Help us to complete OneWorld Guides
Some developing countries are missing from our range of Country Guides. OneWorld wants to fill these gaps but we need financial help. If there is a country that you would especially like to see included, then you could make it happen...... find out more

Millennium Development Goals in Serbia

The socialist ideology of the former Yugoslavia ensured that, by the baseline year (1990) of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), Serbia had achieved high standards of health and education, in a society of relatively low inequality and full employment. Then came the years of civil war and sanctions and, since 2000, the adoption of a market economy fashioned strictly in the image of IMF and World Bank principles. The result is a country of very different priorities in which there can be far less confidence in the sectors addressed by the MDGs.

For example, healthcare services are no longer free and the principle of a safety net for extreme poverty is under threat. The rate of unemployment is the key MDG poverty indicator chosen by the Serbian government yet the numbers formally registered as out of work have increased remorselessly since 2000, now reaching almost 30%, with the informal sector of the economy possibly contributing a further 20% excluded from official figures. Most development indicators in Serbia lag behind the other countries of South East Europe,

An alternative and more positive picture emerges through Serbia’s Poverty Reduction Strategy which aims to halve by 2010 the number of people living below a poverty line based on Household Budget Survey data. It is not clear however what baseline year and figure have been adopted but, in 2006, this approach gave a result of 8.8% of the population below a poverty line of just under $4 per day, with apparently good prospects of the 2010 objective being achieved.

No estimates are given for the rate of extreme poverty but it is acknowledged that the most vulnerable groups such as the Roma and other minorities, refugees and internally displaced persons, and those in very rural areas have not benefited from progress in living standards. For example, only 30% of Roma children complete primary education. Whilst health services for the poor are covered by state insurance, many have difficulty in gaining access either through lack of awareness or technical constraints such as lack of a residential address. The difficulties faced by these vulnerable groups are addressed in the special MDG indicators adopted by the government’s taskforce established to monitor the MDGs.

Nonetheless, basic data about the Roma people is uncertain; a census of 2002 gave a population figure of 108,000 but the Roma themselves believe the true figure to be several times higher. Kosovo is excluded from all social data published by the Serbian government; the southernmost province is however recognised as the poorest region of former Yugoslavia.

Conflict in Serbia and Kosovo

KLA fighters in Kosovo © Radio Netherlands / Radio Netherlands Wereldomroep

Much of the responsibility for the fragmentation of the former Yugoslavia and the perception for a time of Serbia as a pariah state can be laid at the door of the extreme nationalist former president, Slobodan Milosevic. The final straw for the international community was his bloody 1998 suppression of an insurgency in Kosovo, an autonomous region of about 2 million people within the Republic of Serbia, the substantial majority of Albanian ethnicity. As killings of members of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) and its supporters raised the spectre of ethnic cleansing, NATO intervened in 1999 to bomb Serbia and evict the Serbian army from Kosovo. Ruthless reprisals against the Serb minority and their property in Kosovo ensured that the Province has since been under the military and civilian police control of the NATO Force in Kosovo (KFOR) and the United National Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) respectively.

KFOR soldier in Kosovo © Radio Netherlands Wereldomroep

With 16,000 NATO troops in place to protect the Serb minority of just 100,000, the international community has failed in its objective of creating a peaceful multi-ethnic society in Kosovo and paid a heavy price for the lack of any clear exit strategy. The UN has lost patience and set a December 2007 deadline for a negotiated political settlement. Under supervision of a Contact Group of countries comprising France, Germany, Italy, Russia, UK, and US, successive phases of diplomacy have failed utterly to bring the two sides to agreement, such is the residual enmity between them. Serbia claims that Kosovo is integral to the country’s history and traditions whilst Kosovo asserts that the actions of Milosevic forfeited Serbia’s right to govern even in the most autonomous structure.

Martti Ahtisaari

In face of such intransigence, the UN geared itself up to impose a carefully crafted solution drawn up by a Finnish special envoy, Martti Ahtisaari, His proposal allowed Kosovan independence but with tightly drawn conditions such as protection of the Serbian minority, to be supervised by UN observers. These terms were accepted by Kosovo, the EU and the US but not by Serbia nor crucially by Russia whose veto threat scuppered the UN plan. The most commonly stated objection to the Ahtisaari plan is the precedent it might create for independence of all other separatist movements, including those active in the post-Soviet region. On these same grounds it is also possible that European unity on the independence option will come under pressure from countries such as Greece, Cyprus and Romania.

