LOCAL PRESS

 

Office for Kosovo and Metohija: Agreements not leading to independence of Kosovo (Radio Serbia)

The agreements between Belgrade and Pristina are intended for better daily life of the people in Kosovo and Metohija, normalization of relations between the republican and provincial institutions and they will never lead to independence of Kosovo, the Serbian government Office for Kosovo and Metohija stated. In reaction to the statement of Kosovo Prime Minister Isa Mustafa that the normalization process should end with Serbia recognizing Kosovo, the Office points out that it would be better for Mustafa to show greater agility in resolving the accumulated socio-economic problems in Kosovo and Metohija. By repeating the same phrases Mustafa unnecessarily raises tensions and complicates the atmosphere that should be constructive so normalization of relations between the republic and the province would head in a good direction, stresses the Office.

 

Serbs boycotted anniversary of Kosovo’s independence (Politika)

Ten Serb deputies and ministers in Isa Mustafa’s government didn’t attend yesterday the Assembly session held on the occasion of the seventh anniversary of the self-declaration of the independence of the Kosovo state. Branimir Stojanovic, deputy prime minister, tells Politika that it is normal that the Serbs didn’t attend the session and that they will know in the following days whether Serb representatives are returning to the provincial institutions or whether they will definitely leave them, following Mustafa’s decision to unilaterally “throw out” from the government Aleksandar Jablanovic, the minister for returns and communities. Stojanovic points out that a meeting between the Serbs and the Serbian prime minister should be held again this week in order to clearly define the stands. “Mayors, representatives of provisional councils and all those who have authority among the Kosovo Serbs will attend the meeting with Prime Minister Vucic. We will decide together on participation or boycott of the provisional Kosovo institutions. Our non-participation at the session is only a logical sequence of how Albanian politicians incorrectly treat the Serb community,” Stojanovic told Politika. Unofficial announcements gathered by Politika that the meeting with Vucic should be held on 26 February could not be confirmed by Leposavic Mayor Dragan Jablanovic who stresses that before departing for Belgrade, the mayors will hold a joint meeting and present a joint stand to the Serbian prime minister. “Pristina has been constantly violating the agreed and laws that it had passed. We, from northern Kosovo, will take a united stand after we previously examine what option is acceptable – whether we should leave the institutions or continue to be part of them,” Mayor Jablanovic told Politika. While the Serbs are deciding, the Albanians were celebrating in the meantime the seventh anniversary of independence with numerous events, but, as it can be heard, more modestly than in the previous years. Foreign Minister Hashim Thaqi didn’t miss an opportunity yesterday to stress that “the Kosovo flag will be seen in Belgrade in the near future”. Thaqi also didn’t forget to mention that not much time will pass when Serbia will formally recognize independence of Kosovo.

 

What is the essence of the dispute in northern Kosovo (Novosti)

Novosti has learned that Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic told clearly on 9 February the Albanian delegation and the EU High Representative Federica Mogherini, even though energy was not on the table of the first round of the negotiations in Brussels, that Serbia will not hand over to Pristina the Gazivode hydroelectric power plant and Valac substation. According to Novosti, the Serbian prime minister had to immediately draw the “red line” on the Gazivode Lake, northern Kosovo and Metohija, since the Serbian state leadership fears this will be the hardest topic in the resumption of the dialogue. A Turkish company that purchased the Kosovo energy network got involved in the dispute of the two sides and claims that the Serbian lake and substation belong to them. Novosti’s sources convey that the Albanian side violated the Action plan in the energy sphere signed in principle by the Belgrade and Pristina working groups precisely because of the Turks. The proposal was for “Elektroprivreda Srbija” to form a new company – “Elektrokosmet” or “Elektrosever”, without interfering with property issues, which would deal with selling and distributing of electric energy and that would be controlling Gazivode and Valac. This new company would be mixed since it would be under the Kosovo regulatory framework and the main dispatching center would be in Pristina. The established model was accepted in principle, but, when it was supposed to be realized, Albanian leaders refused to register the new company. Namely, Pristina had already sold, without Belgrade, the entire electric distribution and network, including Gazivode and Valac, to the Turkish company. Now the Turks are claiming what they had paid but can’t enter the property of the artificial lake and substation in northern Kosovo that is controlled by “Elektroprivreda Srbija”. The fact that the Albanian side guaranteed to the Turks monopoly over the electric distribution network while it accepted in Brussels for Serbia to have its own company, shows how much they played an unscrupulous “double game”. Now, when they got entangled in their own network, Pristina leaders are saying they don’t want to even negotiate Gazivode since this resource, they claim, belongs to Kosovo. Two-thirds of Gazivode is located in the Tutin and Novi Pazar municipalities, i.e. on the territory of Serbia proper, but the dam and hydroelectric power plant are located in the Zubin Potok municipality, in northern Kosovo. Pristina plans to take over the large substation Valac in Rogozna that presently belongs to “Elektromontaza Srbija”.

