SPECIAL TREATMENT:  DECLARATION ON THE POLITICAL FUTURE OF A MODERN EUROPEAN SERBIA

By Milan Jovanović, FSD president

On the occasion of the announced passing of this Declaration it would be prudent to remark on some of its faults, which one can hope will be overcome during the course of its practice.

Let’s start at the beginning, with its preamble.

(Is there even a single one of these in Serbia without some kind of built-in defect?!)

It is unclear why the Declaration states it is inspired by EU’s “reluctance”, which is being highlighted amidst recent examples of countries which have met the political terms for the start of membership negotiations, which it concludes is motivated by the internal state of affairs within the EU.

The EU is “reluctant” when it comes to Serbia mostly because Serbia itself insistently refuses to fulfill prerequisite conditions on the road to full-fledged membership motivated solely by its own internal state of affairs that came about as a result of its internal political dynamics which paralyze the country and keep it diseased for almost 30 years. This very paralysis and disease, which has reached its terminal phase, is the main reason why this Declaration is direly needed – and why this needs to be pointed out in no uncertain terms and without any hesitation. It is what people need to hear that matters, not what people wish to hear.

On a related note, pointing out how Serbia has been preparing for EU membership since 2000 does not correspond well with known facts, seeing how: 1) after October 5^th 2000 Serbia has had (at least) two euro-skeptic governments, 2) it continually flirted with Russian interests in the region at least since March 12^th 2003 (maybe even as early as October 6^th 2000 in certain fields) and 3) the ruins of the “Kosovo & Europe” policy lie in shambles all around us.

If this is how Serbia was preparing for EU membership, then all the headway it has made towards that goal should be accredited to the EU itself, which is fully aware of the strategic and political significance of the region of the Western Balkans for the wholeness of the EU and the peaceful future for the entire continent, even more so after the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014.

Attempts to represent Serbia’s road towards EU membership as the legacy of all of Serbia’s political elites directly opposes the goals proposed in this Declaration which needs to make a clear distinction between political forces building up Europe in Serbia and those forces who through their political machinations keep tearing it down.

Even so, this Declaration deserves public support of all political actors who are unquestioningly committed to Serbia’s membership in the EU – in spite of its faults and particularly because of the segments in which it calls for the return of confidence in institutions of government and the establishing of cooperation with neighboring countries on the basis of mutual respect and equality. In this part this Declaration directly supplements the Proposal for a New Foreign Policy Initiative that was proclaimed on February 1^st and in the drafting of which I personally took part.

In light of current circumstances, amidst rising political intolerance and ever more dangerous individual antagonisms, I would especially wish to praise this Declaration’s stance that policy should be formed within the institutions of the political system, which confronts it with aspirations that aim to resolve political grievances in such a way which, as it dismisses those very institutions, not only fails to rule out violence but paves the way towards it.

This tendency is clearly illustrated by attempts to mask shared interests of a clique with the same unreasonable and pretentious ambitions that hides behind the umbrella of something dubbed Alliance for Serbia as the will of the “people”.

The only thing that stands in the way of these individuals and organizations are the very individuals, organizations and political parties that wish to join this Declaration. They are the real targets of the boycott of the upcoming parliamentary elections and the entire “boycott strategy” was formulated for the purpose of excommunication the proponents of those policies from public life and their marginalization.

It is for this very reason that we feel that all political parties and organizations that actively oppose the boycott should support this Declaration because only when we are united will we be able to avert the verdict that the politicians who obstruct Serbia’s road to the EU wish to pass upon us.