of the return on our investments and growth, as well as achieving synergy among all our businesses. We have a focus in developing and emerging markets and origin and destination cargo and are interested in countries that are not prone to sudden and surprising changes. Of course, we have other investments too. But our value lies in empowering and training nationals, and we bring the best possible expertise with us. We train local employees to become managers one day so that they are equipped to work for a big company, and not only a local one. We are very professional and our employees feel like they belong to a big family.

23

BUSINESS

Facebook Wants to Create a Global Currency What could possibly go wrong?

For years Wall Street’s magnates have worried that Silicon Valley’s giants will shake up finance. Facebook thinks it has found a way. It will launch a digital currency, the Libra, in 2020.

Mark Zuckerberg’s firm has failed before to popularise a payments service. And it is an unlikely guardian of other peoples’ money, given its habit of privacy abuses and evasion. But like or loathe the company, its new scheme has legs. The Libra’s value will be pegged to a basket of major currencies, it will be able to handle large transaction volumes and 28 other big firms say they will join a consortium backing the currency.

If Facebook’s 2.4bn users adopt Libra to shop and transfer money, it could become one of the world’s biggest financial entities. That would herald a consumer revolution—but could also make the financial system less stable and reduce governments’ economic sovereignty.

Facebook’s interest is its own survival, since a new financial utility ties in its social-media and chat customers. Still, the digitisation of finance promises to make life easier and cheaper for billions of people. In China, where digital payments are ubiquitous, people transfer money to friends and firms within a chat app for almost nothing. In America 18bn cheques are signed every year. Fees eat up 5% of a typical cross-border transfer. And a threesome of credit-card giants skims about 0.25% from the global transactions they carry, which is worth over $30bn a year.

Many existing efforts to redesign Western finance are unreliable. Cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin have no intrinsic value or central oversight, are vulnerable to fraud and burn up electricity and computing power. Digital-payments systems such as PayPal and Apple Pay piggyback on the debitand credit-card system rather than undercut it. Facebook’s experiment with payments, launched

24

in 2015, was based on bank debit cards. It flopped.

Libra is designed to avoid these pitfalls. It will be fully backed by a reserve fund which holds mainly government bonds, limiting its volatility. The currency will be administered by an independent body that will oversee a centralised database with an anonymised record of transactions.

The system will be open, so that any firm is free to create digi-

months, has two problems (see article). First, it could disturb the stability of the financial system.

America’s biggest bank, JPMorgan Chase, has 50m digital clients. Libra could easily have ten times that number. Were every Western depositor to move a tenth of their bank savings into Libras, its reserve fund would be worth over $2trn, making it a big force in bond markets. Banks that suddenly saw lots of deposits leave for Li-

FACEBOOK’S INTEREST IS ITS OWN SURVIVAL, SINCE A NEW FINANCIAL UTILITY TIES IN ITS SOCIAL-MEDIA AND CHAT CUSTOMERS tal wallets that allow customers to use Libras. Uber, Vodafone and Spotify are among the big firms that are keen to be anchor members. A kitty is being built up to offer incentives to shops and merchants to accept Libras.

What’s not to like? Mr Zuckerberg’s initiative, which has been cooking in Menlo Park for 18

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bras would be vulnerable to a panic over their solvency; they would also have to shrink their lending.

And the prospect of huge sums flowing across borders will worry emerging countries with a fragile balance of payments.

That is where the second danger comes in: the Libra’s governance. It will be run by a Swiss as-

sociation, initially controlled by the consortium, a bit like James Bond’s nemesis, spectre. It will be independent of Facebook, though the social-media firm will supply lots of Libra users and could end up holding sway. Though Facebook says it is talking to regulators, the assumption seems to be that Libra can ultimately transcend governments and central banks.

Facebook also promises that it will safeguard users’ data. Caveat emptor.

Mr Zuckerberg used to move fast and break things. This time he is moving slowly and giving advance notice. But that cannot disguise how, though digital money has the potential to change the world for the better, it could also do a lot of harm. Governments let social media run riot. Facebook is about to discover that they will not make the same mistake with money.

From The Economist, published under licence. The original article, in English, can be found on www. economist.com

PEOPLE & EVENTS

07 3rd TRADITIONAL JUN

CANSEE SALMON DINNER

Andreja Pavlović, Executive director of the Nordic Business Alliance, Mirjana Dončić-Beaton, Executive director of the CANSEE Association, H.E. Kati Csaba, Ambassador of Canada and Aleksandar Obrenović, President of the CANSEE association

10 BELTANGO JUN

QUINTET

The 3rd Traditional CANSEE Salmon Dinner was held at the Moj Prostor restaurant. Around 70 people attended the event, including the guests of honour H. E. Kati Csaba, Ambassador of Canada to Serbia, H. E. Ruth Stewart, Ambassador of Australia to Serbia, H. E. Kimmo Lahdevirta, Ambassador of

H.E. Arne Sannes Bjørnstad, Ambassador of Norway, wife of the Ambassador of Finland, H.E. Kimmo Lähdevirta, Ambassador of Finland, Mirjana DončićBeaton, Executive director of the CANSEE association, Sanja O'Sullivan and Mr. Eugene O'Sullivan

A reception and tribute concert in honour of Beltango Quintet took place at the Residence of the Argentine Ambassador. The members of Beltango Quintet

were honoured for their artistic and professional careers, and for over twenty years of dedication to music, especially to Tango, both in Serbia and abroad.

H.E. Estanislao Angel Zawels, Ambassador of Argentina to Serbia

10 NATIONAL DAY OF JUN

PORTUGAL

H.E. Virginia Pina

Finland to Serbia, H.E. Arne Sannes Bjornstad, Ambassador of Norway to Serbia, as well as counsellor from the Embassy of Sweden, Mr. Joachim Waern and Ms. Marianne Gade Topac from the Embassy of Denmark, the members of the Nordic Business Alliance and CANSEE, business partners and friends.

H.E. Tomáš Kuchta, Czech Ambassador to Serbia and Andrea Orizio (OSCE) with his wife

The Embassy of Portugal to Serbia marked the country’s national day with the reception at the Belgrade’s Metropol Hotel. The newly appointed Ambassador of Portugal, H.E. Virginia

Pina welcomed guests. In her speech, she validated the excellent relations between Portugal and Serbia, and added that her mission was further to improve the relations between two countries.

H.E. Adam Koenraad, Ambassador of Belgium to Serbia and to Montenegro and Sem Fabrizi, Ambassador of the European Union to Serbia.

H.E. Frédéric Mondoloni, French Ambassador to Serbia and Ambassador Virginia Pina

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PEOPLE & EVENTS

12 RUSSIAN EMBASSY JUN

MARKS NATIONAL DAY

The Embassy of Russia to Serbia held a festive reception to mark the National day of Russia and the departure of the Russian Ambassador to Serbia, H.E. Alexander Chepurin after a six-year term. At the reception, Ambassador Chepurin presented his book of essays about Serbia and Serbs to President Aleksandar Vučić. The reception was attended by numerous officials, members of the diplomatic community and friends of the Russian Embassy.

H.E. Aleksandar Chepurin and Hans Friedrich Schodder (UNHCR) with their wives

H.E. Aleksandar Chepurin and Zoran Radojičić, Mayor of Belgrade

H.E. Aleksandar Chepurin, Aleksandar Vučić, Serbian President, Serbian Patriarch Irinej, Ambassador Chepurin and H.E. Chen Bo, Maja Gojković, President of the Assembly of Serbia and Ana Brnabić, Prime Minister Ambassador of China to Serbia

13 BRITISH EMBASSY IN JUN

H.E. Denis Keefe

H.E.Kyle Scott, Ambassador of USA with his wife and H.E. Denis Keef with wife

H.E.Nikolaus Lutterotti, Austrian Ambassador and U.K. Ambassador

H.E.Denis Keef and Maja Gojković, President of the Assembly of Serbia

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www.diplomacyandcommerce.rs

SERBIA CELEBRATES THE QUEEN’S 93rd BIRTHDAY

Outgoing British Ambassador to Serbia, H.E. Denis Keefe welcomed guests to mark the 93rd birthday of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. Celebration of The Queen’s 93rd Birthday was organised in the spirit of the 1980s, a period of abundant cultural, sports, scientific and other ties between Great Britain and Yugoslavia. At the event held at the ambassadorial residence Elsie Inglis House, H.E. Keefe used the opportunity to wish Serbia enough energy and courage to develop the economy, society, political system needed for entering the European Union.

Nećko Krupalija, Husband of the ambassador of Canada, H.E. Kathleen Csaba, ambassador of Canada to Serbia and U.K. Ambasador with his wife

14 COMMEMORATION JUN

OF THE AFRICA DAY

On the occasion of the Africa Day and Serbian-African friendship, African ambassadors in Serbia hosted a celebratory reception. This year’s celebration of the African Day began at the Palace of Serbia and will

H.E. Gordan Bakota, Andrea Orizio,H.E.Mohammed Nabhan,H.E. Yousef Ahmad S. Abdulsamad and H.E. Sheikh Zoran Djordjević, Minister Mubarak Fahad J.M. Al-Thani

16 CELEBRATION OF JUN

INTERNATIONAL DAY OF YOGA

be continued on 28th June with an exhibition of Egyptian artefacts at the Museum of African Art, where also Afro-festival will be held on 29th and 30th June, with Egypt being this year’s honorary guest.

