Political and social contexts in which we live
September 2021 – September 2022
Croatia: Quo vadis, Croatia?
With the end of pandemic drama and a host of other extraordinary circumstances that have marked the past period in our lives, we can say that we are back to normal currents of social and political relations. These are perhaps less dramatic than what we have been through with the global health crisis, but on the micro-regional level, the drama is still very significant in shaping our relations and our future. Frictions between Croatia and Serbia may not mean much in Washington D.C., but in Vukovar and Knin, they shape the world. These frictions and unresolved relations gain in relevance once we became aware of how fragile peace is and how little it takes for war to creep upon us again, as we saw in the example of Russia and Ukraine where war was driven by heaping problems that had been swept under the rug and unresolved relations. There are always those just waiting for the right moment. In any case, there are no more masks, war rages in Ukraine, and here in our parts, everyone is again playing the same old games.
The Milanović Case
Issues with Zoran Milanović’s behaviour are nothing new, but they will still take some getting used to. This exponent of the golden Zagreb youth, honed in Brussels and other diplomatic corridors, has since the start of his mandate been filling the front pages with reckless and brazen statements, making us click and follow the reactions they spawn. Although he personally boasts of constitutional patriotism and sticking to the letter of the Constitution, Zoran Milanović selectively practices constitutional values and promotes only those that he himself apparently finds worthy. The most important constitutional value, judging by the engagement of our controversial (oh, yes, he’s reached controversial levels) president is care for the rights and welfare of Croatians living outside the homeland, where he currently and only deals with the rights of Croats living in BiH. With the actions, visits and bestowing of honours that he has been using for the past two years to caress the hearts and minds of the patriotically oriented populace, Zoran is plainly trying to secure for himself a second mandate as the first among the Croatians. With a series of simplifying statements whose purpose is to show his relaxed and maverick side, and to garner the sympathies of some right-wing circles, particularly those whose roots go back to BiH, he has unfortunately managed to perilously disrupt relations between Croats and Bosniaks. Which is not to say that these relations were harmonious or constructive before, but they have now reached a stage at which there are no serious political voices that would even attempt to act constructively on the political level in an effort to develop relations between these two mutually closely connected and interdependent groups. In addition to this, Zoki also managed to dispense medals to a new set of war crimes indictees, to damage relations between Croats and Serbs by attacking Milorad Pupovac, to fall out with half the NATO members by threatening to block access to membership for Finland and Sweden, to stigmatise the Roma as rubbish collectors, and the list goes on. All in all, if there was anyone still holding out hope that our left and liberal oriented president would be constructive when it came to the most important relations in the country and the region, all such hopes have been dashed. All that remains is to see what manner of frictions and scandals the next two years of his mandate will bring, and hope that the reins of Brussels will nonetheless be strong enough to keep us under control.
National objectives
Ever since Croatia gained its independence, its top leaders have kept repeating the mantra of achieving national objectives. The wider public was never consulted on these national objectives, but the direction set in the 1990s meant that they would include Croatia joining the European Union and NATO, which has been achieved. It would seem that 2022 was the year of achieving the remaining national objectives. The national objective of connecting Dubrovnik and the surrounding area with the rest of Croatia by road, a long-time mantra, was achieved this year with the showy opening of the Pelješac Bridge. This mega project worth more than 2 billion kunas circumvents Neum and enables travelling to/from Dubrovnik without stopping at a border. We now have the megabridge, of sound aesthetics, but apart from its symbolic value, it is unlikely to be of much use in the long term, given that the Adriatic-Ionian highway corridor passes behind Neum and the littoral and will eventually circumvent the bridge. In the long term, the Pelješac Bridge will become obsolete, because bridges are not built to last decades but centuries. And who knows, maybe BiH will make it into the EU one day. Although some said the Pelješac Bridge was proof that Croatia was giving up any territorial claims to Bosnia and Herzegovina, if you ask me, it is proof of giving up on regional cooperation and recognising BiH as an equal partner, because why should we agree on a ten times cheaper road corridor with BiH to run behind Neum when we can show our might and symbolically build the biggest bridge in Croatia. Like a finger poked into BiH’s only coastal eye with European money. The remaining popular national objectives include becoming part of Schengen and introducing the euro, which is planned for 2023. And then what? What national objectives will come into focus after we achieve the ones that have been promoted thus far remains to be seen, but we will probably not be consulted on any new objectives either. We can only hope that the Constitution and its highest values will one day ensure that our national objectives include peacebuilding and that the Republic of Croatia will become a constructive and fair partner to its neighbouring countries. As much as we try to run away from our neighbourhood, it will always be on our borders. Central Europe is far away, but BiH and Serbia will forever remain on the border, very close. Besides, most of the world puts us all in the same boat called the Western Balkans. Who knows, maybe we will live to see the pacification of the region and the level of cooperation and prosperity we have become accustomed to seeing in the rest of Western Europe. But this will take some active engagement on our part. Besides, looking at the dynamics of relations between Croatia and BiH, it is clear that BiH remains a national objective of Croatia. For a few years now, and from all levels – diplomatic and internal, an offensive has been ongoing to nominally improve the position of Croats in BiH. This offensive is strongest and gets the most traction in Brussels where Croatia, as an EU member, is now using all available capacities to influence a change of relations within BiH and to ensure the equality of Croats inside BiH. The offensive is being jointly carried out by both the president and the government and the parliament, making it apparently their only genuinely agreed upon national objective.