 

Serb ambulance in Pristina (Blic)

A small ambulance in Pristina is intended for the treatment of Serbs, but the Albanians also often drop by, looking for advice. They never reject them, since they don’t choose patients and nationality is non-important for them. “We are located next to the police station over our safety. Two years ago they wanted to take these premises and open a café, but we fought with hands and feet to prevent this. This is not only an ambulance this is a club for the Serbs as well, the only place where they can meet in Pristina, even to have coffee,” says physician Slavica Cankovic from Gracanica, noting that the ambulance works only several hours per day. Serbs mostly come here, but also often Albanians who sometimes have coffee with the Serb patients. After doctor Cankovic examines the patients in Pristina, she continues towards Gracanica or Kosovo Polje. One doctor and one nurse cover all returnee villages all the way to Urosevac. “Sometimes we feel that we live in a camp, but in a modern one. You have everything and you have nothing,” says Cankovic, while nurse Zivka Barac is one of the few Serbs who remained in Pristina. It is believed that there are around 60 Serbs, testified by medical records in the ambulance. However, this number is decreasing with time. “Two sons have already gone to Belgrade, and if the youngest one does the same, then I don’t believe I will stay,” says nurse Zivka.

 

McAllister: There is still a lot of work before chapters (B92)

European Parliament (EP) Rapporteur for Serbia David McAllister is collecting in Belgrade information for amending his report for which European MPs will vote in March.
B92: Do you perhaps have a chance to bring some good news to Belgrade. The dialogue in Brussels has resumed, the prime ministers of Serbia and Kosovo reached the agreement on the judiciary, is this enough for de-blocking the negotiations on EU membership?

McAllister: I welcome the continuation of the dialogue between the prime ministers, I think the meeting on 9 February in Brussels was not easy but, all in all, I think it is a good sign and a step forward. I also welcome the agreement on the judiciary, which now, of course, must be implemented. As you know, Chapter 35 on Kosovo is crucial for Serbia’s EU accession talks and it should be opened early in the process, with the normalization of Belgrade-Pristina relations taking place in parallel with the progress in negotiations overall, as progress made in the dialogue increases the chances of opening the first chapters.
B92: So the agreement on the judiciary is not sufficient to head forward.
McAllister: No. There are many other topics that have not yet been addressed. I think it is good that the prime ministers concentrated on one topic since they achieved progress. That was an important step, but the normalization process should continue. We are on a long road, it will not be easy but I think we are going in the right direction.
B92: Is it true that Serbia will not be able to open the first negotiating chapter by mid-2015, perhaps not even by the end of the year?
McAllister: I can’t give you a date since this is not my jurisdiction, but the decision of the European Council.
B92: Of course, your opinion as the EP Rapporteur is not irrelevant.
McAllister: Yes, of course, I just want to explain that I am not deciding, but 28 EU member states. My stand is that this should be the year in which the first chapters will be opened. I will do my best, but the main job must be done by Serbia, and the European Council to pass a decision.