H.E. Abdelhamid Chebchoub, Algerian Ambassador and Ivica Dačić, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs

The Embassy of India in Belgrade, in collaboration with the Government of Serbia, celebrated the fifth International Day of Yoga (IDY) on 16th June in front of the National Assembly of Serbia. Mrs. Vučić, the wife of President of Serbia, joined the celebrations

in Belgrade. She addressed the gathering before participating in all Yoga exercises that lasted one hour.

Mrs. Vučić also spoke about the importance of Yoga for health, adding that the practice of yoga was good for both mind and body.

H. E. Subrata Bhattacharjee, Indian Ambassador to Serbia and Tamara Vučić, First lady of Serbia

17 AUSTRIAN JUN

BUSINESS CIRCLE SUMMER RECEPTION

The Ambassador of the Republic of Austria to Serbia, H.E. Nikolaus Lutterotti and the Austrian Commercial Counselor, Ms Erika Teoman-Brenner hosted the Austrian Business Circle Summer Reception. The event held at the Ambassador’s residence gathered many representatives of the Austrian business community in Serbia. Ambas-

sador Lutterotti said that excellent political relations between Austria and Serbia was, to a large extent, a result of the work that the Austrian businesses do in the country. The Ambassador pointed out that Austria was one of the largest investors in Serbia.

Around 400 Austrian companies are operating in Serbia and have created thousands of new jobs.

H.E. Nikolaus Lutterotti and Erika Teoman-Brenner

Dejan Turk, Vip mobile and Austrian Ambassador

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PEOPLE & EVENTS

20 THE ARMED FORCES DAY JUN

OF THE CZECH REPUBLIC HONOURED

H.E. Kathleen Csaba, Canadian Ambassador, Aleksandar Popovski, Embassy of Republic North Macedonia and H.E. Radko Vlaykov, Bulgarian Ambassador

THE AMBASSADOR OF NORWAY

The farewell party in honour of the Ambassador, H.E. Arne Sannes Bjørnstad, was held at the Residence of Norway on the 21st June 2019. Ambassador Arne Sannes Bjørnstad

JUN

ANNIVERSARY OF SLOVENIAN STATEHOOD DAY

The Embassy of the Republic of Slovenia celebrated the 28th anniversary of the Statehood Day with a solemn reception at the Metropol Palace Hotel. The celebration was attended by several hundred officials, including the representatives of the political and diplomat-

ic corps, church dignitaries, as well as a large number of guests from the Serbian public and cultural life. In his introductory speech, the Ambassador of the Republic of Slovenia to Serbia, H.E. Iztok Jarc, addressed the gathering with the words of support for Serbia’s EU accession.

Vladan Vukosavljević, Minister of Culture and Information

H.E. Iztok Jarc

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and his wife Mrs Hager Jemli Bjørnstad welcomed almost 200 guests from the political scene, the representatives of the diplomatic community, civil society, culture, private sector and media.

H.E. Branislav Mićunović, Montenegrin Ambassador to Serbia and wife of Norwegian Ambassador

H.E. Arne Sannes Bjornstad with his wife

21 THE 28th

this important occasion which gathered numerous officials from the cultural, political and public life of Serbia. The Order of the President of the Republic of February 7, 2002 chose June 30th to be the Day of the Armed Forces of the Czech Republic.

H.E. Tomaš Kuchta

21 FAREWELL PARTY FOR JUN

A ceremony was held at the Embassy of the Czech Republic on the occasion of the Day of the Armed Forces of the Czech Republic. The Czech Ambassador, H.E. Tomaš Kuchta and Defense Attaché, Tomaš Daniel were the hosts of

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H.E. Alona Fisher-Kamm, Ambassador of Israel and Brankica Janković, Commissioner for the Protection of Equality

21 DUKE OF KENT JUN

OPENED RENOVATED TENNIS COURT

June 21st. This renovated tennis court is named after the current champion in Wimbledon, Novak Djokovic, and is located at the place where the British Embassy opened in Belgrade, exactly 90 years ago.

His Royal Highness Prince Edward, Duke of Kent, President of the All-England Club (All-England Tennis Club and Crocette Club), officially opened a renovated tennis court in the complex of the British Embassy in Belgrade on

Novak Djoković, His Royal Highness Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and H.E. Denis Keef

His Royal Highness Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and H.E. Denis Keef

21 FAREWELL PARTY FOR A JENNY SEDOV JUN

FROM THE EMBASSY OF ISRAEL

Jenny Sedov and Robert Čoban, CPG

25 TATE-OF-THE-ART JUN

OFFICE BUILDING UNVEILED IN DOWNTOWN BELGRADE

H.E. Alona Fisher-Kamm, Ambassador of Israel

The Embassy of Israel in Serbia held a farewell party for Jenny Sedov, Deputy Head of

Mission. The party took place on Friday, June 21st, at the residence the Embassy of Israel.

H.E. Alona Fisher-Kamm, Ambassador of Israel and Jenny Sedov

Business Garden, the state-of-the art class A office building in downtown Belgrade, officially opened its doors at a ceremony organized for media representatives, partners and associates. During this informal gathering, the

guests had a chance to get acquainted with all the benefits this unique, hi-tech office building located at the corner of Starina Novak and Knez Danilo streets. The very first tenants have already moved into the building at the beginning of May.

Gili Dekel - President of the Airport City

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PEOPLE & EVENTS

26 EMBASSY OF JUN

CROATIA CELEBRATED STATEHOOD DAY

The Embassy of the Republic of Croatia celebrated the 28th anniversary of the Statehood Day with a solemn reception at the Crowne Plaza Hotel. Several hundred officials, including the representatives of the political and diplomatic corps,

H.E. Gordan Bakota, Croatian Ambassador to Serbia Fashion Show with wife and Aljoša Vučković, Croatian Actor

26 CANADA DAY JUN

HELD IN SERBIA

H.E. Gordan Bakota

Canadian Ambassador H.E. Kati Csaba hosted a reception to mark the Canada Day and Canadian Armed Forces Day. Addressing the guests in Serbian and partly in French and English, Ambassador Csaba thanked numerous local partners – officials from the public, political

27 NEW ROMANIAN EMBASSY OPENED IN BELGRADE

The Ambassador of Romania to Serbia, H.E. Oana Cristina Popa hosted the inauguration of the new premises of the Romanian Embassy in Belgrade. The event was held in the context of the anniversary of 140 yrs of diplomatic relations between Romania

H.E. Oana Cristina Popa

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and civil sectors who, as she said, contributed to the improvement of relations between Serbia and Canada.

Ambassador Csaba also said that the bilateral relations between two countries were being built on the strong basis with about 100,000 Serbs living in that country.

H.E. Kati Csaba and Mirjana Dončić Beaton, CANSEE Managing Director

H.E. Kati Csaba

JUN

church dignitaries, as well as a large number of guests from the Serbian public and cultural life attended the celebration. Croatia marked Statehood Day on Tuesday, 25th June for the 28th time since declaring independence from Yugoslavia.

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and Serbia. “Romania will continue to promote the EU enlargement and make sure that the European future for the Western Balkans remains on the table,” Ambassador Oana Cristina Popa said at the opening of the new headquarters of the Romanian Embassy in Belgrade.

H.E. Hendrik Van Den Dool, Dutch Ambassador and H.E. Oana Cristina Popa

28 THE 22nd JUN

AFRO FESTIVAL

The 22nd Afro Festival was held at the Museum of African Art (MAA). This unique international event showcases a wide range of specific cultural, tourist, educational and entertainment programmes to domestic and foreign visitors which frequent the Festival in great numbers.

Considering its duration and continuity, the Festival has demonstrated that it is a must-see event in Belgrade’s cultural and touristic offer and is one of the favourite places

for all generations of visitors. The Embassy of the Arab Republic of Egypt, led by H.E. Amré Alguveilli, was the Festival’s honorary guest. The thematic exhibition "Under the Spotlight: Ancient Egyptian Collection in Museums in Serbia" was also opened on this occasion. Some of the most valuable and rarely or never exhibited items from the ancient Egyptian collections of the Museum of Serbia were exhibited collectively for the first time ever in the Museum’s small hall.

Zoran Djordjević, Serbian Minister with the Ambassadors of African countries and Dr Marija Aleksić, director of the African Art Museum

H.E. Amr Al Rowaily, Egyptian Ambassador to Serbia

03 INDEPENDENCE JUL

DAY OF THE UNITED STATES

The United States are Serbia’s friend and fellow traveler on the road to the European Union, American Ambassador Kyle Scott said at the annual Independence Day reception at his residence in Belgrade. The road to EU membership is an enterprise which requires all the energy and will of this nation, but that road is not easy because it demands commitment, sacrifice and compromise, the ambassador said. “I assure all our Serbian friends that the US is your friend on that road,” Scott said. He voiced certainty that Serbia will get the place in Europe that it deserves if it devotes itself to that goal.