Whose region
Since it joined the European Union, what is happening in Croatia has become inseparable from the wider European context and developments in Brussels. As the prime minister is a welcome guest there and as Croatia is currently a member state supporting all pro-European ideas and initiatives, in the context of the war in Ukraine, it has from the outset placed itself on the side of the member states most determined to support Ukraine. This did not, of course, go unnoticed in the Western Balkans region where months were spent comparing determination and lack thereof in condemning Russia and supporting Ukraine. In Croatia, close attention was also paid to how much courage and determination Serbia would show in this new situation. This close monitoring was accompanied by gloating when the Serbian government fell short of condemning the terrible aggression. All these developments could be foreseen since the moment the new front opened in the east, but for us, they were just one more aspect of our miniature Cold War performance between Serbia and Croatia where lack of diplomatic and state cooperation is amply complemented by a local arms race. As usual, Croatia buys Rafale jets, Serbia secretly gets the HQ22 midrange antiaircraft system from China; Serbia gets the Pantsir, Croatia bedecks itself with Bradleys, and on and on it goes. Given the national sentiments and positioning of cross-hairs, we can conclude that the weapons are waiting for the moment when they will be used against both banks of the Danube. Leaders on both sides are evidently unaware and prefer to stay unaware of the potential that this micro arms race is building. A mini cold war is also being waged by diplomatic means, culminating with not allowing Aleksandar Vučić to visit the Jasenovac Memorial at a time of his choosing. Although Aleksandar Vučić is a political tale in his own right, and even after he used this as another brick in his victimisation narrative, directed primarily against him and then also the collective he boasts and represents, we have to ask ourselves what Croatia and Croats had to gain from it. Jasenovac is a place of memory and solemn respect that has been placed in the care of the Republic of Croatia on whose territory it is located. Jasenovac is a place where genocide was committed against Serbs, although the most numerous victims of that genocide were Serbs living outside Serbia’s borders. The possibility and practice of Serbian leadership visiting the Jasenovac Memorial has great symbolic importance. Showing respect and commemorating what happened in Jasenovac is of this highest interest for the Republic of Croatia, as it sends the message that such horrors must never be repeated again anywhere. Joint visits of the Croatian and Serbian leadership to Jasenovac would have the greatest symbolic power, but this still seems like a dream that is a long way off from coming true. What we get now is a political spin orchestrated by both sides and a symbolic settling of accounts with something that should be sacred on both sides.
State of the nation
The start of this year saw the publication of results from the population census that was conducted during 2021 and that tells us that the state of the nation is being decimated. Decimation was a practice employed by Roman legions that consisted of punishment for poor outcomes of military campaigns where every tenth soldier in a unit that had underperformed would be stoned or beaten to death. Croatia’s population has shrunk by almost 10% in the relevant period from 2011 to 2021 and currently stands at 3.88 million. The decimation of Croatia’s population is owed to a series of bad decisions and practices that have made us, that we live by and that we have gotten used to. They have been around since forever. If we look at the bad practices that are decimating us, throughout all the surveys, corruption regularly takes the top spot. Corruptive practices have entered all pores of society and become the universally accepted way of functioning, while those less skilled at corruption or those with moral qualms are condemned almost literally to death, as we saw in August with the death of one of the best investigative reporters in Croatia, Vladimir Matijanić, who, because he did not want to pull strings or pay bribes, was not admitted to hospital and died from Covid-19 complications. The corrupt octopus and practice does not choose a time and place, but uses every opportunity, as was shown in the recently discovered scandal around the theft of more than a billion kunas from the state-owned oil company INA. Just saying the number of one billion sounds abstract to most ordinary civilians, a number that we could never earn or acquire, not even in our wildest dreams, while playing by the rules. So, we continue working and hearing about these dreamlike numbers. Though, looking at progressing inflation, this year is set to launch all numbers into the realm of dreams, while the value of our hard-earned income is decreasing every day. Reading the headlines and looking at what surrounds us, it is hard to blame anyone who participated in this humane decimation in the past ten years and decided to leave this region in search of a better life.
Quo vadis, Croatia?
What should we be waiting for and what can we expect here? New problematic statements by the president? Some new minister caught stealing millions? New deaths because we didn’t slip the doctor an envelope of cash? A new war with our neighbours? Where are we going, what are we waiting for, does anyone know?
Bosnia and Herzegovina: Life in Europe’s Waiting Room
Heating up the Cold War
Let me borrow an observation from a sensible friend of mine, in the 1990s, nationalist politics exploded into war, and today it has imploded into war: it has pushed itself up against the wall, brought itself to the brink of war, but war is impossible simply because capacities for it are lacking. All we can expect is another decade of cold warfare, accompanied by a predominance of mediocrity, crime and corruption, the crumbling of all criteria, daily small implosions into hatred, a demographic catastrophe due to mass emigration and natural mortality, the weakening of the secular and civil elements to the benefit of constant strengthening of political religiosity and conservativism, and so on. In brief: the destruction of society from within, in the RS and in the Federation, among Serbs, and Bosniaks, and Croats, and Bosnian-Herzegovinians. This means that the state will formally survive, with fewer or more joint institutions, I would wager on that, but I do not believe in a healthy future for society in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Franjo Šarčević, December 2021
The sentences quoted above sum up the overall state of the socio-political context in Bosnia and Herzegovina over the past few years, but in the past year, it has escalated further. The author of those sentences, a successful young professor from the University of Sarajevo, a long-time activist and columnist, spoke them as a prognosis, but today, as we move towards the end of 2022, we can safely say it was painfully precise. In the meantime, Franjo has (temporarily) left BiH with his family to pursue postdoctoral studies, unsure of whether he will ever return, much like thousands of other young people. From time to time, the cold war is heated up to the point of incandescence, and in that respect, this past year has probably been the most challenging in the post-war period in Bosnia and Herzegovina. With the start of the Russian invasion in Ukraine, the Bosnian-Herzegovinian crisis is turning out to be the second potentially most dangerous and flammable in Europe, with no sign of things changing as long as the ruling political establishment remains in place. The redeployment of additional EUFOR troops, Bosnia and Herzegovina on the front pages of world media openly asking whether a new war is possible, the fear of ordinary people, hate speech in public arenas, and many other things are reminders that even a cold war is still a war. What were, roughly speaking, the war aims of 1992 to 1995 have today survived in the form of dominant politics in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The main issue concerns how the state should be organised and the constitutional-political crises that have arisen to dominate public discourse both within and outside BiH, with thousands of pages written about this in the past year, but it is impossible to go into the finer points of the problem in this short overview. Basically, the point of contention is the organisation of the state that is polarised between two extremes espoused by current politicians: secession to which a (temporary) alternative may be found in a loose confederation based on ethnic territoriality where each ethnic group would have its own piece of the land, and on the other end, a strong centralised state. After the previous high representative (OHR) of the international community in BiH Valentin Inzko imposed a law banning the denial of genocide and other war crimes, the ruling politics in Republika Srpska led by SNSD and Milorad Dodik started a process of quiet secession by announcing the formation of its own armed forces, justice and police system and other institutions. The winter of 2021 and the spring of 2022 were marked by this political crisis that was replaced in the second half of 2022 with the political crisis of Bosniak-Croat relations in the context of organising the Federation of BiH, which is the part of BiH where Bosniaks and Croats make up the majority of the population. What was taking place at the level of society, superficially influenced by the above political crises, was a state that could best be described as a kind of cold war psychosis. And it has been maintained by almost daily heating up. Hate speech, dehumanisation of entire ethnic groups in statements to the media and on social networks are no longer the domain of low-level party henchmen and bots, but go all the way to the top now, to the highest government offices, starting with members of the presidency and leaders of both national and civic-oriented parties. Similar messages have also been coming from the neighbouring countries of Croatia and Serbia. These are strong blows, targeting emotions, intended to insult and enrage. To the bone, as our people would say.
