Serbia Today Interview Nebojsa Curcic

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INTERVIEW OF THE WEEK
Interview, August 4, 2009
Nebojsa Curcic
President of the Association for European Integrations

“Serbia is Like a Maid’s Room”
By Ljilja Cvekic

BELGRADE, August 4, 2009 (Serbia Today) – The European Union is not some perfect creation that solves with magic wand all problems of a country joining it; it has its strong and weak sides and should not be idealized but seen realistically to avoid great disappointment, said the president of Serbia’s Association for European Integrations.

“Europe should be taken as it is, with its good and bad sides and not accepted without any criteria. The pro-European oriented people here do not see any bad sides of Europe, same as those who are pro-Russian don’t see any bad sides of Russians,” Nebojsa Curcic told Serbia Today in an interview.

The Association for European Integrations, a nongovernmental organization formed in early 2004 by a group of law students making their masters degree at the European University in Nancy, is trying to find a balanced and true picture of the EU, to identify good and bad sides and Serbia’s place in the whole story. “We’re too small. The fate of the world is not depending on us… Acceptance of everything without any reserves would lead to great disappointment, especially of young people.”

“Euro-skepticism is not allowed here. As further from the EU center, as stronger the condemnation of those who have any doubts in anything the EU is offering. The authorities behave here like communists after the WWII – they promise a magical world once the country enters the bloc.”

Serbia’s pro-European government elected in 2008, replacing Vojislav Kostunica’s nationalist and pro-Russian cabinet, has based its complete program and set as its final goal joining the 27-member bloc following the vision of an European Serbia set by prime minister Zoran Djindjic, assassinated in 2003, but without his strength, abilities and belief. Since strongman Slobodan Milosevic was ousted in 2000, all governments have given same promises while the membership has been postponed from one year to another.

“Djindjic’s murder was almost an alibi to stop talking that Serbia will become an EU member tomorrow or a day after,” Curcic said. “The state is turning into a marketing campaign. The only comparison with the election campaigns that comes to my mind is an ad for losing weigh: ‘Seven Days – Four Kilos Less’. They give up, of course, after two days, empty a fridge and gain more than they have lost.”

Every government in Serbia after 2000 was trying to buy some time and adapted all reforms and laws, necessary for the country’s further steps towards the EU membership, to the daily politics.

“There are four main things I blame this state for. First, $100 billion entered this state since 2000 and that money has not been spent either on reforms or to build any highway. The country had a debt of 10 billion German marks in 2000, and now the debt amounts to 30 billion euros.”

Another issue that the state is reluctant to address is the brain drain and the number of young people who have left the country stays hidden from the public eyes. Besides, Curcic says, nothing has been done to slow down the demographic drop and create conditions for a young couple to have a child.

The Balkans are a very specific area, always between two different worlds, functioning totally on various stereotypes. “There is no other territory with so small distances having so many stereotypes. No wonder that the European story has stuck in the Balkans – different empires have always come in touch here and there are always fractions and sparks at such spots.”

“We are here so much concentrated on small things that we don’t see the whole picture. They even mystify here the creation of the European Union that goes back to 1946 when Winston Churchill said there was no Europe without strong links between Germany and France.” The idea was to create an organization of Europe that would prevent any revenge after the WWII and introduce control that would make impossible another bloodshed on the Old Continent.

He explains that Europe’s logic is a melancholic and skeptic approach to everything, forming stands very carefully and changing mind on the way; unlike the American one which is pragmatic and allows no doubts.

“On one side, the EU needed eight years to reach an agreement on potatoes, spending so much time to find a common stand on small things; but on the other, in the beginning of Yugoslav crisis, it needed only few months to recognize former republics as independent states, which was a tragic decision. The EU countries have no common platform for crucial issues, such as foreign policy. “

However, Europe that used to be so careful before, has taken over from the United States an extreme fear of Islam, although – unlike the States – only a small sea is dividing the two worlds. “The media plaid an important role in creating such an attitude. They are the strongest users of fear, they are selling fear, pouring it on a man’s head and the poor human runs then much easier under the state’s wing to seek protection from the great apocalypse.”

Serbia is arriving at the Europe’s doorstep at the worst possible moment, when the worst economic crisis since the bloc was created is under way and when the EU is starting slowly closing the door once wide open for the new members, door through which the old Yugoslavia could easily enter before the country fell apart and wars spread on its territories.

The state has to make well thought-out moves, to go on with reforms, make a social agreement between those who have taken money from privatization and transition and those who have been left without anything to avoid spilling out of a great anger and totally uncontrolled unrests, Curcic said.

“But this state is like a maid’s room. It is so small that it can be easily put in order, tidy and nicely.”