Ambassador Scott and Nevena Scott with Igor Mirović, President of the Provincial Government

Andrea Orizio (OSCE) with wife and Mr. and Mrs. Scoot

Mayor of Belgrade, Mr. Zoran Radojičić, H.E. Kyle Scott and Nevena Scott

Serbian Patriarch Irinej with Mr. and Mrs. Scott

Ambassador of USA Mr. Scoot

H.E. Carlo Lo Cascio, Italian Ambassador and with his wife and USA Ambassador with wife

Minister Nenad Popović with Ambassador and his wife

H.E. Kyle Scoot, Nevena Scott and Robert Čoban, CPG

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CORPORATE

LUŠTICA BAY

A Summer Like No Other Regardless if you are arriving by land or sea, the Lustica Bay is a place to be. Each year, it gives its guests new reasons to believe that the wonders of this beautiful place are endless The 2019 summer season has arrived and the Luštica Bay is more ready than ever. With the opening of its Marina Village and the five-star Chedi Hotel last year, this unique and sustainable coastal town is now a fully operational and flourishing Montenegrin destination. With bustling shops and cultural spaces, restaurants spilling onto the sunny promenade, boats cutting through the crystal clear waters and flowers blooming, life has never been more active or colourful, enriched by a calendar of tantalising events to keep everyone satisfied throughout the summer months.

The Marina Village embodies the Luštica Bay vision of life as it should be. Home to a range of exquisite apartments, it now boasts a bustling waterfront promenade complete with boutiques, restaurants, an art gallery, a health

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FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER, THERE IS ALSO A VARIETY OF REGULAR EVENTS TO SEE AND ATTEND IN THE LUSTICA BAY, INCLUDING TOP-CLASS CONCERTS AND PERFORMANCES, THEATRE PLAYS AND EXCITING SPEAKERS

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studio, a salon, a supermarket and motor and boating services.

Among the many offerings, visitors can enjoy fresh Montenegrin specialties from the Davidovic Bakery, explore fine art and antiques in Stanković, peruse travel-inspired clothing and homeware at Ivana Ma’s, savour fresh flavours at the Urban Bistro or Sea Forest restaurant or a glass of Montenegrin wine at the Finestra Winery.

Entering its second season, the waterfront Chedi Hotel has become an effortless part of this lifestyle. With two restaurants, three bars, an events centre, a fitness suite, a spa and indoor and outdoor pools, it is more than just a hotel – it’s also becoming a dining destination, a wellness retreat, and a community hub. From morning yoga sessions and art exhibitions to courses, concerts and talks, it is part of the summer buzz. Its exceptional offering is already being

recognised since the hotel recently received the CEEQA Award (Central and Eastern European Real Estate Quality Awards) for Building of the Year in Southeast Europe.

The state-of-the art marina sits at the heart of the action, ensuring that Luštica Bay is now positioned the map as a world-class sailing destination. Already in strong demand, the marina currently offers berths for 85 boats of up to 45m alongside professional yacht assistance from a multilingual team. There are also boats available for charter and courses for all levels at the marina’s renowned sailing school.

Regardless if you arriving by land or sea, the season has plenty to offer to draw in the crowds with the busiest events calendar yet.

The waterfront promenade is a wonderful setting for performances. There is also a brand new amphitheatre next to The Chedi, ready for a season of concerts. Highlights include Swedish world music group the Sirocco Quartet (9 July), the renowned classical duo, clarinettist Andreas Ottensamer and pianist Yuja Wang (7 August), as well as performances from Kotor

Art Festival and Operosa Festival throughout the summer. Theatre lovers can enjoy Mediterraneo on Stage, the theatrical adaptation of the legendary Italian Movie (24 26 July), while worldwide expert Ichak Adizes is giving a talk on the secrets of business success at The Chedi (16 July).

For the first time ever, there is also a variety of regular events to see and attend. Start the day with

is now open for the summer season. Looking out across panoramic views of the bay there is nowhere a more peaceful place for practising those swings.

As the summer enjoyment unfolds, the Luštica Bay will continue to focus on new developments across the site. Thirty residences in the Marina Village’s Magnolija buildings have just been completed and work continues on five

THE STATE-OF-THE ART MARINA SITS AT THE HEART OF THE ACTION, ENSURING THAT LUŠTICA BAY IS NOW POSITIONED THE MAP AS A WORLD-CLASS SAILING DESTINATION an outdoor HIIT class, gather for a seaside BBQ, try out Latin Night or Jazz Under the Stars at the promenade, or head to a beach party or movie screen at the Rok beach bar.

The Chedi’s restaurant, ‘The Spot’ is also on its way to becoming a go-to hangout with regular wine tastings, live band nights, Girl’s Night, and Friday cocktails and beats.

Keen golfers are also taken care of, as the Luštica Bay driving range

Kamelija residences, expected to be completed March next year.

Construction is also due to begin on three new villas, while work on the townhouses will start after the summer season.

The marina is on track for further construction around its summer activities, significantly increasing the number of berths, including the installation of a new pontoon due to be finished mid-July. Once the marina is

completed, it will accommodate up to 176 boats. A new fuel station and border crossing will become operational in the near future, as will dry boat storage and a service centre which will round off the marina’s services.

Last but not least, the second neighbourhood of Centrale will continue to be a key focus. Due to become the new town centre for the whole of the Luštica Bay, the undertaking is fittingly ambitious, creating a commercial centre, a residential haven and a spacious and green gathering space for the whole community. Set around a central esplanade and communal piazza, sought-after residences will sit side by side with restaurants, shops, cultural spaces and an array of essential public services. Construction is already underway on the one to three-bed residential apartments, employing the same meticulous environmental principles used across the site.

While the future ahead is full of exciting milestones, there is plenty to enjoy right now during this wonderful sun-filled season at the Luštica Bay. We look forward to welcoming you.

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INTERVIEW

I’m SHOWing the Absurdity of Serbian Politics Politicians did not take my job from me. On the contrary, they give me enough material to work although I have never asked them to. I would love to have less of this kind of material, and for the situation to be normal so I can do less satire and more pure humour on stage. Then the laughter wouldn’t be so bitter

DRAGOLJUB LJUBIČIĆ MIĆKO Actor and comedian

Through numerous shows and character portrayals, Dragoljub Ljubičić Mićko gives a memorable interpretation of the drab reality and tragicomic features of the current government in Serbia with the use of humour, a valuable tool and medicine that preserves mental health. In this interview, Dragoljub Ljubičić Mićko tells us how he managed to keep this going for decades.

Do you sometimes feel as if politicians took your job?

— Well, Serbian politicians often come across as silly while trying to be serious, or worse – while trying to be funny. And they look silly because they are politically clumsy and for the most part, not equipped to do their job. It is a very rare occurrence for an official to carry a certain function because they are knowledgeable and experienced. They usually get a job because they are a member of a certain political party. By doing such a serious job in a silly manner, and we are talking about jobs

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that strongly affect the quality of life of every citizen, they are inadvertently offering themselves to satire. This has been my personal mission for decades; namely, to try to explain and dissect the absurdity of the Serbian political scene for ordinary people in a humorous and often bitter way. Since it’s easier to digest that in a form of show, you can say that I’m SHOWing the absurdity of Serbian politics. To answer your question… No, the politicians did not take my job. On the contrary, they give me enough material to work although I have

— The 1990s were the premiere of our social and political downfall, and today we are having a re-run. The only difference is that the re-run in certain segments is edited, so to speak, because not everything is identical to the 1990s, but it certainly is very reminiscent of that age. This tragic downfall of ours does not contain all the same dramatic elements.

Some are different, and so are ‘the actors’. In the 1990s, the biggest wars were fought with arms, guns blazing and people being killed.

There was also a war in the media, but the real war, with guns, was simply more noticeable and deadly. Today, there are fewer real wars, except for mafia showdowns in the streets, but we are certainly still waging a media war, or rather verbal shooting, fighting, wounding, virtual mutilations and burials are now taking place in tabloids. From tabloids, all of this spilt over into press rooms and into endless guest appearances of top politicians in morning shows at TV stations that have a national frequency. And then there’s social media.

PLJIŽ IS NOW A WELL-REHEARSED TEAM THAT NEEDS LESS AND LESS TIME TO SELECT, SATIRICALLY PROCESS, SAY, ACT, JOKE, OR SING A PART OF OUR SOCIAL AND POLITICAL REALITY never asked them to. I would love to have less of this kind of material and for the situation to be normal so I can do less satire and more pure humour on stage. Then the laughter wouldn’t be so bitter.

How difficult is to do humour and satire today? You’ve been doing both for many years and in different media outlets – on stage, TV, by writing books, being in advertisements etc.

You started your career in 1984.

Could you compare your work from the 1990s with what you do today?

— Yes, a part of what I do is pure humour, devoid of social and political commentary, while the other part is pretty much drenched in such commentary which makes

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it satirical and to a lesser or bigger degree, humorous. In this case, humour is just seasoning. Apart from advertisements, that are apolitical and funny, I can give you an example of my work as a pure humorist – it’s a play called “One Stvari”, that talks about relations between men and women. The play is not only entertaining in a sexual therapy kind of way but is also matrimonially educational. Any couple living together can identify with the play’s theme.

On the other hand, I’ll give you an example of my satirical work – the play “Danas Nam je Divno Dno” – which is pretty gritty and politically engaging. In the play, we talk a lot about the former Prime Minister – current President, and this proved to be a problem when booking venues in Serbia. In smaller places, all venues were already mysteriously booked long in advance, so we managed to stage the play only in Belgrade and several other bigger towns in Serbia, just 25 times in total.

“Danas Nam je Divno Dno” is really a hilarious satirical and humouristic event that leaves nobody indifferent. Maybe we will do it again soon, who knows? Of course, the most recent thing and probably the most politically engaging is what I do with (Voja) Žanetić and (Dragoljub) Petrović. It’s a show called “PLjiŽ” that is aired on N1 TV. We have just finished the third season. For you who don’t watch N1, you can find the show on my YouTube channel, ‘Mićko Ljubičić Official Channel” and on Facebook.