B92: Mr. McAllister, is it still politically incorrect to say that the project of independent Kosovo isn’t functioning as Germany and other countries that supported independence would have liked?

McAllister: The issue of independence of Kosovo has been resolved in Germany. Germany recognized independence; other countries have a different stand. Yet, apart from the question whether you support independence or not, one should also deal with the issue of the economic and political situation. I think we should support those forces in Pristina that want to implement economic reforms, to fight corruption…To continue to do so. Kosovo has achieved progress but there is much more to be done.
B92: What about the Serbs in Kosovo. Did they tell you that they are dissatisfied with Prime Minister Mustafa’s decision to remove one of the two Serb ministers from the government?
McAllister: I heard what they had to say. They brought forward their stands yesterday, but I wouldn’t discuss this in public.

 

REGIONAL PRESS

 

Komsic: If someone thinks that the DF will be anyone's keychain, they are sorely mistaken (Srna)

Zeljko Komsic, the President of the Democratic Front (DF), confirmed to Srna that he would respond to the meeting of leaders of parties that comprise the B&H and Federation level coalitions, hosted by Bakir Izetbegovic, the Vice-President of the SDA. “In the end, I agreed with Izetbegovic that he as chief of the party that has the most votes calls a meeting in the B&H Presidency. In general I am not mad, I just think that it's frivolous, from time to time, to convene various informal semi-secret, secret, whatever gatherings and meetings,” said Komsic. The DF leader stressed that it is high time for a serious meeting connected with forming the B&H Council of Ministers, whether the DF is there or not. “If someone thinks that the DF will be anyone’s keychain, they are sorely mistaken,” said Komsic. Izetbegovic said that it is most likely that tomorrow afternoon he will host a party leader meeting for those parties that comprise the coalitions at the B&H and FB&H levels. Izetbegovic told Komsic that there is no reason to be mad at the SDA, which has not done anything that should hurt the DF.

 

EU Commissioner Hahn: The FYROM parties to return to Parliament (MIA)

European Commissioner for Neighborhood and Enlargement Negotiations Johannes Hahn called on all political parties to return to Parliament and announced that the European Parliament will begin a process to try to make this happen. The MIA correspondent in Brussels reports that during his interview with Balkan reporters, Hahn was direct in his messages to the FYROM, where the opposition Social Democrat Union (SDSM) is boycotting Parliament since last April’s elections, and also begun to air wiretapped conversations that allegedly include leading FYROM officials. “Well, first of all I have decided, and some have recommended that I don’t pay a visit now, but I decided to do quite the opposite. It is important to be there now, to show up and discuss the situation. Our recommendation is crystal clear ­ we should leave all these issues to the areas which are the responsible ones. This is the judiciary system. It is not the task of politicians to judge, it is exactly what the judicial system should do. If some political assessment is necessary, it is also ok, but then it should be done in the Parliament, and I once again urge all political parties to go back to the Parliament, because the main political debate should take place in the Parliament”, Hahn told reporters in Brussels. Asked by the MIA correspondent whether the long wait outside of the European Union, due to the Greek veto, contributed to the acrimonious political relations in the FYROM, Commissioner Hahn repeated his call for normalization in the political scene. “In a parliamentarian democracy, everything depends on all partners, so everybody has to contribute to a particular political culture and behavior. I once again urge all political parties to come back to the negotiating table. This concerns the government parties, but also the opposition parties, and certainly the fact that Skopje doesn’t have the opportunity to step into the negotiations has maybe discouraged the one or the other. But, that’s why again and again we try to resolve this problem. For us, for me, the situation as it is not acceptable”, Hahn said, adding that he plans to meet with United Nations envoy for the name issue Matthew Nimetz as soon as possible. Regarding the role the European Parliament could play in normalizing political relations in the FYROM, Hahn said that the EP is ready to do something similar to the mission its representatives Eduard Kukan and Knut Fleckenstein had in Albania, which convinced the opposition Democrat Party to end its boycott. “That’s why I have asked today representatives of the main political parties in the European Parliament to make a similar effort as we have done successfully in Albania, where the representatives of the European Parliament, Mr. Kukan and Mr. Fleckenstein, managed to arrange an agreement which led to the situation that the opposition party went back to the Parliament. I think this is a good example and as it concerns the Parliament it is quite logical that the European Parliament and not the Commission should do that. They are ready to do his, they are happy and I hope they are successful. We try to resolve the problem proactively, but it must be done by the responsible authorities and they should respect rule of law principles”, Commissioner Hahn said.

