“Kosovo Serbs have lost the strongest protection one person can have, and that is the protection of their own state. This is the biggest disaster that today man can befall. On earth there are seven, seven and a half billion people. They are all under certain state regime. Person knows, or he is in Serbia – or in Kosovo. Serbs in an independent Kosovo have no future. Serbs have a future in Serbia,” said in the broadcast “Dogovor”, on TV Center, vice president of the Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS), Slobodan Samardzic.
“Belgrade teaches Kosovo Serbs how to get used to live in a foreign country and begin to operate with them as with the rest of the Diaspora. Here everything is more difficult, because the Serbs are left at the mercy of the official authorities and international institutions. The problem for Belgrade is how to create one impossible situation in which Serbs would be organized, achieve to get something for themselves, while Belgrade and Pristina will develop the best possible relations. Thesis of DSS is that such situation did not have to come,” said Professor Samardzić.
Speaking about the upcoming parliamentary elections, which Republic of Serbia announced for 16 March, Slobodan Samardzic said that Kosovo Serbs should participate in them, noting that the system of organizing elections is “corrupted.”
According to his opinion, responsibility for that share the international community and the Government of Serbia.
“We believe that the Serbs should go to the polls, to show on 16 March that they want to participate in Serbian elections. There is some kind of corrupted system, because it will be voted according to the model from 2012, to which the then Serbian government agreed though, it did not have to. We’ll have polls, but the votes will be counted in Vranje and Raska. Since the beginning of organizing elections, since free elections exist, the votes are counted at the place of voting. Transporting boxes to another place is wrong, due to security reasons, and fair votes counting. That brings into question the credibility of the electoral vote and the right to vote. In that case OSCE violated a rule. Whoever comes to Kosovo from international organizations, whether it is the Council of Europe, the European Union, the OSCE is ready to violate all principles of democracy, human rights and the rule of law. Perhaps the government could argue that this mode is not good and ask for elections according to the 2008 mode. But no, they only care ‘not to rock the boat’,” said the former Minister for Kosovo and Metohija.
Slobodan Samardzic said that diminishing of the importance of Kosovo and its problem, in the public, is daily practice.
“Over the past 6 years, Kosovo has been actively diminished as a topic of importance to the Serbian public. It is disappearing from the agenda of public discourse. The intention is that the average citizen in Serbia fully adjusts to injustice and say, “well, I feel sorry for those people, but I can’t think about them.” It’s a matter of creating public opinion, which persistently last for six years. The issue of Kosovo has become a losing issue,” he said.
According to Samardzic, the current government fully resumed the policy of previous, when it comes to Kosovo.
“In Serbia today, in a situation where the government is fully prepared to totally surrender Kosovo and ‘present’ some sort of care for these people, our intention is to convince the citizens that there is an economic way out of this, which is linked to the political, and refers to neutrality. We should not be connected to the EU through umbilical cord, because only poison comes from it, not food. We need to break it and turn to alternative economic domestic and foreign policy, as soon as possible. Only recovered Serbia can assist Kosovo and Metohija. This government fully resumed the previous policy when it comes to Kosovo, which is a distancing from the problem and budget cuts,” said Slobodan Samardzic.
“Do not listen what they are talking; look at who is doing what. Promising stories on investing in Kosovo and calming down situation, stated by Vulin, Dacic and Vucic, were practically refuted. We don’t need to talk about plans. What DSS did, while it was in power, has its empirical base. Do not trust us either. Remember what we did and compare the time and way of life. We state the same things to the Serbs in Belgrade, Novi Sad and Nis, and the Serbs in Kosovo. Look at your wallets, then look at the position of Serbia now and compare,” he said.
“The purpose of negotiations is not joining the EU”
“Negotiations with the EU will last a very long time and they do not serve that Serbia one day join the EU, but to buy time and that during that time, EU or Western policy fully infiltrate in all aspects of public life in Serbia. According to indications, the EU is not for the economic prosperity of Serbia. They do not have it on the agenda, not due to bad intent, but because of the major problems within the EU. There you have a large number of countries with high public debt and a very high rate of unemployment, the states that have the problem with economic growth, states with the problem of development and management of their economy. The problem of the financial system of the EU is scary. It is not just a crisis of the monetary union and the public finances; it is a problem in the functioning of the EU. They will deal with that problem for a long time,” said Slobodan Samardzic.
“On the other hand, they do not want to lose influence in the Balkans, but they have no opportunities to provide these countries a good perspective. Their intention is to have the states under their control, to prevent them to develop as a free states with the right to opt, not only in security policy, but also in economic policy, and policy of overall social development. EU turns into a small empire that is part of a great empire, and that is the United States. Balkan countries and the so-called “Eastern Partnership” are doomed to be the periphery of the periphery. Even negotiations are so complicated and so conditioned that it is almost impossible to reach the end of the negotiations,” said Samardzic.
“Since Serbia signed Stabilization and Association Agreement, since the trade part of the agreement was implemented, Serbia is getting worse and worse. We have a lot of reasons, not just political, territorial, but also other economic and material, not to go to that side. Since 2008 Serbia began to deteriorate in all ways. Average per capita income falls, today is about 120 euros less than in 2008. Serbia is constantly in a recession, in minus when it comes to the growth of national product. Since 2009 national product was always in minus, -1 or -2 percent. This budget projected growth of 1.5 percent, but it did not happen. They already have lowered the projection, and till the end of the year will come to zero or will again go into minus. In 2008 Serbia had 13, 5-14 percent of the unemployed working -age population. Today, there are 26 percent. Then we had 11.5 billion of public debt, today we have 21.5 billion,” said Samadžić.