Ha! I am advertising myself here, and you didn’t even blink.

You have been collaborating with Voja Žanetić for many years and you are now joined by Draža

Petrović. Do you get along well?

— I have known Žanetić for 35 years, ever since I came to Index Radio Theatre. Petrović and I had not worked together before he agreed to be my guest on LEKOVITI SHOW. But we got along very well pretty quickly. Apart from being the letter “P” in the show’s name “PLjiŽ”, he brought his own way of satirical thinking that was different to what Voja and I had been building for years and what we were known for. He is also the youngest of the three of us, so he downs our average age a little bit.

How do you put the show together? How do you pick the topic among a myriad of topics today? What is the feedback of the audience?

— We pick topics with the help of our standing collaborator, Boris Husović who regularly buries us in information about the events that took place between two shows that are deserving of airtime. Since, as you have noticed, there are so many of these events, the three of us select a few of them in terms of their importance and how good of a material they are. I also have another activity which is to write the Goodnight Story, apart from the commentaries. In addition to the Goodnight Story and commentaries, I take special care of impersonations, sketches and songs.

Sketches are sometimes scripted, and sometimes we improvise on a given theme. The same goes for impersonations, for they depend upon my ability to catch a certain character. As for the songs, Voja and I often collaborate writing sa-

THE 1990S WERE THE PREMIERE OF OUR SOCIAL AND POLITICAL DOWNFALL, AND TODAY WE ARE HAVING A RE-RUN tirical lyrics in “PLjiŽ”. Working on sketches is different because in order to get Žanetić to give us 100% sincere laughter – because he wouldn't be able to fake his infectious laughter even if he tried to – he mustn’t find out what my lines are before the show. So, there are no rehearsals in that segment, unlike in the commentary segment which we read beforehand. The result is sometimes edgy, sometimes easygoing, sometimes bitter, and sometimes hilarious.

The feedback of the audience?

We couldn’t dream of a better reception, really. Still, the most important thing to me is that this is well-received by people whose opinions and taste I value. And I’m sure that there are people who

don’t like this concept. But the main thing is that the three of us feel good when we are doing the show, and since we are all experienced, we can tell when something is good or not. We are now a well-rehearsed team that needs less and less time to select, satirically process, say, act, joke, or sing a part of our social and political reality. It is a special challenge to condense in 30 minutes something that happened over a period of one week.

What do you think of the current relations between the state authorities and the opposition? Is there any dialogue between them or there is more work to be done?

— There is as much dialogue be-

tween them as there is between a hunter and a hare in the woods during the hunting seasons. The hunter’s gun… Sorry, not the gun, but the heavy media artillery that ‘the hunter’ possesses, is something that makes dialogue impossible. In order to have a dialogue, you need two sides, sitting opposite of each other and talking or doing all of that but in the parliament. This has not happened in our political life for quite a long time. It is usually the government’s fault because of that, regardless of who is in power, because it is the government that controls the majority of the media. Since many of the current opposition figures had been in power before, while the current government was the opposition, all of them know all too well how to sustain each other on the political scene.

Were you scared when certain government ministers threatened with hunger strike as a counter-measure to the opposition’s strike?

— Oh, I did. I really got scared that certain individuals from the government would be victimized by the opposition bloc and that, due to this principled hunger strike, they would lose their health, seriously jeopardize their life and that I no longer would be able to use them as material for my work. However, we were all stunned with how quickly this hunger strike started and how quickly it ended. So, they clearly and strongly demonstrated their readiness to stop eating for the sake of their higher goals. Until they got hungry.

NATIONAL PARK SERBIA You also wrote a two-part book called ‘Nacionalni Park Srbija’ (‘National Park Serbia’). How current are these books today?

— The first book titled ‘Nacionalni Park Srbija’ came out in 1999 and without advertising it, the book started selling at an incredible pace of 2,000 copies a week. A total of 13 subsequent editions of this book were released which is well over 100,000 legally sold copies. I use the term “legally”, because, after we released the third edition, we found out there was a bootleg copy circulating. The person who printed and sold these bootleg copies was arrested later and as it turned out, he managed to sell close to 30,000 copies in the street. Seven years later, in 2007, I wrote the second part titled “Nacionalni Park Srbija 2 – POLUSMAK POLUSVETA” to show what, in which way and how much had changed in the meantime. Although the sequel did not repeat that marvellous sales success of the first book, many people have been quoting parts of it, today more

than ever. Some phrases from the second book or rather from a CD that was sold with it, have become a staple in a colloquial speech a long time ago. For instance, in the book, there is a character called Mica Ubica or “a feral civil servant” whose terrorizing attitude towards people who come to her counter became a paradigm for bureaucracy in Serbia.

And her line “FT1P” (“Fali Ti 1 Papir”, in translation “You need one more paper”) was widely quoted among the readers and became probably the most famous and most frequently used bureaucratic-terrorizing abbreviation in Serbia. Unfortunately, both books are still very current in this country, to the minute detail. They are also current not only in Serbia, but, judging by the e-mails I got from readers from ex-Yugoslavia, in which they write about a similar or even identical situation in their respective countries, the word “Serbia” in the book’s title could be easily replaced with “Montenegro”, “Croatia”, “Bosnia and Herzegovina” or “Macedonia”.

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BUSINESS NEWS

FitPass

IMPORTANCE OF SPORT AND RECREATION ON EMPLOYEES PRODUCTIVITY

Successful companies are aware of the fact that satisfied employees are actually good employees.

Teamwork motivated by challenges and new successes is extremely important for creating an effective business.

Material and non-material rewards including bonuses, flexible working hours, paid education as well as other benefits can greatly improve their productivity and loyalty to the firm. Not only will people get out of the office and change the established environment, but they will all be looking forward to a day of activity and entertainment. As sport and recreation affect the productivity of employees, it’s reflected in various sports activities involving group and team sports: volleyball, basketball, tennis, bowling, and increasingly popular paintball, squash and corp. It has been proven that joint sports activities relax people and make them open to communication; teamwork naturally attracts them to cooperation. In this way, it’s noticed that people who don’t normally communicate on tasks, in sports activities, agree well and function successfully in the team. With FitPass card is the best way to train favourite sports discipline. If you’re still not a member of their large family of satisfied users and you would want to, you can find all the necessary information on www.fitpass.rs, in the section for business users https://fitpass.rs/kompanije.

Weekend Media Festival

PART OF THE LEGENDARY MONOPOLY GAME

The Weekend Media Festival, the biggest communication festival in the region, had a card named after it in the Croatian edition of the favourite board game Monopoly. Croatian players of Monopoly gave their proposals about what the board of the Croatian edition of this legendary game, played since 1935, should look like.

Aside from the major Croatian cities and islands, popular cultural sights and natural attractions, the Weekend Media Festival also got is a game card. This is great recognition for the festival that has been held for the 12 consecutive years and has been promoting the latest trends and challenges in the communications industry. In addition to being a must-go event, not only among communications and marketing industry experts, the Festival is now a part of the legendary Monopoly game.

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Coca-Cola

DANUBE RIVER CLEANING CAMPAIGN

During a comprehensive campaign that entailed cleaning the Danube riverbanks in seven cities, over 2.5 tonnes of packaging waste was collected and around 2 kilometres of the banks were cleaned. The campaign assembled close to 350 volunteers in Apatin, Sombor, Novi Sad, Belgrade, Smederevo, Golubac and Kladovo, whose engagement in marking the International Danube River Day contributed to the preservation of the living environment and the reduction of packaging waste. The riverbanks cleaning was initiated by the Coca-Cola system in Serbia, in a partnership with the Let’s do it Srbija organization, with numerous citizens and the company employees

joining in. The campaign also entailed announcing the winner of the contest for the most successful school in packaging waste collection, launched in early June by the Coca-Cola system and the national parent-teacher organization of Serbia.

The students from the Nikola Tesla School in Apatin won the main award of 10,000 euro that will be spent on the refurbishment of their schoolyard.

Hyatt Regency Belgrade

GRAND OPENING OF STUDIO EVENT SPACE

Hyatt Regency Beograd opened doors of the Studio, new event space. After a series of reconstruction and modernization projects throughout the entire hotel, including guest rooms, hotel lobby, spa and banquet venues, the long-awaited transformation of the

famous Focaccia restaurant into a completely new concept has successfully finished.

The 460-sq m area displays a unique multifunctional and contemporary decorated space consisting of a foyer and two rooms connected by a movable partition wall that leaves the possibility of connecting them into a single unit. A light, translucent ambient filled with daylight, gives this venue a special ambience. Although primarily adapted to business needs, in terms of functionality and spatial planning, the marble section preserves the recognizable luster that this hotel has exuded for years.

AmCham

CREATING INNOVATIVE MEDICINES THROUGH ANALYSIS OF THE EFFICIENCY OF INVESTMENT

Although Serbia’s investment in healthcare is similar to neighbouring countries like Bulgaria or Romania, considerably fewer funds are allocated to innovative medicines compared to the countries covered by two different studies conducted by the Association of Manufacturers of Innovative Drugs (Inovia) and the American Chamber of Commerce in Serbia (AmCham). “The proportion of innovative medicines among prescription medicines is less than half compared to Bulgaria, which has a similar budget allocation for healthcare and a similar GDP level. Our study shows the impor-

tance of investments in innovation and its contribution to long-term budget savings, as well as the long life and productive cycle of the population. This is why it is necessary to carry out a systematic analysis of the efficiency of healthcare investments and talk openly about sustainable long-term models of financing innovative therapies,” said AmCham President Jelena Pavlović.