What is OHR to us and what do we want from it?
Unfortunately, it seems that the international community (OHR) headed by its high representative Christian Schmidt is the only connective tissue in BiH at the moment. However he may be perceived by domestic politicians, whether as a German tourist with no mandate from the United Nations or as acting in his full legal capacity and with the support of the broader international community, it is evident that he has come to BiH to do precisely what is stipulated as the high representative’s task under Article II, Annex 10 of the Dayton Peace Agreement. Meaning that he is here to help if we get stuck. And we have gotten stuck plenty of times before, when it came to having a single currency, car licence plates, even when it came to securing land for the construction of the Potočari Memorial Centre, then when it came to Croat self-governance, the law banning genocide denial and glorification of war criminals… It would be crazy to expect that legitimately elected political representatives would find agreement and solutions to make life easier in the country without the international community intervening and providing assistance. Schmidt has already used the Bonn powers in his mandate to impose the Decision on financing the October elections, he repealed the Law on Real Property of RS and helped suspend the Law on Medicines and Medical Devices of RS pending a decision by the Constitutional Court. The high representative’s role is to protect the Peace Agreement, prevent majorization and the robbing of any of the three constitutive peoples, Croats, Bosniaks or Serbs, of their constitutionally guaranteed status. It is clear to everyone that part of that package is upholding the territorial integrity of the state of BiH, made up of two entities and the Brčko District of BiH. Why am I writing this and pointing it out? Simply because I was taken aback by the amount of spin and hysteria that took hold in Bosniak public opinion regarding Schmidt’s intention to impose changes to the Election Law and Constitution of FBiH. Bosniak and self-designated civic parties did not react this strongly even to Dodik’s announced referendum on the division of BiH and the secession of RS. Is this ferocity a factor of pre-election mobilisation of voters or a bid for better positioning in negotiations about the Election Law, I don’t know, but I do know that in the days that followed, the amount of hatred towards Croats escalated.
Blindness
It is strange how quickly a large number of people in this country gets mobilised when it comes to reacting to something they see as a threat to their national interests, while as individuals they are disenfranchised and robbed with hardly anyone seeming to notice. Stranger still is how they react to those who have decided to fight for their rights. On 25 June 2022, the Pride Parade was held in Sarajevo again this year. And again, it was unfortunately required to meet high security demands, because that was the assessment of security agencies, and again, unfortunately, a counter-gathering was organised, but still, the Pride Parade was held. You would expect the Pride Parade to be supported by representatives of political options persevering to achieve the vision of BiH as a civic state, a model of civil society. But judging from the reactions of those opposed to the parade, it seems they saw this event as a danger to traditional family values that have, apparently, been fostered here for centuries and have become part of the genome of the population. Representatives of the Sarajevo Canton, headed by the premier Edin Forto, who supported the parade, were exposed to attacks and discrediting from multiple levels. They were labelled traitors, foreign agents, accused of stealing tax-payers money… And of course, they were held up as heretics and long before the election race officially started, citizens were called upon to vote them out at the next elections, because they had brought the circus to Sarajevo. We are far from anything civic, the ethno-religious matrix is everywhere. Civic-mindedness requires always being on the side of human rights.
Little us on the big stage
With the start of the war in Ukraine, the stage lights are on us again, but there are no other major changes. Ukraine and Moldova have been granted EU candidate status. Some small progress has also been achieved in terms of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s European ambitions. Candidate status is a possibility, but only after key reforms are implemented. In December 2016, the European Commission sent BiH a detailed Questionnaire. So, until that’s done, there will be no change in status. We knew this already, but we thought we might skip over that task, because it’s not entirely certain who among the ruling elites would know even how to fill out that questionnaire. Our fate has been consigned to the waiting room, while trains pass by. In other matters, we are keeping up with European trends. According to the BiH Statistics Agency, inflation is officially at 14.4%, but unofficially it is as high as 25%, the price of some fuels having gone up by 100-150%, prognoses for gas prices and availability of supply are not optimistic, groceries are getting more and more expensive. The state-level government in BiH is the only level that has done nothing to cap prices and make the situation easier for citizens. There are initiatives to abolish excise taxes on fuel, but this was not passed by the Parliamentary Assembly of BiH, and neither was exempting basic foodstuffs from VAT. If members of parliament had found the will to adopt these two laws, the current situation would undoubtedly be much better. There is no one who can be trusted to do something, and there are rising concerns about how we’ll survive all this.
Serbia: Full Stop.
To write this text, first I have to go back to what should be its purpose: to describe the atmosphere in society and the circumstances under which we have been working on peacebuilding in the past year. Though we write these reports every year, I can say with certainty that each year, it has been getting worse. It is difficult to describe all the circumstances that affect our work and our lives as citizens of Serbia not belonging to the ruling party, not just as peace activists. The current Serbian reality does not stray far from everything we have learnt and read about dictatorships, not only those we witnessed in the past, but also those determining our present. From day to day, there is less and less freedom, and with each passing year, we are increasingly disenfranchised, we grow quieter and there are fewer and fewer of us able and willing to speak about this openly. The dictatorial regime feeds on right-wing ideology, so almost every day, we run up against it in the street or are branded enemies, “other-Serbians”, if we voice our support for Ukraine, the environment or LGBT rights, or our opposition to femicide, corruption, violence…
Who’s attacking who?
If you live in Serbia, read the tabloids (and that includes all the print newspapers apart from one daily and two weeklies – Danas, NIN and Vreme – whose circulation has been curtailed by government pressures on the media), watch national television stations, in other words, if you try to keep up with current events from the media outlets that are available, you can hardly be blamed for thinking that it was Ukraine that attacked Russia. All the news from major and widely available outlets presents a ready-made conclusion about the roles in the conflict, where the Russian side is portrayed as the right side, fraternal, protective, fighting for the Christian Orthodox faith, family values, and against fascists, as being on Serbia’s side and as giving us the most aid. Even though EU membership is ostensibly a strategic goal, Serbia is the only European Union (EU) candidate country apart from Turkey that has not introduced sanctions against Russia for its attack against Ukraine. Once again, this year national frequencies were granted to the same television stations, all of them in the service of the ruling party, meaning that the majority of people in Serbia are fed news that war is afoot, that it’s just a matter of time before a new conflict breaks out with Kosovo, Croatia or Bosnia and Herzegovina, depending on the time of day and who the Serbian president decides is a useful enemy in the moment. Even when he says, “I have no intention of waging war against the Bosniaks,” this, of course, makes every thinking individual shudder – why bring up the possibility of war? Why is this being discussed? If he has no intention, then who does? If not against the Bosniaks, then against whom?