Asked whether the political situation could mean that the FYROM might lose its recommendation to open accession negotiations, Hahn answered that he intends to push things in a positive direction, and avoid thinking about other solutions. Hahn had separate meetings with the FYROM leadership and the opposition SDSM party, yesterday. After his departure from the FYROM, Hahn will continue his mini tour of the Balkans with a visit to Kosovo.

 

Josipovic: Ustasha snake doesn’t sleep (TV N1)

Croatia's now former president has spoken about the results of his term in office and the situation in Croatia, saying that the Ustasha snake does not sleep. The Ustashas were in power in the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) - a WW2-era Nazi-allied entity responsible for running death camps. Asked where he saw the Ustasha snake, Ivo Josipovic told TV N1 that it was “not here on the floor, it is not slithering, it is not the one from the 1941-1945 (period)”. He went on to explain that he also did not have in mind “the posting of Ustasha symbols on Facebook and other websites, or dressing up in Ustasha uniforms" - but rather "the tendencies that lead to intolerance toward others and what is different”. “It is visible in our society that there are some tendencies that follow the essence of what was advocated then. It is intolerance toward others and what is a different, totalitarian tendency, a desire to diminish human rights, and we've also seen people being threatened to change the truth about history,” Josipovic was quoted as saying.

According to him, "some influential circles" are making attempts at “historical revisionism” - i.e., “to distance Croatia from the winning Second World War coalition and turn it into the loser”. Josipovic, who in 2010 in Sarajevo apologized for “Croatia’s participation in a policy that in the 1990s attempted to partition Bosnia-Herzegovina”, also said that during his presidential mandate he improved relations with Serbia. “Just think back to my speech in Sarajevo and how conflictual or undesirable it was in the ruling circles then. I said it, others did not. Not before, not afterwards. Remember my trip to Serbia and the improving of relations with Serbia. These are serious conflicts, and then somebody says, 'he is a conformist'. Remember my speech in the Knesset. I stand behind it, look at the (web) portals, the Ustasha snake still doesn’t sleep,” Josipovic was quoted as saying. In 2010 Josipovic addressed the parliament of Bosnia-Herzegovina and called on the region to cooperate, announcing he would “visit the sites where Serbs were killed in the last war”, and also expressing his regret that Croatia in the 1990s contributed to the suffering and divisions that were still troubling the region.

 

INTERNATIONAL PRESS

 

Kosovo Faces Poverty, Corruption, Mass Exodus 7 Years After Independence (Sputnik, 17 February 2015)

Kosovo marked the anniversary of independence in a muted manner this year, as mass immigration, extreme poverty and a deadlocked political and legal system rife with corruption leave many Kosovars feeling there is little to celebrate.