Todebo

SIX YEARS OF WORK IN SERBIA MARKED

Mlekoprodukt

SERBIAN CHEESE AT THE INTERNATIONAL CHEESE FAIR IN FRANCE

The Guinness Book of Records has a new entry - a 161-metres-long platter with 952 different kinds of cheese was served at the International Fair of Sauer Mondial du Fromage. The platter carries a total of 3 tonnes of cheese from 20 different countries, including from Serbia. Our Mlekoprodukt, which operates under Savencia Fromage & Dairy Group, had two of its cheeses on the platter – Biser Selekt hard cheese made from cow’s milk and Mlekoprodukt hard cheese made from sheep’s milk.

Close to 1,000 visitors had the opportunity to taste all 952 kinds of cheese during this three-day fair. Plus, there was a competition at the fair for the best cheese in the world. Mlekoprodukt’s Bojana Momčilov was one of the 135 jurors who picked the winner.

Mercedes

THE SUPER SPORTS CARS IN THE COMPACT CLASS

Outstanding performance, the ultimate driving dynamics, expressive design the new MercedesAMG compact A 45 4MATIC+/ A 45 S 4MATIC+ sports cars and CLA 45 4MATIC+/ CLA 45 S 4MATIC+ reassert their leading positions in their segments. They seamlessly continue the success story of their predecessors, while setting numerous new standards. Available in two output and torque variants, the completely newly developed 2.0-litre engine is the

world's most powerful turbocharged four-cylinder engine in manufactured for series production. Even the basic model with 285 kW (387 hp) is more powerful than its predecessor. The S-variant with 310 kW (421 hp) jostles with considerably higher vehicle classes. Perfect sequences in all driving situations and fast gearshifts measured in milliseconds are guaranteed by the new AMG SPEEDSHIFT DCT-8G dual-clutch transmission with eight gears.

The active, fully-variable AMG Performance 4MATIC+ all-wheel drive distributes the power to the rear axle wheel-selectively by AMG TORQUE CONTROL – for top traction and the spectacular Drift mode. This is made possible by a new rear axle differential featuring two multidisc clutches – one for each rear wheel.

On June 25th, Todebo had their 6th birthday party with the Dutch Ambassador to Serbia, H.E. Mr Henk van den Dool, the mayor of Sremska Mitrovica, Vladimir Sanader, the company’s partners, clients and suppliers in attendance. Todebo is a European manufacturer and fabrication of metal strut supports and fastening products.

This company was established in 2013. During the past successful six years of operations, Todebo produced over 2,000,000 products. The company has 25 employees and is present in both the European and international markets. It produces a complete range of strut support systems, such as cantilevers arms with additional brackets and fittings, complete systems with solutions for all types of the hanging of cable strips, cables, pipes and ventilation duct systems. In 2019, the company started using welding robots to increase production speed and capacity, as well as to continue maintaining the high quality.

Naled

PAY WITH YOUR CARD AND WIN

Singidunum University

ON A PAR WITH WORLD UNIVERSITIES

Singidunum University is a higher-education institution characterised by high-quality teaching processes, within both English and Serbian-taught study programmes. From the very first steps that they made, they have been striving to provide the best possible environment for education.

The studies conducted at Singidunum University are comparable to the studies available at universities around the world.

The very structure and content, enriched with the most up-to-date teaching methods and materials they use, put the study programmes conducted at Singidunum University on a par with the study programmes belonging to reputable world

universities. Once they add the fact that all the teaching-learning processes take place on fully-equpped University premises meeting the highest standards, to the above mentioned, they come to conclusion that one can enjoy studies that, in any aspect, do not lag behing the studies related to corresponding fields of science ouside the borders of Serbia.

The Champions of Cashless Payment competition was launched in cities and municipalities in Serbia on July 1st under the slogan “Pay with your card and win”.

The competition was launched by the IT and E-Government Office, in cooperation with NALED, and with the support from companies Mastercard and Visa. The local self-governments that turn out to be the most successful in motivating citizens and businesses to pay their taxes and fees by using their cards will earn valuable prizes including a new children's playground and free new website. The competition takes place in 60 cities and municipalities in Serbia which have shown willingness to modernize their services and introduce a cashless payment option for citizens and businesses. The winners will be selected according to the number of realized card payments at the local government counters in relation to the number of inhabitants in the period from July 1st to December 31st.

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CULTURE

Game of Thrones-themed Tourism is Coming To fans, the beautiful old Croatian city of Dubrovnik is a place of orgies and dragons

“From the top of this gate the rioters threw shit at King Joffrey’s head,” explains Ivan Vukovic, a tour guide, pointing to Pile Gate in Dubrovnik. He is referring to an event in the second season of “Game of Thrones”, a series famous for gratuitous nudity, extraordinary violence and a huge array of characters, from a wise and libidinous dwarf to a princess who convinces three dragons that she is their mother.

Dubrovnik’s old, walled town is instantly recognisable to fans as King’s Landing, the main city in the imaginary world created by George R. R. Martin, the author of the books on which the show is based.

Armies of “set-jetters” (a term for fans who visit film locations) descend on Dubrovnik each year, vastly outnumbering its 1,500-odd inhabitants.

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In 2015 the mayor claimed that “Game of Thrones” was responsible for half of the city’s annual growth in tourism. Of the 18 walking tours offered by the tourist administration, eight are about “Game of Thrones”. “I had 85 people on the 11am tour. The history walking tour at half past only got 15,” says Mr Vukovic. At a store that sells merchandise from the show, visitors can pay 110 kuna ($17) to be photographed on a replica of the Iron Throne, the uncomfortable seat over which the main

characters fight. As your correspondent stood on the city’s elegant 17th-century Jesuit Stairs, an Australian tourist stripped down to his speedos while onlookers threw flip-flops at him chanting “shame!”, a re-enactment of an even ruder scene from the show. Nearby bars offer “shame mojitos”.

Dubrovnik is not the only place invaded by “Game of Thrones” fans. One in six foreign tourists to Northern Ireland last year was apparently inspired to visit because of the show. Visitors spent £50m

DUBROVNIK’S OLD, WALLED TOWN IS INSTANTLY RECOGNISABLE TO FANS AS KING’S LANDING, THE MAIN CITY IN THE IMAGINARY WORLD CREATED BY GEORGE R. R. MARTIN, THE AUTHOR OF THE BOOKS ON WHICH THE SHOW IS BASED

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($63m) during their stay, according to the country’s main tourism body.

Spain, too, has seen a big influx.

Such tourism boosts the local economy, but can be annoying. “We went all over Croatia and didn’t see another American, but here I can’t throw a stick without hitting one,” complains Shannon, who has come from Texas to visit her family. (King Joffrey would have known what to do about unsightly crowds, but it wouldn’t be legal today.) Dubrovnik is under threat of losing its unesco world heritage status because of over-tourism. One cashier hopes the boom “dies soon”, like so many characters in “Game of Thrones”. She will be happy when winter comes.

From The Economist, published under licence. The original article, in English, can be found on www. economist.com

INTERVIEW

I Persisted in Making Painting My Life Calling Even after all the obstacles I had to overcome, I am happy because God gave me the talent to express my essence on a canvass GALA ČAKI Painter

Gala Čaki’s huge creative energy led to her obtaining two Master’s degrees from the Academy of Arts in Novi Sad in the space of just one year and thus became the first fine arts student to achieve this. Soon after, she got her doctorate at the age of just 29. She is the recipient of the Ruth Katzman scholarship, given by a New Yorkbased foundation, which awards only two such scholarships to the most talented artists from around the world every year. Then there were scholarships from India and Finland, calls from the Belgian gallery owner Guy Malevez to paint the historic part of the city of Namur and a call from one of the most prestigious galleries in Manhattan called Artifact to stage her own exhibition. In 2015, Gala exhibited at the Takahara Furusato Museum in Japan, and her works are now a part of the modern art collection of the Al Asmakh Museum in Qatar.

Gala’s work has been seen all over the world. This year, she is going to have an exhibition in Beijing, New Delhi and London, while, early this year, she participated in an exhibition staged at the Salon des Indépendants in Paris.

understand this, moving towards yourself is easier and you are sending energy in the right direction. I persisted in the desire for painting to be my life, to live off it, and for painting to be the only thing I do.

I overcame a lot of obstacles on this path - I opposed my parents and family business, I lost many friends by not socializing with them regularly because my painting requires complete dedication, and I lost my husband by not having a normal life and family.

Even after all obstacles I had to overcome, I am happy because God gave me the talent to express my essence on a canvass. I am grateful and ready to dedicate my entire life to painting.

Thanks to your exhibitions, you had the opportunity to visit truly incredible places. Which city

— Every country and its people are special if you have the gift to see all the beautiful things and intertwine them with your personality and creativity. The places that emanate special energy for me are mostly island countries like Tenerife, the Maldives and Java. My creativity is the freest in those places, and for that reason, I go back to them. In February, I will go back to Tenerife as the organizer of a symposium of contemporary art, and I sincerely look forward to re-birth of my work there. For me, the most intriguing exhibition spaces are non-commercial spaces. When I showcase my paintings in the desert, the forest, next to the ocean, they depict a different story, but

MY STUDIO IS LIKE A TEMPLE IN WHICH I SPEAK WITH MY PAINTINGS, I ESTABLISH A RELATIONSHIP WITH THEM AND I GIVE MY ENTIRE BEING TO

certainly, my studio has the most intimate and strongest energetic influence on my work. My studio is like a temple in which I speak with my paintings, I establish a relationship with them and I give my entire being to. Hence, it is normal for an observer to feel that pure energy, similar to the energy you feel in a church.