Elections before the elections
Early presidential, parliamentary and in some places local elections were held in Serbia on 3 April. At the time of writing, almost five months later, we still don’t have a constituted government. The elections were held in a non-democratic environment, with changes to the election law taking effect some ten days before the elections were called (at the very last minute when the decision could be made legal and published in the Official Gazette), with unsorted voter lists, pressures and blackmailing of voters, with media completely in the service of the ruling party, except this time the opposition decided not to boycott them as they had two years previously. The results were to be expected, but given the general atmosphere surrounding the elections, I am personally somewhat optimistic (as hard as this may be to justify) that the ruling party of Aleksandar Vučić suffered the biggest loss. He won and was confirmed as president with 58.59% of the votes (in 2017, he had 55.05%). The list of the ruling Serbian Progressive Party “Aleksandar Vućić – Together We Can Do Everything” has 120 seats (in 2020, it had 188 of the 250 seats in parliament), while their coalition partner, the Socialist Party of Serbia, has 31 (compared to 32 previously). The opposition list “United for Victory of Serbia” has 38 seats and the civic coalition “Moramo” has 13, making up a total of 41 seats in parliament. The right-wing coalition NADA has 15 seats in parliament, while the right-wing Dveri and Zavetnici parties have 10 each, making up a total of 35. Minority parties have thirteen seats.
Who goes to war and who gets rich?
In our society, we are constantly exposed to terrors of intimidations and threats. War is mentioned in everyday speech, mostly by the highest state officials. And while citizens are being threatened with various enemies and invented or real scandals, the scarier the threats, the easier it is to conceal what is really going on. Thus, all the transgressions of this government are masked by something else, the fall of the airplane carrying weapons from Serbia is masked by a one-off affair and the ends justify the means. In this concrete case, the incident was glossed over with manipulations of Jasenovac[1] and the people who were killed there. Just when a Ukrainian plane crashed in the north of Greece and was found to be carrying weapons produced in Serbia, in the state-owned „Krušik” factory, that were sold by a dealer from Bosnia and Herzegovina to Bangladesh, for several days an affair was fabricated surrounding the president’s visit to Jasenovac. The Serbian president had made plans to “privately” visit Jasenovac, but the Croatian authorities would not allow this – because it is clear to everyone that a private visit is impossible for someone who holds such a high public office in another country. To start off with, if a person travels privately, who is responsible for his security? If a person is making a private trip, no permission is required. If something should happen to the president of Serbia during this private trip, who would be to blame? He himself is never to blame for anything. He is always the victim, as the Serb people are always the victims. This was the mantra repeated day in and day out, endlessly, to the point where it became meaningless, because there was no talk about the actual victims from Jasenovac and their memory. Instead, the president of Serbia was the one and only victim, and the current Croatian authorities and even citizens were the aggressors. That “clash” with Croatia was also a ploy to get some distance from the situation in Kosovo, diverting our attention from it, because that “war” is constantly brought up in Serbia, while cooperation is negotiated in Brussels. The citizens of Serbia are preparing for there being no cooperation, how could there be when war is always possible and always afoot, and it is solely the Kosovo Albanians and their authorities that are to blame. But they are also at the negotiating table, which makes it possible for the president and his associates to triumphantly proclaim that “as of today, all citizens of Serbia – all Serbs, Albanians, Bosniaks, Hungarians, Roma, Gorani – can freely travel to Kosovo with ID cards.”[2] This statement made me think back – whenever I went to Kosovo in the past few years, I always crossed over with just my ID card and never had any problems. I did this back in 2017, but also in 2022, so what had changed? In fact, nothing had changed for those of us coming from Serbia. Things did change for citizens of Kosovo who were previously barred from entry into Serbia with an ID card issued in Kosovo. They would encounter problems at the border, be taken off transport and then given a document to serve as a temporary travel permit. But there were also cases where they were turned back and not allowed to enter Serbia. Truth be told, not all citizens of Serbia were able to easily enter Kosovo – some were turned back. For example, members of the ultra-right-wing group “Levijatan”, who had had been seen off with war cries on social media and set off for Kosovo in October last year, were turned back because they did not have PCR tests.[3] Though this piece of news had elicited many witty reactions, there is a serious problem at its core – how is it possible that such groups even exist and have any kind of social role? They are the extended arm of the government – whatever the government wants but cannot do itself gets delegated to them. Then it uses them to show the Serbian public how such groups are worse than those in power, and to show the world that it cannot address the problems that need solving because of resistance from such groups in society.
Nausea and rage
Right-wing groups, and there are quite a few of them, are para-state organisations. Mafia groups too, though they are most often one and the same. There is a very dangerous organised crime group with close ties to the government, a group guilty of the most horrendous crimes whose leaders (if they were its actual leaders) had been arrested. The tangled knot of government officials’ entanglement in protecting such groups, and the dirty jobs they in turn did for the government would require extensive explanations. To me, however, it is clear that without accounting for the consequences and developments surrounding their criminal activity and by ostensibly preventing further criminal activities by these arrests, such explanations have been unjustifiably withheld. Still, forgive me, a mere mortal, for I cannot bring myself to read about how people were put through meat grinders, with all the gory details included. These people have families, mothers who bravely spoke out, demanding to know the truth about their sons, as well as mothers who learned of the truth from television, watching one of the breaking news statements given by Serbia’s president. I refuse to subject myself to such news and information. They make me, as I imagine they would any human being with the least bit of empathy and the barest sense of responsibility, feel not just a sense of nausea, but also revolt – who is responsible for what they did? Whose failure to act allowed them to commit such acts? And finally, who had been sending them to beat up citizens protesting in the streets over the past few years?
