2002-2003/YUGOSLAVIA: Into a Brighter Future Already

By Vesna Peric Zimonjic Reprint | | Print |

Vesna Peric Zimonjic

BELGRADE, Dec 23 2002 (IPS) - Two years after former leader Slobodan Milosevic fell from power, some good signs are beginning to show.

"Expectations that things will immediately get better after Milosevic was ousted were very high, but unrealistic," analyst Srecko Mihailovic told IPS. "But after a period of angry and loud disappointment, for the past six months people say that the quality of their lives has improved for the first time in many years."

About 60 per cent of 2,500 people surveyed recently by the Institute of Social Sciences headed by Mihailovic said their living standards were "much better" than under Milosevic.

Research conducted jointly by the Serbian Ministry for Social Care and the World Bank (WB) shows that although the official number of unemployed stands at 30 per cent, real unemployment is 9.4 per cent taking into account all sources of family income.

"This is the first research in the history of this country conducted to show all sources of income of an average four-member family," says Aleksandra Posarac from the World Bank. "It showed that only 800,000 people can be regarded as poor."

Posarac confirmed official estimates that about 40 per cent of the economy is still in the grey zone, "but the encouraging fact is that more and more small and medium size enterprises are mushrooming in the country," she said.

"The year 2002 is the first year in decades that ends with a surplus (of 100 million dollars) in the federal budget," says Veroljub Dugalic, deputy federal minister of finance. "This is partly due to foreign donations that eased the life of this country in the past two years – about 1.5 billion dollars – but it is also the consequence of rational spending and regular income from taxes, customs and other sources, which was a thing unknown in the nineties."

The budget adopted by the Serbian parliament last week for 2003 totalled 261 billion dinars – about four billion dollars. Official figures show that production from January to November was 10.3 per cent higher than over the same period last year. The biggest growth is in food, communications equipment and in the services.

But this is still only about half the production level in 1990 before the wars in the Balkans. The country has a long way to go before full recovery, and progress beyond that.

"With the laws and regulations introduced in the past two years and the transparent work of all the relevant ministries, this is a realistic sum," said Serbian Finance Minister Bozidar Djelic.

"Control of budgetary spending in the 1996-2000 period (while Milosevic was still in power) showed that an equivalent of 850 million dollars was abused for different purposes," he said. "The budget was regarded as a private pocket of the ruling class, while pensions to peasants, for example, were not paid for 30 months."

Yugoslavia faces serious transformation from next February following an agreement with the EU (European Union). It will become a loose federation of two states, Serbia and Montenegro. Serbia with its 7.4 million people is the bigger part of Yugoslavia. Tiny Montenegro has a population of just 650,000.

"For the first time in modern history, this will be a bloodless goodbye in Yugoslavia," analyst Vladimir Goati told IPS. The independence drive of the former Yugoslav republics of Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia led to bloody wars.

The "State Union of Serbia and Montenegro" will go through a test period of three years. After that each will decide whether to remain in one state or go separate ways.

Recent surveys show that about 40 per cent of Serbs do not care what the state will look like after the three years, while half of Montenegrins would like an independent state.

The transformation means that from January 31 most federal institutions will cease to exist, but there will be a common president and prime minister, and ministries for foreign affairs, defence and foreign trade.

"That should not be a bad start," Goati says. "It is high time we turned our view towards the future. The new state is being invited to join the European institutions, first of all the Council of Europe and then the Partnership for Peace Programme of NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation). There is no turning back now."

2002-2003/YUGOSLAVIA: Into a Brighter Future Already

By Vesna Peric Zimonjic Reprint | | Print |

Vesna Peric Zimonjic

BELGRADE, Dec 23 2002 (IPS) - Two years after former leader Slobodan Milosevic fell from power, some good signs are beginning to show.
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