You often talk about how you explore your "self" through painting. What did you learn about yourself through art?

— I became aware of myself as a being, as a person. All the pain and beauty experienced in the process of creating shape a man’s personality. When you are brave enough to dig deep inside yourself, this courage rewards itself by transforming into self-awareness of what you are and what your task is. When you build yourself into a strong personality, this causes other serious situations that life imposes on you and as such, you can take great steps toward something special.

In an interview, you said that your creativity was most felt by people in Asia. Why do you think that's so?

You've already conquered cities and galleries around the world and won prestigious awards. If we take all this into consideration, what do you consider the biggest personal success?

— My greatest success is self-knowledge of what I am and why I was born at all. Once you

has thrilled you, which inspired you, and what gallery, in which you exhibited, was the most beautiful?

Photo: Wannabe

— I learned that people in Asia have different spirituality than people in Europe, the essence of man lies inside of himself, and not in the outside world. For them, emotions are more important than intellect, and since they are made in that way, they are able to feel my work that is made from pure emotion.

But Europe is slowly changing, searching for the spiritual and emotions themselves. I am confident that space for my work in that part of the world is being created.

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INTERVIEW

We Always go Back to Shakespeare Shakespeare will definitely remain current as long as people remain what they are

NIKITA MILIVOJEVIĆ Theatre director and creator of the Shakespeare Festival

The premiere of the play "My Shakespeare", conceptualized by Nikita Milivojević, the magical “The Tempest”, directed by Irina Brook, the daughter of the legendary Peter Brook, and "Twelfth Night", featuring actor and musician George Maguire, were some of the performances that took place at the 6th Shakespeare Festival, from June 27th until July 3rd in Čortanovci and Novi Sad. We talked with Nikita Milivojević, theatre director and creator of the Shakespeare Festival, about the festival itself and the significance of Shakespeare in this part of the world.

Are you satisfied how did the last Shakespeare Festival go?

Did it meet your expectations?

Are you already starting to prepare the next one?

— If the number of visitors of this year's Shakespeare Festival was a satisfaction indicator, then I could only wish for the next festival to be like this one. We are now starting to seriously think that the performances should have re-runs, as we did this year with "My Shakespeare", because every single time we perform the same play again, we need to add seats to the auditorium and extra cushions on the stairs for visitors to sit on. As far as the next Shakespeare Festival is concerned, anybody who undertakes to organize a

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serious festival knows very well that it is a sort of an unspoken rule that as soon as you finish one festival you start preparing for the next one.

Although, we often start working on the next festival while the current one is still on. Sometimes, you fail to bring a certain play to the festival

FOR ME, THE PREMIERE OF ‘HENRY VI’ AT THE GLOBE WAS SOMETHING OUT OF THIS WORLD one year, but you manage to bring it next year. The same thing applies to ideas – they develop much earlier. We, for instance, already know what will be the main novelty of the next festival.

You are the brainchild behind “My Shakespeare” which puts the iconic playwright in the present so we can get to know him even better. The actors in “My Shakespeare” reveal to the

THE BEST AMBASSADORS You said in an interview that you change the channel when you hear politicians saying that athletes and artists are the country’s best ambassadors. What do you think of the way politics treats culture today?

— This is one of those phrases that have completely lost their meaning. If that is really so, i.e. that we are the best ‘ambassadors’ of our country in the world, how is it then possible that our culture budget has been among the smallest in Europe for years now?

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audience the adventures behind the scene and experiences that they generated playing in Shakespeare’s play. What experiences did you have?

— The thing that I am definitely going to remember and something that has been one of my most important theatrical events is related to Shakespeare and his Globe Theatre. For me, the premiere of ‘Henry VI’ at the Globe was something out of this world.

There is an interesting anecdote related to this. Due to the fact that this play has many characters, and that it constantly changes the place of action in almost every scene and the like, ‘Henry VI’ is considered almost impossible to play. It is presumed to be the first Shakespeare’s play and we are not entirely certain if or how much of it Shakespeare wrote or perhaps if the play had several authors. All in all, ‘Henry VI’ turned out to be pretty unstageable.

All of this contributed to the play being taken off the Globe’s repertoire. After we staged it, head of the Globe, who is also a theatre director, told me that our rendition of the play was actually the first one after the play’s premiere, which happened back in

Shakespeare’s time, and that we showed him how ‘Henry VI’ could be played and even transformed into an excellent play. He also said: “Next season, I am going to include ‘Henry VI’ in our repertoire because of you, but I have to tell you in advance that I am going to ‘steal’ the stage design with the round table from your play.” He kept his word and next year, ‘Henry VI’ became a part of the Globe’s repertoire, with the round table as a central place of action, just like in our rendition of the play.

How did your collaboration with the Globe Theatre come about and why did you pick ‘Henry VI’?

— First and foremost, ‘Henry VI’ is a story about power struggle where, due to various petty interests, scheming and hatred, something much bigger and more important was lost. To be more precise, as a result of internal scuffle, the English lost everything they had gained from decades-long fighting with the French. Whenever I mention power struggle, scheming and discord, I immediately think of our reality. During our history, just like the English, we had a dynastic fight between two families – Karadjordjević and Obrenović – like the Lancasters and the Yorks over there.

EVERY THEATRE FESTIVAL, FIRST AND FOREMOST, NEEDS EXCELLENT PERFORMANCES TO BE SUCCESSFUL, INCLUDING OURS

Shakespeare’s plays are the most staged plays at Belgrade’s National Theatre. Do you think that our audiences will ever get enough of this drama master?

Speaking as a theatre director, could you tell us why is Shakespeare so enticing and important today?

describe the sediment of times; past, present and future. As if we are talking about a time capsule that we use to travel through time, carrying always the same messages. Shakespeare will most certainly remain current as long as people are the way they are, because, in many aspects, the world he created actually functions in the same way as back then, more or less. That means that we are always going to be surrounded by Lady Macbeth, Hamlet, Richard, Othello, the melancholic Jaques, Ophelia, Juliet … We just need to spot and recognize them.

— I believe we go back to Shakespeare for the same reason we always go back to the Greek tragedy, Chekhov, Moliere, Dostoevsky and Aristophanes. The great classics

There are several festivals around the world dedicated to Shakespeare, with a few having a long tradition. In which way is

this festival special?

— Every theatre festival, first and foremost, needs excellent performances to be successful, including ours. However, I am confident that, apart from the performances, what sets our Shakespeare Festival apart from the rest is a different experience. The fact that the festival takes place in the countryside creates an exceptional opportunity for many of our visitors to organize a whole day for themselves and have a day trip. Most of them usually decide to come much earlier, have lunch near the Danube, or visit a monastery on Fruška Gora, followed by a visit to Villa Stanković, which is truly a magical place, boasting a beautiful view of the Danube, and find out more about the history of this unusual

residence and its owner Dr Radenko Stanković. In the evening, they can enjoy performances under the starry sky and see theatre actors from India, Belarus, Iran, Great Britain, Turkey, Finland, the USA, Greece, France, and China, as the pinnacle of their day. I think all of this combined gives our festival that special note.

Was it difficult to organize the Shakespeare Festival?

— Organizing any festival is a complex operation in its own way, and sometimes it can be really difficult particularly if you have an outdoor festival, where various surprises are always lurking around the corner. Actually, organizing a festival is a very special adventure that includes direction of sort. The important thing is that you simply have to have an excellent team of associates which transforms this adventure into the adventure of the spirit, so to speak, into something that is really creative.

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INTERVIEW

Text: ROBERT ČOBAN

A ROAD LESS TRAVELLED: MOLDOVA AND TRANSNISTRIA

The Subjects of Münchausen, Lenin and Sheriff

THE SOVIET HOUSE: Monument to Lenin in the centre of Tiraspol

Trapped in a "frozen conflict" from 1990, landlocked, poor, lying on the intersection between the EU (Romania) in the West and the unstable Ukraine and Russia in the East, rife with scarcity, corruption, local sheriffs and Lenin's legacy, Moldova and Transnistria still leave the impression of a region that can expect a brighter future than our "Sanitary control!" A middle-aged woman in a bright-blue uniform opens the door of our compartment in the train going from Bucharest to Chişinău and sticks her head in. We confirm that that we are healthy from head to toe and she leaves without saying anything further. At the Romanian-Moldovan border, the legendary transfer of train wheels to the wider, "Russian track" takes place. Namely, 1,520 millimeters is the width of the railway tracks in Russia, CIS members, Baltic states, Mongolia and Finland. It’s been like that since the 19th century when the Russian Empire started building a railway network that would criss-cross “the Empire on which the sun never sets”.

The "narrow" track is used in the countries of North America, Europe and China and is 1,435 millimeters wide.

Some half an hour later we arrive to the main railway station in Chişinău, the capital of Moldova, one of the poorest countries in Eu-

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rope. Moldova and Ukraine share last place in Europe in terms of GDP per capita.