Bombs and unread emails
Every day, we are subjected to abuse by the acts and omissions of state authorities. I am a mother who on 16 May, early in the morning, received an email from my child’s school with the subject: “Bomb threat”. As it would turn out, a hundred schools in Belgrade had received emails saying a bomb had been planted. In the days before, some shopping centres and public institutions had been evacuated because of such emails. And then it really started, so that almost for the whole of May and June, children left school under police escort because of such bomb threats. This amounted to maltreatment of everyone, both the children who received no professional support and their parents. And it turned into a circus that went on for almost two months, though there were always some citizens who did not take such threats, or the conduct of those in charge of security in the country, lightly. There were also cases where an institution would realise a bomb threat had been sent only days later, because no one had been reading the emails.
Protests and consequences
A portion of society is in constant protest, not a day goes by without someone protesting, and yet, all the protests can be roughly divided into two groups: one group addresses the president, asking him to find a solution, which he doesn’t, but he does make promises, and the other group protests over principles, including the rule of law, and does not see the president as a fantastical being that can wave a magic wand to solve all problems. There were and still are many environmental protests, the biggest occurring at the end of 2021 over plans by Rio Tinto to buy up arable agricultural land and convert it into lithium extraction fields that would damage the ecosystem of the entire Jadar region. Road blocks put up in protest across Serbia yielded results and the project was halted, but everyone fears it has only slowed down and the new government will give the project approval to continue. Currently, protests are under way in Šodroš near Novi Sad, where activists are trying to protect the forest, and in the vicinity of Majdanpek, where the Chinese Zijin Mining Company wants to dynamite Mount Starica in order to expand its mines. There were also protests over the mural glorifying convicted war criminal Ratko Mladić in the centre of Belgrade. Activists had painted over the mural, the right-wingers stepped up to defend it, the activists responded, and so it went on for days. In the meantime, graffiti with Mladić’s image cropped up across Belgrade. The police responded by stopping activists who wanted to paint over the mural. Two activists who threw eggs at the mural (Aida Ćorović and Jelena Jaćimović) were taken down to the police station by force, but then the president stepped in and said that “the police was not protecting the mural, they were just making sure no one got hurt”, thus directly supporting those who made the mural in the first place and were now defending it. As an echo of the agreement negotiated with Kosovo, in the same statement, in practically the same sentence, the president banned Europride, which had been scheduled for 17 September. Although he is not authorised to do this, he was the one who announced the ban, invoking the difficult security situation in Serbia. When part of society reacted (it should be noted that the other part of society strolls through Belgrade in religious-political processions under the slogan of protecting “family values” and opposing Europride, issuing threats against its organisers and supporters) to this ban, he said, and I quote: “And what you planned to have, the state has decided you won’t have it. Full Stop.” Europride, freedom, security, safety, a feeling of belonging in society, of not being an outcast because you summer in Croatia, because you summer at all or criticise the president and his government, things like cooperation with neighbours, dealing with war crimes and not glorifying convicted war criminals, a state of rights and justice, objective and free media… feel free to add whatever else you were planning to have in Serbia. The state has decided you won’t have it. Full Stop.
[1] Jasenovac was a concentration camp in what was then the Independent State of Croatia during the Second World War. The majority of the prisoners were Serbs, followed by the Roma, Jews, Croats and prisoners of other nationalities.
Montenegro: The Government toppled, again?!
A little over two years ago, this statement would be hard to imagine in Montenegro, let alone speak aloud. However, in little more than two years, three governments have “toppled”. First in August 2020 the decades-long DPS government, and then over the course of seven months in 2022, two new governments toppled. Prime Minister Zdravko Krivokapić’s government received a vote of no confidence in February, and in August it was the minority government of Dritan Abazović. It seems the “good old” (and not only Montenegrin) discipline of never leaving power is turning into a new, more flexible “knightly” discipline that is more prone to plummeting. Prime Minister Zdravko Kivokapić’s government “fell” when the opposition and part of the ruling coalition, including that very government’s deputy Dritan Abazović, voted against it. Thus, after 14 months, the mandate of Krivokapić’s cabinet was cut short. Incidentally, Abazović was the only politician among them, all other ministers were “experts”. The reason for its demise should be sought in the fact that it never enjoyed the full support of all its members, that its legitimacy was practically negligible, and that its composition was chipped after a mere six months with the replacement of Vladimir Leposavić as minister of justice. An even greater burden was the conceptual departure of Krivokapić’s cabinet from the promises the winning bloc made to the electorate. The new government betrayed the voters’ expectations, especially in terms of its relation to NATO, the European Union, Kosovo, and particularly Serbia. After negotiations at the end of April, Dritan Abazović, who had been the deputy, became the prime minister. Danijela Đurović from the Socialist People’s Party was appointed speaker of the parliament. Despite being proud of his work and the work of the previous government, Abazović pointed out that the new government would focus on the rule of law and economic development. However, the new government, the first to be headed by a prime minister from a “minority people”, fell after only three months, or 113 days to be exact. The toppling of the government was initiated by the Democratic Party of Socialists, which had previously supported it. This support was withdrawn after Abazović signed the “Basic Agreement”[1] with the Serb Orthodox Church (SPC) that the DPS deemed unconstitutional. They also objected to his abandoning the European path because the justice system hadn’t been unblocked, which is the main precondition for Montenegro’s further advancement towards EU membership. DPS begrudging someone a blocked justice system, whatever next?! This means that the current government headed by Dritan Abazović has been working under a technical mandate since 20 August 2022. Nothing wrong with that, you might say, it’s even welcome to have a government that can be deposed, finally this is happening in Montenegro, and regularly at that (perhaps it doesn’t have to happen so frequently, but when it comes to new disciplines, we are consistent). However, is first 13 and then 3 months enough time for anyone to do anything in a country that has been held hostage for decades by crime, corruption, nepotism, partitocracy, etc.? Are the evident obstructions of the opposition and some of the ruling coalition too strong for any sort of radical change? Still, despite their short time in office, we have to ask ourselves whether Montenegro is in better shape today than two years ago, or half a year ago, depending on which government we are evaluating. Or has it been through another degradation, another step backwards in terms of both democracy and economic development and regional and international relations? Or, in the best case, haven’t we just been hibernating for the past two years?
How to pacify a vampire?
