An act of barbarism

A few days ago, members of the ruling coalition in the Serbian Parliament adopted the Law on Special Procedures for the Revitalization of the Former General Staff Complex. This special law opens the door to demolition and construction on one of the most prestigious locations in Belgrade — the site and surroundings of the General Staff buildings damaged in the 1999 NATO bombing.

It was adopted in a very indicative manner. To avoid a prior public debate – which would have been mandatory had the Government formally proposed the law (and it is beyond any doubt that the Government is the actual source of the proposal) – the law was instead formally submitted by a group of MPs. They also avoided requesting an opinion from the competent agency on corruption risks. After depriving both the public and the relevant institutions of the right to comment on the quality and corruption risks of the law, it was then proposed that the law be adopted under an urgent procedure. Even though it was obvious that none of the legal or parliamentary requirements for urgent procedure were met, the law was still adopted in this manner. What’s more, contrary to the constitutional rule that laws enter into force no earlier than eight days after publication (except in extraordinary cases), this one entered into force the very next day.

This law, which enables construction on the site of a protected cultural monument in the heart of the capital, was preceded by a series of illegal actions by the authorities – from pressuring cultural heritage protection institutions, to the fabrication of documents used to strip the site of its protected status (into which the Organized Crime Prosecutor’s Office is conducting an investigation), and finally to a legally groundless Government decision, based on those falsified documents, to annul the site’s protected status. And as soon as the investigation established reasonable suspicion that ministers in the Serbian Government and their closest associates had committed criminal acts in order to carry out a previously arranged “deal,” made outside all legal procedures, the lex specialis was suddenly proposed under urgent procedure.

The mere mention of a lex specialis inevitably recalls the infamous Belgrade Waterfront project. The same government contributed 170 hectares of construction land in downtown Belgrade to that project – land which, with clear paperwork and cleared terrain, would be worth at least €1.5 billion on the market – plus a number of existing buildings, some of exceptional cultural value (e.g., the Belgrade Cooperative building or Hotel Bristol). The government’s private partner invested €150 million and received over two-thirds ownership of the joint venture. Citizens never got a clear answer from those who were supposed to protect Serbia’s interests about how that ownership structure could ever have been considered normal or acceptable – other than the cynical and banal justification that before this, “there were snakes, rats, and junkies there”.

The situation with the General Staff complex is also completely unclear. Even the most superficial speculation suggests that, in Serbia’s construction market, it is standard practice for the investor to give the landowner at least 20% of the value of newly built square meters, which can go up to more than 40% for the most desirable locations. Based on that, the value of the land planned for a project estimated (by the American investor) at over $500 million would be at least €200 million. The area designated for this investment — between Kneza Miloša, Masarikova, Birčaninova, and Resavska streets — also contains other valuable buildings. I will mention just two exceptionally significant ones: Barracks of the 7th Regiment, at the corner of Nemanjina and Resavska streets, and the Stone Palace (Kamena palata) in Kneza Miloša street. The first one is one of the first modern barracks in Serbia, built in the late 19th century, a valuable monument and one of the most representative surviving military buildings in the country. The Stone Palace is even more interesting – it was once the headquarters of the General Staff of the Royal Army and later the Yugoslav Army, a brilliant project by Russian architect Baumgarten, financed from Austro-Hungarian war reparations after WWI. In 1937 it was declared the most beautiful building in Belgrade. It remains beautiful today and is an important cultural-historical landmark. Its famous Great War Hall is among the most representative ceremonial halls in the former Yugoslavia.

These two buildings alone have over 12,000 square meters, making their market value tens of millions of euros. Regardless of price, it is incomprehensible that the government would effectively give away such structures to a foreign entity — especially under completely unknown conditions.

We now have a law that allows the authorities to hand over extremely valuable public property, under undisclosed terms, to a foreign partner selected outside legally prescribed procedures, so that this partner can implement – under exceptionally favorable conditions – a project of unknown details, “discretely” (and illegally) arranged by top government officials, specifically by a minister who is currently in detention due to suspicion of corruption in another major state project!

To call such a law extremely controversial would be an understatement. It is simply scandalous, inevitably and strongly evoking associations with corruption and barbarism. It combines the two worst forms of corruption: on the one hand, covering up violations of the law and “legalizing” their outcomes, and on the other, bypassing general rules to pursue individual interests.

And even if the professional community and a large part of the public were not opposed – even if demolition were objectively necessary and unavoidable – the destruction of a protected cultural monument carried out in this manner is not a matter of individual significance. It is an act that brazenly and crudely relativizes, trivializes and mocks the entire system of cultural heritage protection. Both factually and legally, it is literally an act of barbarism.

Translated by Marijana Simić

Peščanik.net, 14.11.2025.