Irish Gay Marriage Vote Shakes Croatia's Conservatives
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Issue No. 186 Thursday, June 11 - Thursday, June 25, 2015 ORDER DELIVERY TO Remembering BELEF Belgrade YOUR DOOR +381 11 4030 303 Yugoslavia promises hosts its first [email protected] - - - - - - - ISSN 1820-8339 1 with Belgrade’s return to Craft Beer BELGRADE INSIGHT IS PUBLISHED BY 0 1 new Yugo tour form Festival this summer Page 6 Page 10 Page 14 9 7 7 1 8 2 0 8 3 3 0 0 0 Even when the Democrats longas continue to likely is This also are negotiations Drawn-out Surely the situation is urgent Many of us who have experi We feel in-the-know because bia has shown us that (a.) no single no (a.) that us shown has bia party or coalition will ever gain the governa form to required majority negotiations political (b.) and ment, will never be quickly concluded. achieved their surprising result at last month’s general election, quickly itbecame clear that the re sult was actually more-or-less the result election other every as same in Serbia, i.e. inconclusive. as Serbia’s politicians form new political parties every time disagree with they their current party reg 342 currently are (there leader political parties in Serbia). istered the norm. One Ambassador Belgrade-based recently told me he was also alarmed by the distinct lack of urgency among politicians. Serbian “The country is standstill at and a I don’t understand their logic. If they are so eager to progress towards the EU and en theycome how investors, courage go home at 5pm sharp and don’t work weekends?” overtime. little a warrant to enough Veselinović-linked consortium No easy EDITOR’S WORD Predictability Political By Mark R. Pullen elections Serbian numerous enced rate ourselves as pundits when it comes to predicting election re sults and post-election moves. our experience of elections in Ser - - - - - - - - - - answer to - bags $75m contract in secret Serbia’sNEWS gas conundrum A company con- NEWS trolled by the Serbia is looking for alternative “The situation in the party seems “Dacic will eventually side with Nikolic agreed: “The question is Fearing they might not cross the Pensioners leader, Jovan Krkoba The reported price is the post of In addition, the Socialists are bar Tadic has denied talk of horse- At the same time, Dacic seems re reach an agreement “If we don’t Source: Balkan Insight (www.balkaninsight.com) Balkan Insight (www.balkaninsight.com) Source: Serbian state has party over which way to turn. extremely complicated, as we try to convince the few remaining lag gards that we need to move out of one Socialist shadow,” Milosevic’s Party official complained. in a bid to guide his party into Tadic the European mainstream, but much of the membership and many offi cials may oppose that move.” will the party split or ‘old- back down,” he noted. timers’ threshold to enter parlia 5-per-cent ment, the Socialists teamed up with Association of Pensioners and the the led by business United Serbia Party, man Dragan Markovic “Palma”. bic, Palma and Dacic are all pushing for a deal with the Democrats. of deputy PM, with a brief in charge security for the Socialist leader. gaining for other ministries, includ ing capital investments, Kosovo and education, Belgrade media reported. trading with the Socialists, maintain ing that ministries would go only to those committed to working for the “strategic goal”. government’s negotiations with luctant to call off the nationalists. with the DSS and Radicals, par ty leadership will decide on future steps”, Dacic announced, following par new country’s of session first the liament on Wednesday. - - - - quietly given a supply routes to - multi-million- replace Russian page 10 dollar road con- gas, but the struction contract options are not so to a consortium tempting. hile the football world watch es events unfold at the Euro However, a strong current also However, Mihajlo Markovic, a founder of Markovic, a prominent supporter Some younger Socialist officials Neighbourhood Matters faces extinction unless it changes. flows in the opposite direction, led by party veterans enraged the Tadic. prospect of a deal with recently warned of a crisis the party, if Dacic opts for the pro-European “nat bloc, abandoning the Socialists’ ural” ideological partners. of Milosevic during the 1990s, is seen as representative of the “old- timers” in the party who want to stay policies, true to the former regime’s even though these almost ruined the Socialists for good. have voiced frustration over the con tinuing impasse within their own Football Rebellion Football pean Championships in Austria and pean Championships in Switzerland, Bosnia is experiencing led by fans, play a soccer rebellion, enraged ers and former stars who are by what they see as corrupt leaders football association of the country’s leaders. linked to Zvonko W Issue No. 1 / Friday, June 13, 2008 Issue No. 1 / Friday, - - - - Veselinović that Stevan VELJOVIĆ - has little highway- fter mulling its gas sup- ply possibilities for page 5 building experi- months, the latest