Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has criticized idea to move some institution from Belgrade to other parts of the country, claiming that this amounts to populism
The ruling G17 Plus party, on the other hand, says that it is a beginning of the decentralization process.
PM Mirko Cvetković on Friday opened the main office of the National Agency for Regional Development in ZajeÄar, eastern Serbia.
He addressed those gathered for the ceremony to say that the government wants to move institutions outside Belgrade, improve living and working conditions across Serbia and make local communities more attractive to investments through decentralization.
Analyst Nexhmedin Spahiu said that there is no decentralization in northern Kosovo because Priština has no access to the region. “As long as Belgrade continues behaving like it is now, there will be nothing of that process,†he said.
President Boris Tadić said on Monday that the process of decentralization must be implemented for the sake of state stability. Any political abuse of that process can produce the contrary effect of state destabilization, he added.
The Serbian Renewal Movement (SPO) wants laws passed to encourage a decentralization of the country, SPO Director Aleksandar Jugović said. “The SPO is strongly against any kind of initiatives for creating an independent statistical Sandžak sub-region, and we are serious in our efforts to decentralize Serbia. That is why we are demanding the emergency adoption of laws that would return property and authority to municipalities and cities in Serbia,†Jugović said.
Serb political representatives in northern Kosovo oppose a decentralization plan drafted by the International Civilian Office (ICO) and the Kosovo government. They say they are against the strategy which is being drafted to place the northern, Serb-dominated municipalities under the control of the government in Priština.
More and more regional parties that support the government in parliament are showing opposition to the proposed decentralization plan, a daily writes. After the Sandžak parties of Rasim Ljajić and Sulejman Ugljanin opposed the “inefficient and false†regionalization, the Alliance of Vojvodina Hungarians (SVM) and Together for Šumadija parties have also opposed it, Belgrade-based Danas newspaper says.
President Boris Tadić said that regionalization and decentralization must be central topics of Serbia’s policies in the future. He also said that the question of the functionality and stability of the country must not be sacrificed, however.
United Serbia (JS) President Dragan Marković said that his party would vote for the Vojvodina statute and all accompanying bills. He said that they define “an economic, and not a territorial decentralization.”
Minority and Human Rights Minister Svetozar ÄŒiplić said that minorities have the least problems in Serbia compared to neighboring countries. “Europe recognizes this as well. Single cases of violating human rights can be counted on one hand, and that is why the international community says that the situation is not only good, but excellent,†Čiplić told daily VeÄernje Novosti.
Ministry for Kosovo State Secretary Oliver Ivanović said on Tuesday that Serbia will launch new diplomatic efforts in September. This will come in order to explain the problem of decentralizing Kosovo to Europe and the world, said he.