The seventh anniversary of Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence from Serbia was marked in somber fashion, a fact which even the breakaway territory's international benefactors haven't been able to conceal. Apart from commemoration ceremonies to the republic's first president, ceremonies at the graves of those killed in the war in the late 1990s, and a public concert, the capital of Pristina held no state-funded celebrations, Mayor Spend Ahmeti stating that "there is no money" for such events. Over the last year, tens of thousands of Albanians have fled the region due to increasingly difficult conditions at home, up to 50,000 leaving since December alone. With the majority heading for the countries of the European Union, things have gotten so bad that Germany and Austria have deployed special border control agents at the Hungarian-Serbian border in order to try and stem the flow, Italy's ANSA explains. It is expected that most of the estimated 20,000 heading for Germany will be deported home following quarantine. Extreme poverty, explosive crime and a deadlocked political and legal system rife with corruption have fueled the exodus from the self-declared state. At least a third of the region's working age population is unemployed, including over 55 percent of youth, and an estimated 500,000 of the area's 1.8 million population lives on less than $2 a day. "I am so disappointed with my own place, I just want to leave," a man named Bislim told AP. His brother Mirsad, supportive of Bislim's decision, added that "they just want to get out of this filthy place." Another man, a young engineer named Fatos, told Radio Free Europe that "there is no chance for to get a job because everything here depends on having influential connections." Political analyst Dukagjin Gorani told AP that among the main cause of the present calamity is that the Kosovo Liberation Army officers who have since taken up top positions have "systematically robbed and enslaved in the name of liberation." Commenting on the dire situation, Serbian Labor Minister Alexandar Vulin noted that the territory suffered because it has "no property or economic security, or social policy," with several "clans determining their destiny," Serbia's BETA news agency quoted him as saying. He noted that "you cannot, only because of the fact somebody recognized you as something, become a state. That's not how a state is made." Serbia and Kosovo saw a normalization of relations in April 2013 under a EU-negotiated deal, although Serbia, along with over 80 countries around the world, continues to reject the territory's claim to independence. A 78-day NATO bombing campaign forced Serbia to surrender the region in 1999 following a bloody war between Serbian military and Albanian separatists which led to the deaths of over 13,000 people.

 

Happy Kosovo Independence Day? Not quite … (Antiwar op-ed, by Justin Raimondo, 18 February 2015)

Kosovars are celebrating the seventh anniversary of Kosovo’s independence – by leaving in record numbers. By some estimates as many as 100,000 have fled the country in the past few months. Germany is dispatching policemen to the Hungary-Serbia border to stem the rising tide, since most wind up there so they can apply for asylum.

It’s a tragic end to a long and difficult journey, however, as more than 99 percent of asylum applications from Kosovars are rejected. Germany, which supported the US-backed Kosovo "Liberation" Army (KLA), wanted an independent Kosovo: the Kosovars, not so much….

Fourteen years after the end of the Kosovo war, the "liberation" of the Kosovars has delivered them into the hands of a despotic clan of thugs who have turned the country into the crime capital of Europe, and the continent’s major source of heroin smuggling and human trafficking – a place where the former President has been credibly accused of organ harvesting. The Albanian Mafia has ruled the country ever since the "liberation," and Kosovo’s government has taken its place among the most corrupt in the world. The unemployment rate is close to 50 percent. A piece in the Guardian quotes a refugee fleeing with his family:

"I don’t know exactly where I am heading but I am dreaming of a place where my children will have proper education and where they won’t need connections to get a job once they graduate and where neither of us need to bribe the doctor if we need health services. The government did not prove they can provide us with any of this, and I never thought I would be here 15 years after the war."

Associated Press cites a disappointed worker:

“‘I am so disappointed with my own place, I just want to leave,’ said Bislim Shabani, an ethnic Albanian heading to Germany with his wife and four children. Shabani said he worked in a company that went bust in a botched privatization, leaving many workers mired in debt: ‘They owe me 12 months of wages. I couldn’t provide for my family any longer.'”

The last official in charge of privatizing Kosovo’s state-own industries, Blerim Rexha, had to resign after questions were raised when the agency sold off entire industries on the cheap to buyers with political connections. The previous privatization minister had been found dead at home with 11 stab wounds – officially ruled a "suicide." Under Prime Minister Hacim Thaci, leader of the KLA, and his Democratic Party, the wholesale looting of the economy took place: not only the privatization agency but also the Central Bank (whose chieftain was arrested), and virtually every other government body is rife with corruption.