op- tion came in late May ence, BIRN can when Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar reveal. Vučić announced that Belgrade is ready A conomists are warning that pro over Serbia’s uncertainty longed “This year has been lost, from the to join the US-backed Trans-Adriatic Pipe- After eight years of stagnation, the pro-European and nation With Nikolic believes the Socialists, led “The group of younger Socialists Business Insight Costs Mounting future could scare off investors, lead investors, lead future could scare off to higher inflation and jeopardise prosperity for years to come. says standpoint of economic policy,” Econom the of Stamenkovic Stojan ics Institute in Belgrade. to Serbia’s late president, Slobodan to Serbia’s Milosevic, and reformists who want the party to become a modern Euro pean social democrat organisation. the Socialists returned to centre stage after winning 20 of the 250 seats in elections. parliament in the May 11 alist blocs almost evenly matched, the Socialists now have the final say on the fate of country. by Ivica Dacic, will come over to if only out of a pragmatic de Tadic, sire to ensure their political survival. gathered around Dacic seems to be adding said, Nikolic majority”, the in that these reformists believe the party Ivan ANGELOVSKI line project that will carry gas from Azer- E - - - - baijan to Europe. - erbian construction giant Serbia’s joining the Russian-backed Energoprojekt in May last Turkish Stream pipeline seems unlikely year quietly awarded a due to lack of financing, while alterna- Friday • June 13 2008 $75 million construction tive options for gas supply include the contract to a consortium construction of a pipeline between Ser- of three firms – Nukleus, bia and Bulgaria and importing gas from SC&LC and Inkop to build a section of Croatia. the Chinese-funded Corridor 11 high- THIS ISSUE OF However, experts say that the country, Belgrade Insight way. BY: IS SUPPORTED at this point, has no genuinely viable solu- on a new gov ense negotiations ernment have divided the ranks “It looks as if the Socialists will Simultaneous negotiations held This divides “old-timers” loyal Socialist leader Ivica Dacic remains the Serbian kingmaker Socialist leader Ivica Dacic remains Lure of Tadic Alliance Splits Socialists Tadic Lure of government, old pro-EU While younger Socialists support joining a new, over the prospect. revolt Milosevic loyalists threaten in Belgrade By Rade Maroevic tions to energy security, warning that un- which holds of the Socialist Party, the balance of power between the blocs and has yet to announce main which side they will support. move towards a government led by the Democrats,” political analyst Mi lan Nikolic, of the independent Cen tre of Policy Studies, said. “But such a move might provoke deeper divi sions and even split the party.” with the pro-European and national ist blocs have drawn attention to a deep rift inside the Socialists. T Zvonko Veselinović-linked consortium was awarded a multimillion-dollar contract Photo by Marina Lopičić /Newsweek Serbia certainty over gas supply could also deter Continued on pages 2 and 3 without public tender. potential investors. Serbia consumes annually around 2 billion cubic meters of gas. About one fifth of Serbia’s gas needs are being met Irish gay marriage vote by domestic gas sources and production, while the rest is imported from Russia, using a single route through Ukraine and shakes Croatia’s conservatives Hungary. However, following the outbreak of the Overwhelmingly Catholic Ireland However, it claimed the referendum Ukrainian crisis, Russian energy giant The victory of gay marriage advocates in reached the opposite decision to that there was skewed from the start, as one Gazprom announced in January that it Catholic Ireland has caused confusion in which voters in Croatia made in De- side held all the cards. does not intend to use Ukraine as a tran- cember 2013. No “informed decision on the referen- sit country after 2019, turning instead to Croatia – where both ‘for’ and ‘against’ camps There, a conservative NGO, “In the dum question” in Ireland was possible, it its existing Nord Stream and the ongoing are pondering the consequences. Name of the Family”, successfully ad- said, when all the main political parties, Turkish Stream project. vocated for traditional family struc- state institutions and the media backed Vučić, in an interview with the AP news tures and forced a referendum on the gay marriage, leaving only the Catholic agency on May 28th, announced that Ser- Sven MILEKIĆ Ireland has joined Spain, Portugal, issue. Church to argue for the other side. bia's intends to diversity its sources of gas France, Britain, Luxembourg, The Neth- In the referendum, 65.87 per cent of “If more Irish voters had had the oppor- supply, and, as a result, Belgrade will join acked by 62.1 per cent of erlands, Belgium, Denmark, Norway, those who turned out to vote backed tunity to hear the consequences that the the US-backed Trans-Adriatic Pipeline voters, Ireland’s recent Sweden, Finland and Iceland.