'Serbia' - tagged features

Serbia's president has officially dissolved parliament and has called early elections. President Boris Tadic says the snap elections will be held on May 11. The move comes after parliament collapsed last weekend following a deep split over Kosovo's independence and Serbia’s ties with the European Union. President Tadic wants his country to pursue EU membership even though 18 of the 27 member states have recognised Kosovo’s autonomy. But his coalition partners led by nationalist Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica hold the opposite view. They insist that unless member states reverse course and declare Kosovo as part of Serbia, the country shouldn’t seek to join the EU. Kosovo’s declaration of independence was always expected to have a dramatic effect on Serbia. I asked Marta Razborsek, Radio Slovenia’s correspondent in Belgrade, if the collapse of the Serbian government was expected? 

Kosovo's independence was celebrated by tens of thousands in the new country's capital Pristina on Sunday the 17th of February. Posters were plastered across the city thanking the US and the European Union for their support. But as you might expect, that's not the story across the border to the north in Serbia. Many Serbs are angry with the US and Europe for blessing Kosovo's independence. Slovenia couldn’t be much further away from Serbia these days, in the political sense. It was the first province to break away from the Yugoslav union back in 1991. And it's come a long way since then. It currently holds the rotating EU presidency, and is something of a darling in the west. while Serbia remains more or less a pariah state. Within the EU opinions are divided over Kosovo’s independence, and whether Serbia’s right or wrong to complain about it so bitterly. Critics of the west’s media coverage of the move say Serbia’s been getting an unfairly bad press. And arguably, the country’s had a difficult rapport with the rest of Europe since the Balkan wars of the 1990’s. Our Brussels correspondent Vanessa Mock believes Europe’s relationship with Belgrade just got even more complicated. 

One phenomenon Network Europe looked into during 2007 was “Yugonostalgia.” When Yugoslavia fell apart in the 1990’s the Balkans experienced Europe’s bloodiest wars since the end of the Second World War. While relations are still strained between the six independent republics that were created, “Yugonostalgia” has been visible from Ljubljana, to Sarajevo and Belgrade. It’s a cultural and psychological phenomenon – nostalgia for the former Yugoslavia, its customs, traditions and its former leader Marshall Josip Broz Tito ... who, as it turns out was a train enthusiast. Seeing a golden opportunity, The Serbian Rail Company dusted down and wheeled out Tito’s luxurious private train. In the past, it only carried VIP’s and heads of state – but times have changed and Deutsche Welle’s Barbara Gruber simply queued with a few tourists to get on board the Blue Train. 

Another decision EU ministers took on Monday in Luxembourg was to sign a new agreement with Montenegro, the world's newest state which seceded from its union with Serbia in May 2006. The Stabilisation and Association Agreement is a first step on the road to EU membership. 

Twenty five years ago Yugoslavia was a model of nation-state stability. Yugoslavia kept the Balkans in one peaceful piece for over 70 years. It was a feat attributed to the skills of the country’s benevolent communist dictator, Marshall Tito. Now, Mr Tito’s favourite thing was his private, Blue train. After his death it was packed away in mothballs and hasn’t been seen much since. But now after the bloody wars of the 1990’s and the break-up of the country the former Yugoslav states are riding a wave of nostalgia, known now as Tito-mania. What a great time thought the Serbian Rail company, to dust off and wheel out the Blue train. 

Twelve years ago, Dutch troops were supposed to protect the Muslims in Srebrenica, but the UN-declared safe haven was overrun by Bosnian Serbs in 1995. Some eight thousand Muslim men and boys were killed by their captors after the fall of the town, Now relatives of those who were massacred in the Bosnian town of Srebrenica twelve years ago are suing the Dutch state for compensation. 

Serbia has a golden opportunity to boost its international image when it assumes the rotating presidency of the Council of Europe next month. But Serbia's critics say the country isn't fit to lead Europe's foremost human rights body - certainly not without extraditing the indicted General Ratko Mladic. War crimes prosecutors in The Hague have criticized Belgrade for not cooperating in the hunt for Mladic, and the issue has long soured relations with the European Union. The Dutch lawyer Phon van der Biesen told Radio Netherland's Sebastiaan Gottlieb why Serbia shouldn't chair the Council of Europe. 

Recently, Romanian and Bulgarian authorities spotted an oil slick on the surface of the Danube River. It soon became apparent that the oil installations at Prahovo in Serbia were to be blamed for the release of an "undetermined quantity" of heating oil into the Danube, one of Europe's most important environmental and economic river-ways. In less than a week the Romanian authorities managed to clean the 50 km long oil slick of oil spending more than 300 thousand Euros in the process . Fortunately the damage to the environment was minimal. But now the question is: Who is foot the 300 thousand euro clean up bill? Radio Romania International's Iulian Muresan reports that the lack of trans-boundary environmental legislation in countries outside the EU renders these kinds of issues even thornier than they already are. 

The war crimes trial of seven Serb military officers over the 1995 Srebrenica massacre resumed this week. The UN’s chief war crimes prosecutor Carla del Ponte reopened the trial in the Hague with fresh condemnation of Serbia for failing to arrest several top suspects, including Ratko Mladic. The International Criminal Court has charged Mladic – a Bosnian-Serb military commander during the 1992-95 war in the Balkans – with genocide for his role in the Srebrenica massacre in which some 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were summarily executed by Bosnian Serb troops. 

When night falls in the Serbian capital Belgrade, the whole city gets ready to go out and party. In the summertime, the nightlife takes place outdoors. Many clubs close down their bars and cellars in the town center and move to floating rafts on the banks of the Danube and Sava rivers. Hundreds of rafts line the imposing confluence of the two rivers and offer everything from Gypsy music to electronic beats, grunge and turbo folk - a sort of Serbian ethno-pop.