The Drenas mine, worth billions, was snapped up by an Israeli company for a pittance. PTK, the state-owned telecommunications company, was bid on by Albright Capital – former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright’s investment consortium – but was forced out by the pretty obvious conflict of interest. Albright was a prime architect of the Kosovo war during her tenure at Foggy Bottom and apparently became quite enthralled with tall, dark and handsome Hacim Thaci, who later became Kosovo’s chief executive and de facto strongman. The PTK sale has been canceled twice due to a power struggle within the ruling party.

Organized violence against the Serb minority, which began during the civil war and continued, unabated, after independence, is worse than ever. Over 100 Serbian Orthodox churches have been burned to the ground by Kosovar mobs. In March, 2004, the "Kristallnacht of Kosovo" saw Serbs murdered in the streets, entire towns ethnically cleansed, hospitals burned to the ground, and thousands of Serbs forced to flee their homes: an estimated 50,000 Kosovars took part in the rioting. NATO’s "peacekeeping" force stood by and watched.

The Kosovo war was sold to the American people under the rubric of a "humanitarian intervention" – a precedent and a pretext that was used many times since. It was also the first phase of Washington’s post-cold war regime change campaign, which sought to push Russian influence out of Europe – and eventually threaten regime change in Russia itself. While today we hear much talk of a new cold war, there is nothing all that new in the present policy: it began with the Clinton administration, when Gen. Wesley Clark threatened to start World War III by attacking Russian peacekeepers in Pristina, and NATO started bombing Serbia.

It is continuing today in Ukraine, another country where corruption is a way of life, and where the regime-changers have been busy for years. In coordination with the European Union, Washington finally succeeded in ousting – by force – the elected government, perceived as "pro-Russian," and installing the oligarch Petro Poroshenko. A civil war ensued, pitting the pro-Russian east against the puppet regime in Kiev: the war is going badly for Poroshennko, who has recently begun arresting journalists and has threatened to impose martial law in response to rising dissent on the home front.

Along with Albright, and, of course, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton was one of the prime movers of the Kosovo intervention. Her biographer, Gail Sheehy, documents that it was pressure from Hillary that finally hectored the President into ordering the first air strikes. There’s a "Bill Clinton Boulevard" in Pristina, which sports a ten-foot statue of the Great Pants Dropper, and near it is a store – "Hillary" – which sells clothing associated with the former First Lady and putative presidential candidate: red pants suits are a hot-selling item.

Hillary’s story about having come under fire in a visit to the region has been thoroughly debunked, but her lies haven’t stopped there: in spite of Kosovo’s ever-worsening condition, she defends the US invasion to this day, hailing the war as more than a mere triumph of American "global leadership": "For me, my family and my fellow Americans this is more than a foreign policy issue, it is personal," she blabbers.

The Clintons, in short, own the Kosovo war – and what a sorry heritage it is.

The coalition that bamboozled us into war in Kosovo – neoconservatives like Bill Kristol and his friends, in league with "humanitarian interventionist" progressives and billionaire speculator George Soros – is identical to the one trying to push us into a new cold war with Russia over Ukraine. Back then, groups like the "Balkan Action Council" sprang up like mushrooms after a rain, fueled with Soros money and long lists of neoconservative endorsers, along with their "progressive" comrades-in-arms.

The media joined in the fun, with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour playing the role of Judith Miller, the New York Times reporter who played a key role into lying us into the Iraq war. Amanpour greatly exaggerated the charges of "ethnic cleansing" and "mass murder" aimed at the Serb authorities and played a major part in demonizing Belgrade to the point where US planes were bombing civilian targets – such as a television station, in which 16 staff members were murdered in cold blood – without so much as a peep from either the Western media or our resident "humanitarians." Over 5,000 citizens of Serbia were killed by NATO’s war planes.

