Serbia’s new center-right coalition government, led by Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic, was sworn in on Sunday and is expected to push the country’s EU membership bid and urgently tackle the ailing economy.
Vucic, leader of the center-right Serbian Progressive party (SNS), was given a mandate after a landslide victory in elections in March, called after Serbia began EU membership talks in the wake of a landmark accord with breakaway Kosovo last year.
Of the 228 deputies present at the SNS-dominated parliament, 198 MPs voted for Vucic’s Cabinet, 23 were against it and seven abstained.
“I am ready to undertake the implementation of reforms as I am convinced that if things remain the same, the consequences will be catastrophic,” Vucic told the Serbian parliament.
In his three-hour speech before the vote, Vucic said the priority of his 19-member Cabinet would be the reform of Serbia’s outdated economy, the reduction of the budget deficit and moves to accelerate Belgrade’s bid to join the EU.
“The EU is not an ideal union, but it is the best union of the states that exists nowadays and we belong there,” Vucic said. “If we work hard, I am convinced that Serbia can become an EU member by the end of this decade.”
Vucic is to discuss the first moves of his Cabinet with EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Catherine Ashton, who was to visit Belgrade yesterday.
High on the agenda will be the resumption of talks with Pristina on a further normalization of relations between the two former foes, a key condition for Serbia’s EU membership hopes.
Vucic said he would personally lead Belgrade’s delegation in the EU-sponsored talks with Pristina, expected to continue in coming weeks.
Serbia — the largest country to emerge from the break-up of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, with a population of 7.2 million people — has to reform antiquated labor and other economic laws and cut down on bureaucracy.
More than 20 percent of the workforce is unemployed, and those with jobs struggle to survive on an average monthly salary of 350 euros (US$480).
The new government will have to push through a stringent austerity package, including the privatization of more than 150 state-owned companies, along with subsidy cuts and tax increases.
“These reforms have been put off for too long and they are more than necessary if we want to avoid a Greek scenario,” Vucic said.
He called on the deputies to “eat and sleep in parliament” in order to adopt a series of reform laws to replace labor regulations that have hampered fresh investments.
“The burden is extremely heavy and I am shaking like a leaf faced with the responsibility,” Vucic said.
The 44-year-old once had the reputation of an ultra-nationalist hawk, but he reinvented himself as a pro-European anticorruption campaigner.
The SNS owes its popularity largely to Vucic’s high-profile antigraft drive that led to the arrest of several tycoons and former ministers.
Vucic invited his former coalition partners, the Socialists, founded by former Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic, to join the government.
Socialist leader and former prime minister Ivica Dacic holds the post of foreign minister.
Yale graduate Lazar Krstic remains finance minister, while former World Bank expert Dusan Vujovic was named economy minister.
Serbia’s first female governor and former IMF expert Kori Udovicki will be in charge of the public administration.
The opposition has brushed off Vucic’s plans as “populist and full of empty promises.”
Vucic said that the government would revise the budget in June in a bid to maintain the deficit at an already announced 7 percent of GDP. It is one of the main conditions set by the IMF to approve a new loan.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in