Hashim Thaci, Bernard Koucher and Ibrahim Rugova in Kosovo © Andrew Testa

There is genuine fear now of a unilateral declaration of independence by Kosovo, encouraged by the promise by President Bush during a 2007 visit to Albania that US recognition would be forthcoming. Concern that reaction from Serbian communities could unravel so much nation-building and reconstruction in South East Europe is galvanising the troika of the EU, Russia and US, led now by Wolfgang Ischinger, to facilitate a less hasty approach, perhaps building in extra conditions to the Ahtisaari plan but nevertheless with the same outcome of independence.
Politics in Serbia

Vain hopes of compromise over the status of Kosovo flew in the face of recent election results in both Serbia and Kosovo itself. Elections to the Kosovan parliament held in November 2007 resulted in victory for the Democratic Party headed by Hashim Thaci, a former guerrilla leader who takes an especially hardline on independence. None of the Serbs remaining in Kosovo took part in the election.

Vojislav Kostunica

A similar swing towards nationalist sentiment was seen in the January 2007 elections to Serbia’s Skupstina (national assembly) in which the Serbian Radical Party (SRS) won the largest number of seats. Nevertheless, after 4 months of brinkmanship in forming a government, the nationalist leader of the SRS, Tomislav Nikolic, was kept out of office by a centre-right coalition led by the Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS) headed by prime minister Vojislav Kostunica.

A less confrontational stance is taken by the Democratic Party (DS) headed by Boris Tadic who is an opponent of Kostunica, and who narrowly beat Tomislav Nikolic in the June 2004 vote for president. The next presidential election is likely to be held in 2008.

Boris Tadic

Although the conduct of elections has been praised by international observers, everyday life in Serbia is tainted by corruption of public officials, a culture which the more modern state is struggling to offload. Political and business elites are distrusted for the same reason. Kostunica has promised to tackle corruption but past anti-corruption initiatives have proved ineffective.

Civil society is strongly supported by both international and European agencies with funds directed primarily at developing frameworks within which civil society organisations can develop. There are concerns however that legislation governing the affairs of the non-profit sector is out of date and contributes to misunderstandings between government and NGOs.
Human Rights in Serbia

ICTY in session

Another variable in the Kosovo impasse is the carrot of EU membership for Serbia. Whatever the degree of gratitude for Russian support, there is no question that the Serbian people view EU membership as a key to the future. The parameters for any consequent leverage in negotiations are however greatly complicated by the presumed presence in Serbian territory of former General Mladic, wanted for war crimes by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). Human Rights groups are appalled by any suggestion that EU membership negotiations can be allowed to progress as long as Mladic is at large. Previous failure to hand over Mladic to the ICTY in response to an EU ultimatum in 2006 resulted in the suspension of accession talks.

Extending the principle of accountability for war crimes from individuals to states lay behind an application to the International Court of Justice by the Bosnian government in 2007. If Serbia could be charged with the Srebrenica genocide, then a claim for reparations might be possible. However, whilst the Court ruled that Serbia could have done more to prevent the genocide, no case could be brought for direct accountability.

Kosovans in refugee centre © CARE USA

Concern for EU compliance lay behind many of the amendments to the Serbian constitution approved by referendum in October 2006. Although the headline amendment was concerned with claims over Kosovo, provisions were included for the rights of minorities and conduct of the judiciary. Within Serbia, police brutality, arbitrary arrest and torture allegations were rife in the Milosevic era but since then the country has had a very good track record. Active measures have been taken to achieve this, including extensive police reform.

Serbia is home to 300,000 refugees and internally displaced persons, more than any other country in Europe, and the government is struggling to provide housing and other basic rights. The majority fled from Kosovo in 1999 and less than 10% have been able to return.
The Economy in Serbia

Factories ablaze after NATO bombing, Yugoslavia

Serbia lags behind the countries of Eastern Europe in the painful conversion from a centralised command economy to a neo-liberal market model. GDP fell by 50% between 1990 and 2000 and almost 2000 state-owned enterprises, involving over 300,000 employees, have been privatised in the years up to 2007. In the absence of any strong trade unions, most Serbians associate privatisation with catastrophic loss of jobs matched only by the corrupt enrichment of elite politicians and business directors. Abuses associated with massive reconstruction aid since 2000 have not improved the plight of young people seeking work.

The situation in Kosovo is very similar – high unemployment combined with dependence on aid and overseas remittances for almost 40% of the economy which is paralysed by the territorial uncertainty. The per capita aid figure for Kosovo is one of the highest in the world. Proceeds of privatisation are being held in trust for possible future independence. Conversely, a tricky aspect of independence negotiations will be the share of Serbian government debt attributable to Kosovo.
Information and Media in Serbia

Media independence, officially promoted since Milosevic’s fall, remains a problem for individual journalists active in politics, with indirect political manipulation contributing to self-censorship. The media is dominated by the state service Radio Television Serbia, but a number of independent stations such as Tanjug and B92 do exist. There has been a great effort to increase the number of PCs in research, education, health and other public services. High literacy rates help to make increasing access to the Internet meaningful.