And what was the result? The creation of a gangster state where corruption is the first principle of "governance" and US and European "peacekeepers" stand by while savages destroy churches and murder their ethnic rivals with impunity. In short: yet another failed state, just like Libya and Syria, two other sites where the Clintonian murder machine has been hard at work creating chaos out of order.

Speaking of Kosovo: Antiwar.com was founded in opposition to the Kosovo war. This column, in its previous incarnation as "Allied Farce: A Wartime Diary," inveighed against the brazen criminality of Bill and Hillary’s glorious adventure on a daily basis. I warned from the very beginning what would happen in the end, and I take absolutely zero pleasure in reminding everyone how right I was. The human costs of that war are simply incalculable.

We’ve been speaking truth to power since our founding in 1995 – and as far as I’m concerned, Antiwar.com has more than earned your support. You may have noticed that our seasonal fundraising drive is now in progress – and, yes, we sure could use a little more progress!

In the beginning, we didn’t have time to stop and raise funds – but the money came in anyway, unsolicited, from readers grateful to catch a break from the lies regularly spouted by the "mainstream" media. We’re a bit bigger now, albeit not by much: that is, our audience is much larger, but our resources are still inadequate for our purposes – the chief one of which is to change the direction of America’s warmongering foreign policy and point the ship of state toward peace.

But we can’t continue to do it without your financial help.

Yes, we were right about Kosovo: we were right about Iraq, and Libya, and Afghanistan. But that doesn’t do much to pay our bills – or does it? Our reputation for editorial integrity, never mind our prescience, should indeed be paying our bills – because it demonstrates our value to our readers and supporters. So please, help us to continue our work – make your tax-deductible donation today.

NOTES IN THE MARGIN

You can check out my Twitter feed by going here. But please note that my tweets are sometimes deliberately provocative, often made in jest, and largely consist of me thinking out loud.

I’ve written a couple of books, which you might want to peruse. Here is the link for buying the second edition of my 1993 book, Reclaiming the American Right: The Lost Legacy of the Conservative Movement, with an Introduction by Prof. George W. Carey, a Foreword by Patrick J. Buchanan, and critical essays by Scott Richert and David Gordon (ISI Books, 2008).

You can buy An Enemy of the State: The Life of Murray N. Rothbard (Prometheus Books, 2000), my biography of the great libertarian thinker, here.

 

Polls Reveals Serbia and Bulgaria Fear Cancellation of South Stream (Sputnik, 17 February 2015)

The majority of people in the countries that were to host the South Stream gas pipeline believe that it should not have been up to the European Commission to decide whether to give the green light to the project that was to bring Russian natural gas to Europe, the poll showed.

According to a recent poll conducted by ICM Research exclusively for Sputnik News Agency, the majority of Serbs and Bulgarians say the decision to scrap the South Stream gas pipeline project will hurt their countries’ economies, with Austrians being more optimistic about the outlook for their gas supplies. 64 percent of Bulgarians and 61 percent of Serbs fear the cancellation of the project to bring Russian gas to Central and Southern Europe will negatively affect their economies, while only 38 percent of Austrians expect negative repercussions. The majority of people in the countries that were to host the South Stream gas pipeline also said that it should not have been up to the European Commission to decide whether to give the green light to the project that was to bring Russian natural gas to Europe, the poll showed. The survey revealed that 66 percent of respondents in Bulgaria and 52 percent in Serbia believe their countries should have had the final say on the matter. In Austria, 42 percent said the decision was theirs to make, while 46 percent said it was rightfully left to the European Commission, the European Union’s executive body. The poll was conducted among 3000 residents in Austria, Serbia and Bulgaria between January 12 and 30, 2015.

 

* * *

 

Media summaries are produced for the internal use of the United Nations Office in Belgrade, UNMIK and UNHQ. The contents do not represent anything other than a selection of articles likely to be of interest to a United Nations readership.