The Democratic Front (DF) has been making sure that the new discipline is diligently implemented, so that in the first days of September 2022 a meeting was organised of parliamentary majority representatives from 2020. An agreement was signed[2] and a new government (the third just this year) was announced. The first point of the agreement cites “elimination of any possibility for the return of DPS to power in any form and continuing to dismantle the former regime.” A vampire hunt or the long-awaited vetting process? Applicable equally to all, let’s hope! Claims that the August 2020 elections finally marked the end of not just decades of DPS rule, but also their political life and influence, turned out to be false. DPS not only orchestrated the fall of Krivokapić’s government, but also initially supported and then just three months later toppled the government of Dritan Abazović. Lack of power, indeed! As hard as it may be to admit, throughout the exercise of this new knightly discipline, it turns out Milo Đukanović had a far more stabilising effect on society as president of Montenegro, when compared to the government and parliament whose internal strife and turmoil has made the functioning of both institutions far from efficient. Politically laying DPS to rest means laying to rest decades of a “captured state” whose institutions, if not the entire system, had become deeply entangled with organised crime. It means laying to rest a corrupt and unprofessional judiciary, liberating all other institutions as well, and guaranteeing and implementing the rule of law, and freedoms, and a host of other things. There are indications that this process has started. Namely, the long-time president of the Supreme Court Vesna Medenica and president of the Commercial Court Blažo Jovanić have been arrested, while Europol has accused two police officers of having smuggled large quantities of cocaine as members of one of the two major mafia clans. Medenica is suspected of illegal influence in a number of court proceedings, while her son Miloš Medenica is suspected based on Europol information of smuggling cigarettes and drug trafficking. The president of the Commercial Court stands accused of misconduct during bankruptcy proceedings in which he allegedly took bribes. The season of arrests began after Vladimir Novović was appointed chief special prosecutor. His predecessor Milivoje Katnić had been accused of protecting individual government officials, especially the president Milo Đukanović. Arrests continued during the summer, first with the arrests of the former president and board members of the “13. jul Plantaže” company, Veselin Vukotić, Božo Mihailović, Đorđije Rajković and Sead Šahman, and finally the company’s former executive director Verica Maraš, because of reasonable grounds for suspicion of abuse of office in commercial business. The octopus started to have its tentacles stepped on. Is it time to go for its head? For months, there have been speculations and expectations that also some politicians suspected of corruption would be arrested, or those with prior criminal reports made against them. A large part of the public has its eyes on members of Đukanović’s DPS whose recent rise like vampires only makes things more difficult. But if there is political will, and we have already been assured of the new special prosecutor’s courage, then we should expect a productive Montenegrin autumn of vetting.
Bread and holidays
Seven years since construction began, Montenegro has opened the first segment of its first highway that, once finished, will connect Podgorica with the north of the country and with Serbia. It took four governments and almost one billion euros to complete 41 kilometres of the highway. Experts estimate that this will be the most expensive highway in Europe per kilometre. The wave of price hikes that washed over Montenegro early in 2022 reached a record in July when inflation was 15%. In addition to negative tendencies in the global energy, food and services market, increasingly the cause is attributed also to the start of the government’s “Europe Now” programme that increased income and social benefits in February, but therefore also budget expenditure, all of which speaks to how hard-hit living standards are in Montenegro. But when there is no bread, there are holidays. Celebrations of National Day on 13th July, which is also when the highway was officially opened, ended with police interventions preventing more clashes between two groups of citizens who gathered in Nikšić to celebrate this holiday. A Montenegrin national organisation called the Forum of Free Citizens Luča organised a rally in the main square, while nearby, in Šako Petrović Square, the holiday was being celebrated by another group of citizens carrying tricolour flags, Serbian national symbols and symbols of the Serbian Orthodox Church. The police stepped in to prevent more extensive clashes by separating the two groups and arresting several people, and the ambulance team also had to intervene. Aside from condemnations of violence and calls for responsibility, everything went on as before, with the Serbs blaming the Montenegrins, the Montenegrins blaming the Serbs, no one being held responsible and the celebrations ending in teargas!
“The spirit of Montenegrin heroism went quiet, even more so its spirit of humanity”
“Thirty years ago, in the twilight hours of a country that even before Europe set on that path, had gathered our fathers in brotherhood and unity for decades, here in this place, on the blue shores of the Adriatic, for a moment, the spirit of Montenegrin heroism went quiet, even more so its spirit of humanity,” said the foreign minister of Montenegro Đorđe Radulović when placing a wreath at the entrance to Morinj Camp. For the first time after thirty years, delegations of Croatia and Montenegro honoured the victims at Morinj Camp[3] together with, as Radulović said, the wish to make sure this never happens again, adding that it was the interest of this new Montenegro to see “reconciliation of our fathers for the benefit of the future of our children”. This is not an isolated case because the memorial gathering organised on 25 May 2022 to commemorate thirty years since the deportation of Bosnian-Herzegovinian refugees was attended by the head of Montenegro’s Police Administration Zoran Brđanin, the minister of internal affairs Filip Adžić, the minister of justice Marko Kovač and the minister of labour Admir Adrović. This was the first time, after thirty years, that representatives of the Montenegrin government attended the commemoration marking the anniversary of the deportation of Muslims. On that 25 May 1992, refugees were arrested and handed over to the Army of Republika Srpska. Most of the 79 refugees were executed, while 12 managed to survive torture in the camps. The head of Montenegro’s Police Administration Zoran Brđanin issued an apology to the victims and their family members and expressed regret that there had previously been no political will or readiness to recognise this crime, call it by its name and fully bring it to light. Adžić expressed his support for a memorial to be placed in front of the police building in Herceg Novi, saying that “this is not just a professional, but above all a human and moral obligation”.[4] This is certainly a significant step forward compared to the common practice of state officials before, but in order for the “spirit of heroism, even more so the spirit of humanity” to be revived, these two examples will not be enough and activities such as this will need to become regular and indispensable practice. In addition to these two cases, there are further opportunities for such gestures in Montenegro. For example: Attack on Dubrovnik in 1991 – 116 civilians killed, 194 Croatian soldiers, 165 Montenegrin members of the JNA; 33000 people expelled, 2071 residential buildings damaged or destroyed. Bukovica in 1992 – 6 persons killed, 2 persons committed suicide following torture, 11 persons abducted, 125 Muslim families numbering 330 members displaced. The Klapuh family in 1992 – three members of the Klapuh family from Foča killed near Plužine. Kaluđerski Laz in 1999 – members of the reserve forces of the Yugoslav Army killed 22 Albanian refugees. Even though up until now, the official position has been that Montenegro did not take part in the wars of the 1990s, these places indicate that there could be a more just approach to the past.