On that Saturday morning, at 7 o’clock, the Chişinău railway station building looked much cleaner

and prettier than most railway stations in Europe that I saw, let alone our, dilapidated ones. Pots with exotic flowers and aquariums with tropical fish do look slightly bizarre in a building that

THE SIX OF US EMBARKED ON A JOURNEY FROM BUCHAREST TO ODESA, WANTING TO SEE THIS EXOTIC PART OF EUROPE THAT IS NOT THAT FREQUENTED AND THAT MANY PEOPLE FROM THE WEST HAVE PREJUDICES ABOUT

MUSSOLINI’S GIFT: One of the five replicas of the Roman She-Wolf in front of the National Museum of History of Moldova

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dates back to the Russian empire, but everything here is absolutely spotless.

The six of us embarked on a journey from Bucharest to Odesa, wanting to see this exotic part of Europe that is not that frequented and that many people from the West have prejudices about. After the drive to our flat and a one-hour walk to the town centre, our first impression was that Chişinău is cleaner and better regulated than most East European capitals. The roads are bad, just like in Serbia, but you cannot find a single cigarette butt, or a plastic bag, or a piece of plastic packaging discarded here. The people in Moldova are poor, but their awareness about utility order is much higher than in the Balkan states.

While riding in the lift, the owner of the flat in which we are staying asks us about the current situation in Serbia and whether there is still war there. When we ask her about the 1990 war in Moldova, which resulted in Transnistria, a narrow strip of land located near

the border Ukraine, declaring independence, our hosts replies that the war lasted only three months, but that it was very cruel and bloody. She makes a sign of cross with her hand and mumbles:”I hope we never see war again.”

ROMAN SHE-WOLF AND PAIN TRAIN

Everything was calm in the town centre, but there was a certain tension with police patrols on every corner. A day later, the Moldovan court dismissed Igor Dodon as the country’s president and appointed the former Prime Minister Pavel Filip as the interim president. The court’s explanation was that Dodon did not dissolve the parliament, which he was obligated to do in accordance with the previous decision of the Constitutional Court. On Sunday, June 9th, after the court appointed the interim president, Filip scheduled snap elections for September. The Moldovan Parliament approved a coalition government, formed after several months of negotiations in which the Socialist Party of pro-Russian Igor Dodon and the pro-European alliance ACUM of Prime Minister Maia Sandu took part. The official Moscow called the latest events in Moldova as "criminal". Which direction will this poor country, which is only a few kilometres from the Black Sea, take - towards the EU or Russia?

That remains to be seen in the near future.

The building of the National History Museum of Moldova is located in a luxurious villa, built in an eclectic style, on the site of an identical building which had been almost completely demolished in the 1977 earthquake. There is another bizarre detail in front of the building - a replica of the Roman she-wolf with Romulus and Remus. The story behind this sculpture is quite interesting.

Namely, in the 1920s, Mussolini's Italy donated five copies of the shewolf to five Romanian cities. One of them was Chişinău, then part of Romania and the second largest city in the country. In 1940, as a result of the pact between Hitler and Stalin, Moldova fell into the hands of the Soviets, and a year later, the Germans returned it to Romania.

After the Second World War, Moldova became one of the republics in the USSR. It was then that the she-wolf statue disappeared. After Moldova declared independence in 1990, brotherly Romania sent to Chişinău a new she-wolf statue,

the symbol of Rome.

There is another monument that draws attention – the Pain Train, a gigantic sculpture made in 1990 and dedicated to mass victims of Stalin’s deportations to Siberia from 1940 to 1951. During that period, Stalin also expelled 50,000 people from Moldova to Kazakhstan.

"Fans of bizarre feel right at home here”, my colleague Žikica said after we stumbled across a children's recital that took place between tanks, cannons, rocket launchers and MIGs in the military museum yard. The children sang about Jesus and his return to this world. Later, we heard that those

Moldova gained wide popularity in the Western world when it was mentioned in the TV series “Dynasty”, as a fictitious monarchy where Amanda, the daughter of Blake and Alexis, had her wedding.

The wedding was interrupted when terrorists stormed the chapel and massacred everybody. The curtain falls, and it was the end of the series. This episode was the most watched episode in the history of the TV at that time, with 60 million

JUST MARRIED: A detail in front of the church in Chişinău

"TICKETS, PLEASE": Driver-conductor on a bus between Chişinău and Tiraspol

were the students of a religious school who chose a rather interesting location for their event.

BIGGEST WINE CELLAR IN THE WORLD

IN 1940, AS A RESULT OF THE PACT BETWEEN HITLER AND STALIN, MOLDOVA FELL INTO THE HANDS OF THE SOVIETS, AND A YEAR LATER, THE GERMANS RETURNED IT TO ROMANIA

HEAVEN FOR FANS OF BIZARRE: Children's play in the shadow of cannons and tanks

THE MASTER OF ENTIRE ECONOMY: FC Sheriff’s complex

viewers in the US alone tuning in. The series’ producer, Esther Shapiro was quoted as saying:”This was a fairytale-like terrorist attack, beautifully shot, like Goya’s painting.”

Next year it will be 35 years since the fictitious “Moldovan massacre”. Actor John Forsythe (Blake in the series) is no longer alive, Princess Catherine Oxenberg (played Amanda) went through many traumas in her life with the latest one relating to her daughter India joining a cult, while Esther Shapiro (now age 91) and Joan Collins (age 86) are still going strong.

Apart from the “Dynasty massacre”, Moldova is also known for its top-notch wines. Mileștii Mici, officially the biggest wine cellar in the world (located in 200 kilometres-long corridors of the former mine), is located here. The wine cellar boasts the biggest wine collection in the world (over 2 million bottles).

You enter Mileștii Mici by car, and the temperature here is between 12 and 14 degrees Celsius all year around which is ideal. While our crew (divided into two taxis) is passing through the winery’s endless corridors, we can see thousands of barrels and hundreds of thousands of bottles of wine, on both sides of the corridors. We also had an English guide, the charming woman by the name of Dorina, who, with the typical Soviet sense of humor, explains some of the features of Mileștii Mici that found their place in the Guinness Book of Records. The cellar is stateowned, and the biggest customers are, as you have probably guessed it, the Chinese. There is also the possibility to rent a dent in the rock where you can store and lock away your valuable wines. At the end of our tour, we tasted white, red and red dessert wines, accompanied by the music from local musicians who happened to be there and who sang “Ihav Kozak za Dunaj” in honour of our imminent departure for Ukraine.

The bus for Tiraspol is chockfull. The bus curtains are as colorful as in a New Orleans brothel, and the driver, with a rather impressively big belly that is peeking through a half-buttoned shirt, is also the bus’ owner. He reminds us of the Serbian actor Pavle Vuisić in his role in the film “Ko To Tamo Peva” (“Who is singing over there”) in which he personally collects the money for the tickets and keeps tight control over the behaviour of passengers.

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THE HOLY TRINITY OF TRANSNISTRIA

After a little more than an hour's drive from Chişinău, we arrive at the border, that is, the "administrative crossing", as we, in Serbia like to call it, between Moldova and the tearaway territory of Transnistria. We all get off the bus.

High above our heads is the coat of arms of Transnistria with a dominant sickle and hammer, a fivepoint star and a cluster of grapes at the bottom. On the other side of the counter is a young woman in uniform, not as beautiful as Nikita in Elton John’s video, but nevertheless beautiful. She stamps our passports and from now on, we can stay up to seven days here.

"Welcome to Transnistria!"

It took us half an hour to get to the Tiraspol bus station from the border. Tiraspol is the capital city of Transnistria, a state that none of the UN members has recognized as independent. Actually, its independence was recognized by three states in the same position (also not recognized as independent) South Ossetia, Nagorno-Karabakh and Abkhazia. The flags of these three tearaway territories are flying high in the Tiraspol city centre, right next to Transnistria’s flag.

On our way to the town centre, we are passing by the Russian army military base and a lot of the USSR insignia which speaks volumes about the ideological orientation of this territory. We also see signs reading “Sheriff” wherever we go – the Sheriff Stadium, Sheriff sports hall, Sheriff petrol stations, Sheriff supermarkets… If you are a football fan, you probably remember FC Vojvodina and FC Partizan playing against FC Sheriff in the European League and in the qualifications for the Champions League a few years ago.

The mastermind behind this omnipresent Sheriff brand is the local sheriff, entrepreneur Victor Gusan, who earned his first million during the war for the independence of Transnistria in 1990.

Today, he owns almost the entire economy here. After Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, the media reported that Gusan bought a mobile telephony license covering the territory of this peninsula which obviously points out to his close ties to the Kremlin.

Our taxi driver says that he studied with Gusan, that Gusan dropped out of the studies during the 1990s war and became a ‘businessman’. Next to the taxi’s steering wheel, there is a badge

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with Lenin’s face on it, a small icon depicting St. Nicholas and two small dices – the Holy Trinity of the modern day Transnistria.

Awash in spring rain, the streets in Tiraspol look even cleaner than those in Chişinău. We arrive in front of the Soviet House, featuring an impressive monument to Lenin, similar to the one in Berlin from the German film "Gorilla Bathes at Noon". Across the road there is a memorial complex dedicated to the victims of the wars from 1941 until today. Most names engraved in stone are the names of people who died during the threemonth war with Moldova in 1990, when the citizens of Transnistria,

with the help of the 14th Division of the USSR Army, which had a base on this territory, defeated the Army of Moldova which also had volunteer fighters from Romania. To this day this is considered "a frozen conflict". There were also the names of people killed in World War II, as well as in the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (1979-1989).

