Ever since Martti Ahtisaari made his plan public, we have been hearing the most unbelievable pronouncements coming from Serbian officials concerning Kosovo’s future status. 

The basic question that this essay seeks to answer is the following: why did Milošević’s nationalist model remain unchanged after [his fall on] 5 October 2000? 

A well-known Belgrade author now living in Germany recalls his personal experience of his Albanian compatriots while growing up and living in Serbia.

The negotiations cannot be started before next year, and it is hard to perceive how they could be finalized in less than four years.

This is the price of the nationalist cogito: the price which, as we know, so-called patriotic poets – these god-given mediators of the national spirit – are happy to pay.

Breaking diplomatic relations with France, Britain, Germany and the United States would harm Serbia more than these states.

I have a certain confidence in the people of Serbia. This is hard, thanks in the first instance to the fact that we are emerging from an immense evil, the responsibility for which lies with society but also with every individual, including ourselves, the two of us now talking to one another.

The economy is developing autonomously, and what constitutes a state is the politicians’ responsibility.

In 1912, when Serbia and its allies headed off to the First Balkan War against the Ottoman Empire, it went to war with two publicly stated war goals. The first goal was expansion to the south, to Kosovo and Macedonia, and the other equally important goal was to getting exit to the Adriatic Sea through northern Albania.

This is the realism I speak for, not to get carried away with emotions, not to get carried away with moralizing, to be aware of this huge battle which is currently taking place and in which we are participating.

Economist Vladimir Gligorov examines the ideas of the European Union and the possible deficiencies in its structure.

In hind-sight it was a major mistake by the international community not to have solved the problem in 1999 once and for all.

What graced Politika in better and more professional times – seriousness and analyticity – in the editorial version of Ljiljana Smajlovic attained the features of tabloid-like plunking, demonizing the regime’s opponents and irresponsible name calling.

Ljubisa Ristic’s gesture of naming the stages after his former partners who were his ideological opponents in the late 90’s was actually a fetishization of his own past. In that sense, the Secerana (Sugarmill) was precursor of a different, much more ambitious fetish town, the one on Mokra Gora.

People were frightened, and it was Kostunica who frightened them. I want to remind you of the speech he gave in the National Assembly, it was frightening.

The decision of the US, and a number of other countries to break with international law, which regards the territorial integrity and sovereignty of states as sacrosanct, and to permit Albanian separatists in Kosovo to declare independence from Serbia was an extraordinary act.

Dacic will not break Milosevic’s icon or bury the Leader for the second time.

On November 21st 1996, an estimated 20,000 people gather at Republic Square for the first of 83 days of protest called by Zajedno.

Everywhere in the world the government is controlling something, but the idea of an honest government is discredited here.

Why is a moralist disliked in these times? What has he done to deserve this? It is not a big secret.

Economist Vladimir Gligorov discusses who is to be blamed for high inflation and what it means when the finance minister warns of budget deficit.

In order to form a government with the SPS there is no need to show respect to Slobodan Milosevic. There is even less need for asking that the death of a dictator be equated to the assassination of Serbia’s first democratic Prime Minister, Zoran Djindjic.

Even laymen realized that Serbia’s cashbox is suffering from a serious case of anemia when governor Jelasic announced that the National Bank of Serbia will not grant a loan to the State of Serbia to improve the “blood picture” of its budget

This is not the first time that the people from the Market, the Commission, the National Bank of Serbia and other institutions talk nonsense. No one hopes that they know anything about the economy and financial markets, although they like to call themselves experts.

Balkan states depend on foreign influences to function, both internally and regionally. Increasingly, the key external factor is the European Union (EU).

Those of you based in the UK may have read about the arrest of a PG student and an employee of the University of Nottingham, because they were in possession of an al-Qa’ida manual. When it emerged that the manual is freely available at a US government website and that the student used it for research on his MA dissertation, while the employee printed the 1,500-pages-document for his student friend who could not afford to print such a large document, both men were released, after spending 6 days in custody.

Book publisher Dejan Ilic discusses the negotiations on forming the Serbian government, the education system in Serbia and the riots in Belgrade on February 21st, 2008.

Economist Misa Brkic discusses signing the memorandum of strategic partnership between Fiat and Zastava and its impact on the elections.

Economist Vladimir Gligorov analyses the possible consequences of forming an anti-European government, repealing the SAA and the elections in Vojvodina.

Lawyer Srdja Popovic talks about the divisions in Serbian society, the ratification of the SAA and the possibility of conflict and physical violence in case of protests in Belgrade.

Crucial to the process of transition in the former Yugoslavia is responding adequately to the question of responsibility for crimes committed in the name of a collectivity.

The main point of this paper is that foreign aid fails because the structure of its incentives resembles that of central planning. Aid is not only ineffective, it is arguably counterproductive.