[3] During 1991-92, the Morinj Camp was a site of detention of civilians (around 160) that had been arrested in their homes in Konavle by reservists of the Yugoslav People’s Army (JNA), as well as a small number of prisoners of war from among the Croatian armed forces that were defending Dubrovnik at the time. They later testified about the various abuse they suffered while held in detention and the Higher Court in Podgorica convicted four former JNA reservists of war crimes and inhumane treatment, sentencing them to 12 years in prison.
[4] Individual and objective accountability has not been ascertained in the “Deportation” case, but the state did directly accept responsibility for this war crime and in December 2008 a decision was adopted for a court settlement that included reparations in the total amount of 4.13 million euros. Genuine political will to adequately resolve and prosecute this war crime has been persistently absent.
Kosovo: How do you love your country?
I was having a virtual discussion with a veteran of the past war in Kosovo, during one more in a series of disagreements between the government of Kosovo and Serbia, and he was explaining to me how Serbia cannot attack us with infantry forces. When I saw that the discussion had gotten heated and serious, in an attempt to relax things, I said how Serbia could conquer us in 24 hours, and he started giving me a list of our military and police capacities, insisting that Serbia had no chance in 24 hours.
“Alright then, in 48,” I said, jokingly. “Go kill yourself,” he said, and thus ended our virtual discussion.
I remained friends with the veteran and we continued to have disagreements from time to time. But what did I learn from this discussion?
That war is always an option
Relations between Kosovo and Serbia remain fragile, and there is no in-depth analysis that can bring convincing arguments about whether they are any better or worse since the end of the 1998-1999 war. But here we are already in 2022. There is, of course, progress in many areas, such as trade, freedom of movement, communication in arts and culture (hasn’t that communication always been there?), but it cannot be said that such progress amounts to normal good relations between two countries or between two neighbouring nations. This becomes plain to see whenever there is a decision or statement that touches upon the relationship of Kosovo with Serbia, or of Kosovo with Serbs, especially those in the north of the country. War is so present in political, public and media discourse that you sometimes get the impression it only ended yesterday, and not 23 years ago. Some say 23 years is not a long time, but I disagree. Certainly, war must not be forgotten, victims must be remembered with dignity, suffering must be recognised beyond ethnic and other affiliations, but war should not always be remembered as triumph, as defeating “evil”, as defeating the “enemy”, but as a process that happened due to a host of interconnected and complex reasons and it must be used as a reminder that it should never be repeated, instead of being such an easy option that can be taken into consideration and planned out in detail. And we should not forget the young people. Those who are not involved in discussions of the war, to whom the war narrative is served in the form of glorious victories and legendary battles. No one asks them whether they want war. What is more, no one asks them if they want to hear about the war, they just keep filling their heads and ears with stories that are, to be perfectly honest, quite crude. That could be another unexamined reason for young people in Kosovo losing hope.
That Serbia is the eternal enemy
Whenever talk turns to Serbia, it is never discussed as a neighbouring country with which (ironically?) Kosovo has the most prominent economic, political and social relations. When Serbia is the topic, the talk is always about its hostility towards Kosovo, about a whole people harbouring feelings of animosity towards Albanians, wanting to harm them, having come all the way from the Carpathians to spoil the peace for Albanians. The aim here is by no means to diminish the atrocities committed by Serbian regimes historically in Kosovo and other countries of the region. But that does not give anyone the right to have prejudice against a whole people, to judge them for atrocities committed by individuals, or to blame them collectively where individuals are guilty. So much hatred is fostered against this northern neighbour that even the BCSM language is considered a bad language, a language that sounds bad, the language of the enemy (is there such a thing as a bad language?). It is sad to see how the media take part in this discourse. I guess slander, insults and hate speech are always more popular than writing and reporting on a good example of coexistence of different peoples – there are such examples, without a doubt, plenty of them, and not far from Pristina – the capital where most of these hostile narratives are produced. Of course, the current Serbian nationalist regime is no better. Kosovo is held hostage by two neighbouring peoples that cannot seem to find a common language and look to a brighter future for all of us. But maybe this would be no good for the nationalists who always need conflicts (real or imagined) to remain in power as long as possible. Proof of this can be found in all the regimes across the Western Balkans for years now.
That the 1990s mentality has not changed
The mentality in Kosovo has not changed one bit since the 1990s. At least not judging by those who take up most of the space in the media, in public and political discourse. Despite a change of generations (let’s not forget – those born at the end of the war are 23 today and make up a considerable portion of the population and the electorate in Kosovo), the loudest are the quarrellers, the haters, the instigators of conflict, and all this in the name of the “homeland”, “protecting our land”, “fighting against a centuries-old enemy”. And so on. And no one asks those who have heard about the 1990s only from their parents, from (subjective) school textbooks, from the media. No one asks them if they want to go to war, or if they want to live in peace with other peoples in Kosovo, if they want to learn each other’s languages, or even if they want to live in Kosovo at all. They too are hostages of this contentious Kosovo, this small hunched country barely managing to hold up all the historical burden that has been foisted onto its back, all the mythomania, all the suffering and all the blood that was spilled, God knows what for. And reconciliation is never the way, it’s always just by the way!
Qerim Ondozi
Nort Macedonia: If you steal, steal a lot
Bulgaria has again this year stood by its, to us incomprehensible, conditions for putting a veto on North Macedonia’s negotiations with the European Union. The disappointment was and still is great. Nevermind our politicians – incompetent, corrupt, illiterate, naive, all manner of deficient… we know them well, and we only have ourselves to blame for voting them into power (but it seems we prefer them that way) – but what about the EU, does it also have such politicians? The kind that have no qualms about questioning our very existence and the existence of the Macedonian language. The kind that directly aid the strengthening of nationalist parties, reviving forces that desire interethnic conflicts and bring deep disappointment to the scarce civic-liberal circles. The EU has managed not just to amplify the arguments of Eurosceptics, but also to produce an anti-Western mood among the most pro-Western Macedonians. The general impression is that the EU has become what it once stood against. Yes, we are facing instability caused by accession negotiations with the EU! Our obsessive aim of joining the EU for the past three decades came out of the conviction that membership would provide us with stability and prosperity, but instead of stabilisation, there is now serious danger that Macedonia will be destabilised. We received various proposals and solutions, but finally settled on a deal with a “French taste”.