In the context of the currently very popular eponymous HBO series, a special segment is dedicated to Chernobyl, specifically to the people of Tiraspol who were part of a nuclear disaster recovery operation and later died from the effects of radiation. Within the complex there is also a Soviet tank T-34 from the Second World War, and right next to it is a small

FIVE-POINT STAR, SICKLE AND HAMMER AND CLUSTER OF GRAPES: Transnistria’s coat of arms

TWO MILLION BOTTLES: Mileştii Mici, the largest wine cellar in the world

BARON MÜNCHAUSEN’S CANNON BALL

ALTHOUGH SOME OF THE TRANSNISTRIA POPULATION BECAME RELIGIOUS AGAIN, MOST OF THEM ARE STILL NOT WILLING TO GIVE UP THEIR LENINIST PAST AND SYMBOLS

THE CITY OF CONTRAST: The golden tower of the church and the Soviet tank T-34 in the centre of Tiraspol

THE VICTIMS OF CHERNOBYL ACROSS THE FORMER USSR: Memorial in Tiraspol

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MÜNCHAUSEN’S MONUMENT AND THE CANNON BALL OF THE BARON THE LIAR: Bender Fortress

Orthodox church which gilt roof shining in the twilight. Although some of the Transnistria population became religious again, most of them are still not willing to give up their Leninist past and symbols.

This is the only Soviet republic, out of all Soviet republics and provinces, that has not changed the names of its square or streets from the Socialist time. However, we, in the Balkans, have chosen the worst combination – we have only declaratively returned to religion (religious classes in schools, cities, military, police and political parties all have their own slava, people making a sign of cross with their hand while passing by a church and many observing lent), or we have erased our Socialist past in the shape of monuments and streets while preserving its worst mentality traits.

Tomorrow, we took a taxi to the nearby town of Bender, which is the home to the medieval fortress, reinforced by the Turks. During the Russian-Turkish wars in the 18th century, German aristocrats, including the officer by the name of Hieronymus Carl Friedrich Freiherr von Münchausen, participated in the siege of the Bender Fortress, on the Russian side. Baron Münchausen’s confessions about his wartime adventures earned him a reputation of “one of the biggest liars of his time”, while he was also a central character in many novels and theatrical plays in the 18th, 19th and 20th century. The "Baron of Liars," as people called him, was remembered for the alleged story that he was riding a cannon ball while scouting the Turkish positions around Bender. A large cannon was placed next to the Fortress in his honour and the visitors are allowed to “ride” it so that they can, at least for a brief moment, feel like Baron Münchausen.

We're heading towards Odesa.

While exiting Transnistria, we are met by the joint Moldovan-Ukraine police and customs officers (just like if we would have a joint Serbian-Montenegrin police and customs patrolling the border between Kosovo and Montenegro).

Trapped in "the frozen conflict" from 1990, landlocked, poor, lying on the intersection between the EU (Romania) in the West and the unstable Ukraine and Russia in the East, rife with scarcity, corruption, local sheriffs and Lenin's legacy, Moldova and Transnistria still leave the impression of a region that can expect a brighter future than ours.

CULTURE

PROJECT

Food Talk 2019: Stories About Gastronomy Vasco Dantas, pianist

Vasco Dantas Performed in Belgrade This concert marked a new musical cycle jointly launched by ArtLink Youth Talent Festival and Diplomacy & Commerce magazine Color Media Communications, Embassy of the Republic of Portugal in Serbia and Art Link Festival hosted 19 June in Belgrade the ArtLink & Diplomacy & Commerce – Piano Recital: Vasco Dantas, Portugal.

Young Portuguese pianist of an impressive biography, held a concert at the Belgrade City Hall in the presence of high-ranking officials and representatives of the diplomatic corps.

At the beginning of the concert, the audience was greeted by H.E. Mrs. Maria Virgínia Mendes Da Silva Pina, Ambassador of the Republic of Portugal to Serbia, Robert Čoban, President of CPG and Jovanka Višekruna Jankovic, Art Director of ArtLink Festival.

Addressing the audience, Vasco Dantas said that the recital’s repertoire was inspired by Debussy’s compositions, adapted for the piano by the Portuguese composer Luis de Freitas Branco, as well as

by Ravel, Liszt and Strauss’ “On the Beautiful Blue Danube”. At the end of the concert, Dantas played a Fado composition from his own country.

This young Portuguese pianist was born in Porto in 1992, and graduated piano and conducting from the Royal College of Music.

He obtained his Master’s degree in Performing Arts, Magna Cum Laude, from the University of Minster, where he was admitted to doctoral studies. Dantas is the recipient of more than 50 awards and recognitions at international competitions.

Robert Coban with ambassadors, participants of first panel

For the seventh consecutive year, Color Media Communications organized the largest regional conference dedicated to gastronomy, wine and beer, called Food Talk, in Novi Sad. Along with stories of food, beer and wine, tastings and case studies, the most prominent regional figures from the world of gastronomy, hotels, restaurants and agricultural holdings, as well as the representatives of embassies and trendsetting companies gathered at the Sheraton Hotel in Novi Sad. Deputy Head of the Vojvodinian government, Ivan Djoković, a member of the Novi Sad City Coun-

H.E. Subrata Bhattacharjee, H.E Marco Antonio García Blanco, H.E Alona FisherKamm, Danijel Koletić and H.E Kati Csaba

cil in charge of Economy and Tourism, Milorad Radojević, and H.E. Tomas Kuhta, Ambassador of the Czech Republic to Serbia, officially opened the conference.

This year, the conference was dedicated to topics such as branding destinations and countries through food and education of professionals, owners and restaurant guests in the region. The participants also talked about the possibility of Serbia getting its first Michelin star. Several popular travel and food bloggers from this part of the world were presented at the conference, while the most successful craft breweries showcased their products.

Robert Čoban with H.E. Amr Aljowaily

Jovanka Visekruna Jankovic, Art Director of ArtLink Festival of Young Talents, Vasco Dantas, pianist H.E. Maria Virgínia Mendes da Silva Pina, Ambassador of the Republic of Portugal to Serbia and Robert Coban, President of the Color Press Group Milorad Radojević, H.E Tomas Kuhta, Danijel Koletić, Ivan Đoković

H.E. Tanju Bilgic, Ambassador of the Republic of Turkey in Serbia with wife

Vasco Dantas, Sofia Lourenco and H.E. Subrata Bhattacharjee, Ambassador of India in Serbia with wife

Participants of panel 3: Starry sky above Serbia

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CULTURE NEWS

Havana D'Primera and Alexander Abreu On Wednesday, July 24th 2019, at 9 pm, Havana D'Primera and Alexander Abreu will perform in Barutana, in the Lower Town on Kalemegdan.

Belgrade’s „Dom omladine“organizes the performance of the best Cuban salsa of the new generation - Havana D'Primera in cooperation with the Binta Sound label.

Alexander Abreu, king of the trumpet, or as he is called "the god of the wind" - and his Havana D'Primera Orchestra, have been the most popular Cuban orchestra in recent years, both on this island and in the world. He is a charismatic young Cuban singer, the leader of a new generation of Cuban music, and at the same time a respected, multi-award winning jazz trumpeter.

CLOUD Festival Fever A CLOUD OF GOOD ENTERTAINMENT OVER BELGRADE

The forecast for August is already known: the cloud of good entertainment will be over Belgrade and will last for three weeks!

Belgrade Beer Fest, the most visited summer event in the region, will “Rock out” first - from August 14th, and during the five days of the festival, over 120 performers will perform at four different stages. The sounds of popular regional music will go to Ušće on the Belgrade Music Week festival, August 23-25. The last day of CLOUD, August 30th, is reserved for a traditional concert of classical music under the open sky, Night of Music festival, which after 3 phenomenal years on Tašmajdan Park becomes a full-length spectacle with world famous guests. http://cloudfestivals.rs/

The 9th Filmstreet Summer Cinema in Belgrade HAMBURG WEEKEND Saturday, July 20 (20.30) Aftermath - Jevremova, UK "Stari grad" Sunday, July 21 (20.30) Most Wanted Man - Jevremova, UK "Stari grad"

The popular summer cinema in Belgrade, Filmstreet, will celebrate the Belgrade and guests of the capital for the ninth time. Summer so-called. outdoor cinema, is one of the last recurrences of the local urban life of the capital and the hipster pop culture from the epoch before HBO and Netflix. The first guerrilla attempt in 2011 to hold two or three parking spaces with the gardens of Café Central held the Casablanca projection in the glory of Golden Hollywood was very successful. The number of spectators has grown from year to year, and organizers expect this year to be more than ever.

WEEKEND OF LITERARY FANTASY Friday, July 5 (20.30) Laura 2000 - performance; Kalemegdan Saturday, July 6 (20.30) Sherlock Holmes - Kosančićev venac Sunday, July 7 (20.30) Girl With The Dragon Tattoo - Kosančićev Venac

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THRILLER WEEKEND Friday, July 26 (20.30) Town – Crveni krst Saturday, July 27 (20.30) Gone Girl - Crveni krst MUSICAL WEEKEND Thursday, August 1 (20.30) Whiplash - Strahinjića bana, Skadarlija Friday, August 2nd (20.30) Black Swan - Strahinjića bana, Skadarlija

LEONARDO DI CAPRIO WEEKEND Friday, July 12 (20.30) Inception - Tasmajdan Saturday, July 13 (20.30) Revenant - Tasmajdan

SCI-FI WEEKEND Friday, August 9 (20.30) Avengers – Studentski park Saturday, August 10 (20.30) Spiderman Homecoming – Studentski park