Were those who claimed that the real winner of the Serbian elections held in May was Fiat – actually right?
That is the argument often used in western media in their post electorate analyses when they wanted to illustrate how a brilliantly executed move had triggered the voters to recall the necessary connection between using the ballot and the quality of life. Many local observers were ready to claim that bringing (back) Fiat to Kragujevac was the tipping point of the elections and that it was a large contribution (along with signing the Stabilization and Association Agreement) to the unexpectedly great victory of the pro-European coalition. That contribution can be seen on a state level, especially in Kragujevac – which suddenly evolved from a “family values” town and a conservative stronghold to a key European stronghold in Serbia.
“Welcome Home,” says the motorway that is sign still standing on the entry to Kragujevac. The euphoria created before the elections is not quieting down. On the contrary, the expectations are being raised, not only those of the citizens of Kragujevac, because a high-level Fiat delegation came to Kragujevac, and right after it came the delegation of the Italian truck manufacturer Iveco. Everyone is beginning to calculate that an investment of one billion euro means 20.000 new jobs and wages which sound promising for Serbian living standards.
Almost no one objected to the fact that the Problem with Zastava was solved not by selling it to Fiat but by consigning it. Right up to the moment the memorandum of strategic partnership between Zastava (i.e. The Republic of Serbia) and Fiat was signed, there were three types of privatization in Serbia – tenders, auctions and bankruptcy. Signing the memorandum could be considered a crossroad of Serbian privatization (and transition in general) because the same thing that many politicians in Serbia used to frown upon when it happened in other transition countries happened here. For instance, when a coalmine in Romania was sold for a dollar or when Croatia offered the Split Ironworks for one euro, there was talk in Serbia how “we will not sell out our resources.” The Kragujevac-based Zastava was one of the last bastions of the ossified consciousness of the spoiled Serbian working class’ remains and the last hope of leftists and nationalists that state socialism and self-management socialism will be preserved in Kragujevac in their basic form. And that the restitution of the Self-Managing Workers’ Home is possible.
Zastava was in such a sorry state that no one wanted to buy it for one dollar/euro. The state was forced to concede that it failed by wanting to produce cars, for which it had spent half a billion dollars in seven years, and it agreed to give Zastava over to Fiat. In addition, the state promised 100 million euro of subventions to that Italian company just to come to Kragujevac and again (this time based on profit) organize car production.
If the new model of privatization should work, that is to say if a pro-European government is formed and Fiat stays in Kragujevac, according to some ministers it could be applied to many other failed firms which no one wants to buy. For example – RTB Bor, „14. oktobar“, FAP, Prva petoletka, Elektroporcelan, Mostogradnja… Tenders and auctions for many of these firms had failed, no one showed up to offer at least one dollar/euro.
If a government of pro-Europeans and the Socialists should be formed, strategic partnership could become a dominant model of privatization. Will the Socialists, who still dream of a social/state property as sanctity, accept this kind of sacrilege? The “Zastava model” seems to be part of the package in the government-forming negotiations. The pro-European block persistently insists on strategic partnership as a model with which to end the privatization in Serbia. Additionally, they see great political benefit for themselves, based on the results on the elections in May thanks to the “Zastava model.”
The Democrats and the always pragmatic “G experts” count on gaining considerable advantage in all future elections if they manage to find jobs through strategic partnership for all the workers from failed state owned firms. The number of those workers is not small. And the example of Zastava’s metalworkers, locksmiths, and spray painters… shows that they will vote for those who save their factory and give them a new job.
They say that in Kragujevac the fear of being fooled was shattered when the vice president of fiat showed his personal and corporate ID and proved that he is not a hired actor brought by the democrats, as the Zastava workers believed up to that moment.
Judging by the May elections experience, the “Zastava case” could become a key element of future policy of Serbia’s pro-European alliance, because it produces (election) results. However, there is always a “however.”
The strategic partnership of Fiat and Zastava can be a good model for overcoming the crisis in one part of Serbian transition which leads to a final rescue of failed socialist giants and reducing unemployment.
This is no small task. On the contrary, it is a lot from the election results standpoint. But it is not enough for an overall europeization and modernization of Serbian society.
Similar examples throughout the world prove that full employment does not necessarily mean a democratic society. That was the faith of Chile in the seventies – General Augusto Pinochet provided full employment through numerous strategic partnerships between Chilean industries and western multinationals, but he ruled as a dictator, and the country lacked democratic institutions.
Naturally, such a drastic example could hardly be imagined in Serbia.
It is, however, useful to remind that membership in the European Union by any means is not the only goal of a European state, but that it is a process of adjustment and filigreeing the regulations, values, standards and institutions of a society. It is good for Serbia to finalize the privatization of state-owned companies as a part of economic reforms and to reduce unemployment from 18 percent to a bearable European 5-6 percent.
However, it should not be forgotten that Serbia has to build an independent justice system that is not influenced by politics; that it has to privatize the remaining state-controlled media and liberate them of party tutorship; that it has to build the “fourth branch of government” (a network of independent regulatory and control bodies) which is one of the cornerstones of the civil sector in fighting corruption, it has to liberalize the market and allow competition, it has to establish and promote tolerance as a key value of social relations, it has to adjust the education system to European standards and the needs of a new information society, it has to reform state governance which still operates as a system of imposing power and turn it into a modern, efficient and inexpensive service of citizens and employers…
That is a process of europeization that lies ahead for Serbia’s political elite, which won great support in the May elections. It is not bad that everything should start with bringing back the European companies because they bring technological, industrial and syndical standards that are in place throughout the EU. It should not be forgotten that a necessary complement to those economic values is a democratic, open and tolerant society.
And then the EU membership is a natural ending of Serbian transition.
Translated by Ivica Pavlovic
Peščanik.net, 28.05.2008.