So, we have a deal
Although no one knows exactly what was agreed, we somehow now understand that Bulgaria was not an occupier during the Second World War and was not part of the fascist forces, so that any mention of Bulgaria as an occupier, anywhere and in any way, will be considered hate speech. Bulgarians will be written into the Constitution as a state-founding people, and the Macedonian language will be called the Macedonian language in the Constitution. We are not looking forward to another change of the Constitution and all the drama that will come with it – long weeks of discussion, counting, buying of delegates, promises of director and ambassador posts, threats, protests, blockades… The daily political news and developments in talks about the so-called “French proposal” to overcome the dispute with Bulgaria and its veto against starting negotiations with North Macedonia for membership in the European Union reignited hate speech in the public arena, the media, and on social networks. Hate speech and disinformation, as weapons of propaganda, polarised public opinion, promoted violent extremism and acts of hatred, undermined our fragile democracy and diminished the already low level of trust in political leaders, institutions and democratic processes. At protests, hate speech against the proposed EU negotiations framework shifted from the political to the always-waiting ethnic plane. Some of those protesting against “Bulgarisation” shouted “Pure Macedonia”, “Albanians to the gas chambers” and the like, while few media dared report about this. Most of the media and citizens associations remained mute, and there was also no reaction from competent institutions. In return, at the anniversary celebrations of the Ohrid Agreement, celebrated with pride and pomp by DUI (at the expense of the state budget, of course), the host was booed when she addressed the audience in Macedonian. Instead of celebrating its multi-ethnic character, which is meant to be one of the main premises of the Ohrid Agreement, the 21st anniversary of its signing was overshadowed by the behaviour of some of those present. For Albanians, the Ohrid Agreement still represents a good idea and a positive compromise, while for most Macedonians it was a bad idea from the start, something they have not only never identified with, but something they blame for everything negative that has happened since the day of its signing, and probably also for whatever bad things may happen in the future. This year, unfortunately, politicians have normalised hate speech and contributed to an atmosphere of divisions, tensions and destabilisation.
Written warning
We all agree that when it comes to corruption, especially of judges, public prosecutors, ministers and high government officials, there must be punishment. And it must be harsh. And finally, this year, we had a chance to see it in action. At long last, when the government itself found that a minister had not acted in accordance with the Code of Ethics, it decided to impose a draconian punishment: a written warning! The End!… Incidentally, the case involved a minister, a judge and a public prosecutor (officially working closely together) flying together to Palermo to cheer on our national football team. It was later found that contrary to their claims, none of them had paid for their flight, accommodation and tickets to the game out of pocket. These officials, and many others like them, cherish the state immensely, especially if the state budget pays for their affections. Some of the citizenry is of the impression that the law is not equally applicable to all, and this has become the artillery of choice for political parties, all shooting the same cannons, depending on what side of the front their enemies are located. Some believe the law does not apply to those in power, the more radical-minded believe it does not apply to Albanians, etc. Still, there are many in the government and many Albanians who end up in prison, there were even Albanians in government who ended up in prison: they picked the wrong party! They just wanted to get rich quick, such as the SDSM Secretary General of the Government who was arrested on charges of theft. If he had been in the “right” party, i.e. the DUI, today he would be enjoying the benefits of his act, because DUI officials are either the most honest or the most cunning, untouchable and immune.
A few more words on the judiciary and public trust through some examples
Example 1. A former high-ranking state official was convicted of a host of crimes of corruption, fraud, money laundering and the like, but struck a plea bargain to spend three years in prison (and a luxury prison at that, the open type, with vacation and weekends off) and pay the state 36 million euros. If we know that high officials earn an average salary of 1000 euros per month, then this particular official would have needed 36 thousand months, or 3 thousand years, to earn that kind of money. Still, it all worked out in the end for everyone. No one thought to ask where a government official got that kind of money? But we all know he will be in prison some three kilometres from the centre of Struga, with a view of the lake from a modest building with a park and a yard. This prison is the new refuge of many criminals who once held power and managed to get prison sentences of less than three years, so with their Ohrid ID cards, they moved from the capital to the shores of Lake Ohrid. Conclusion: if you steal, steal a lot, otherwise you’re done for. Example 2. The Prosecutor for Organised Crime and Corruption is searching the Financial Police Administration (Institution 1 vs Institution 2). The head of the Financial Police Administration complains and the prosecutor ends up suspended. Whatever the final outcome, one thing is for certain: the conflict between the public prosecutor and the head of the administration is a war of annihilation, and one side must be defeated. Unfortunately, the process has led to the obliteration of the measly eight percent of public trust in the judiciary. Conclusion: don’t even think about accusing anyone in power, especially not someone from DUI!
(In)competent and (un)suited
Inadequate staffing solutions abound. The son of a political analyst, with no diplomatic experience to speak of, but a darling of the government, was appointed consul general in Chicago. A young TV show host, with no experience, gained attention when the government tried to appoint her to the head of the diplomatic-consular mission in New York, even though she was not employed by the Foreign Ministry and was unsuited to the position. There are countless such examples of people without the requisite education or experience in diplomacy, but with unquestionable party or political affiliations. Children, relatives, friends of politicians (meaning mistresses), as a rule, the most incompetent people who cannot find jobs elsewhere are appointed to supervisory or steering boards of public enterprises.
Corona profiteers
Now when the pandemic has eased up a bit, we get to look back at how we coped with its challenges. Although the mortality figures are dismal, the financial bottom line is not that bad. Especially for those who were meant to protect us from the virus and provide treatment. One piece of investigative reporting by the Investigative Reporting Laboratory (IRL) showed that a private hospital that took in the biggest number of patients during the Covid-19 pandemic, where treatment cost tens of thousands of euros per patient, applied a suspect method that had been at the stage of clinical trials. The clinic had concealed information about hospital acquired bacterial infections, as well as the fact that it used blood hemofiltration in clinical tests as a method to treat Covid-19, something it withheld from the families of the patients and something it had not been licenced to do by competent institutions. Many patients died at this private hospital. Mortality data was faked. Illegal acts were committed. Still, this hospital has net profits of 9.2 million euros. Its profitability rate was a whole of 28.3 percent.
D Day: Census data
This year saw the presentation of census results for the first time in 20 years. There were various manipulations with the numbers before and during the census. Here are the official data: of the total number of enumerated citizens, residents and non-residents, 54.21% are Macedonians, 29.52% are Albanians, 3.98% are Turks, while 1.18% declared themselves as Serbs, 0.87% as Bosniaks and 0.34% as Vlachs. Of the resident population, 58.44% are Macedonians and 24.3% are Albanians. A total of 3504 citizens declared themselves as Bulgarians in the census, which makes up 0.19%, but Bulgarians will still be written into the Constitution as a state-founding people, if we want to ever join the EU, that is.