Alarming.
An oil spill is spreading across Serbia and polluting the lives of citizens, the political, business and living environment.
We have witnessed this stain spreading unhindered for months, turning everything around us black. We expected someone else to clean it up and solve our problems, but, alas, this thick, sticky, black liquid has not only soiled our hands, but also polluted our minds.
We think hard and backwards and look for a solution to decontamination in the past.
Sanctions have arrived, the government will say "unprovoked". A little morgen. And they are well deserved.
And with the sanctions came various phantasmagoria on how to get rid of them. All the intelligence of Serbia was harnessed to solve the problem through illusions. And it united around the solution - to nationalize, or rather, to support Russian ownership in the Oil Industry of Serbia (NIS).
The director of the national gas company reminded us the other day in one of his lucid speeches that in the old (Tito's) Yugoslavia, "every republic, I think, except Montenegro, had its own refinery. So, it is part of the sovereignty of a state." So, Serbia, when it is this "dense" and when the oil spill threatens the mental health of the nation, should be a 100% owner of the Refinery (and of course, the entire NIS) and assume sovereignty over them.
Many professors, (especially) from the Faculty of Economics, analysts of various stripes, politicians from the government and opposition, journalists agree with the opinion of this old communist leaf. United sovereignists of all political stripes who have no answer to the question of how, for example, Finland functions, which does not have a refinery, or Croatia, which has one, but it no longer works than it does. And why does a refinery (oil company) have to be state-owned, can a private refinery (oil company) supply the market and ensure the national interest?
Is this how refineries (oil companies) in the UK, USA, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark... By the way, the Croatian market is an example of how gasoline and diesel are no more expensive than in Serbia, even though Croatia imports petroleum products. This eliminates the argument that importing gasoline and diesel would cost consumers in Serbia dearly.
It wasn't that long ago when the current president, defending himself from criticism, emphasized that "a state is sovereign only when it has its own airline." We are all witnesses to how, driven by political reasoning, today's Serbian airline was created and how much that share of sovereignty cost us.
The former Yugoslavia also had a national airline as a "part of the sovereignty of the state". But, at that time, there were other "sovereign" features of the state. For example, steel mills. The then president, unfortunately, overplayed his hand and awarded each republic one steel mill (as well as a refinery, except for Montenegro), which was the prelude to the collapse of the sovereign state of the SFRY. I'm not crying, I'm just stating the obvious.
Well, the steel mill still exists in Smederevo today, but it is not owned by the Serbian state, which (by the way) has shown that it was absolutely incapable of managing it. Does the fact that the Smederevo steel mill (a strategic resource, as supporters of industrial policy would say) is owned by the Chinese mean that Serbia is a less sovereign state? What do professors at the Faculty of Economics think about that? Or, for example, EPS. Why would taxpayers be willing to finance an icon of national sovereignty that has a cumulative loss of 2,4 billion euros? Is that one of the (minor) prices of sovereignty?
There are other hallucinations that, in the opinion of sovereignists, could cast doubt on the thesis of economic sovereignty. For example, is the euroization of the Serbian economy and the marginalization of the national currency, the dinar, evidence of lost sovereignty? Or, is the destroyed Belgrade Stock Exchange a reason to worry about the health of economic sovereignty? Or, why have sovereignists not yet established a national Development Bank? Or, how do sovereignists view the influence of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank in creating economic policy measures for sovereign Serbia? Or, is Serbian sovereignty threatened by foreign investors, whom we otherwise pay to come and essentially undermine it. The same applies to foreign banks, which, in the opinion of sovereignists, threaten Serbia's sovereignty by taking capital abroad.
Sovereignists only care about the national interest and rarely, almost never, have an answer to the question of how to defend the economic sovereignty of a citizen, which, after all, does not have to coincide with the state's. And very often in Serbian circumstances it happens that state and individual sovereignty do not coincide, of course, to the detriment of the citizen.
Sovereignists of all stripes believe that the oil spill problem can be solved the old-fashioned way (by preserving state sovereignty). None of them wants to see that the time has come for a public policy that will define the country's new energy security. Everyone says "now is not the time."
Of course, now is not the best time because the moves have to be made under duress and out of great necessity. But who is to blame, what have we been waiting for so far? Everyone who is now offering a saving solution is looking at the problem statically and is not in favor of bold moves that no one in Serbia is ready for - neither the government, nor the opposition, nor most analysts. Everyone is circling like a cat around a hot mess, no one is ready to bite.
For example, the energy transition after Russia's aggression against Ukraine cost the whole of Europe a lot when it decided to free itself from the Russian energy embrace. But Europe was ready to pay that price for the sake of energy and every other sovereignty. And Europe had a significant decline in economic activity when it started looking for an alternative to Russian oil and we laughed at it. In the meantime, Europe has pulled itself out of the crisis, and now the bear has danced at our doorstep.
The Serbian President is using a false principled stance towards his "Russian brothers" as a cover for his lack of courage and ability to devise a new approach to Serbia's energy sovereignty. Instead, he is playing the role of the new gravedigger of the state and economy, making a mockery of US secondary sanctions on Serbia's financial sector.
He believes that the Americans do not see that NIS's operational activities, including keeping accounts and ensuring business continuity, are carried out with the full and comprehensive support of the Serbian Government (by the admission of NIS management itself).
The president's attempt to clean up an oil spill with petroleum soap could have unforeseeable consequences for the country.
I am not the only one among my colleagues who held back, although the profession requires journalists to report on reality impartially, not to create panic in the public. Countless acquaintances asked for advice on what to do with their savings and how to behave in exchange offices, I told everyone not to panic. And then an old and dear friend called, he ran to the bank to withdraw 60.000 dinars and buy 500 euros that the exchange office was saving just for him.
"It's started," he shouted into the phone, all flushed. I checked the exchange offices around Kalenić Gumna - none of them had euros or dollars. The exchange offices only bought, not sold, foreign currency. The cashier at one exchange office said: "Neighbor, you know, the euro has gone up in price."
Panic is spreading unstoppably. People fear a repeat of the 1990s and the government becoming an island on straw mats. Instead of the president suggesting to the governor to fill the exchange offices with foreign currency when times are tough, he runs away to EXPO or Belgrade on the Water to spread positive vibes.
The house is on fire and the aunt is combing her hair. Even if she wanted to, she couldn't stop the panic. The governor's efforts are in vain because she herself doesn't believe what she's saying because she no longer knows when she was telling the truth and when she was spinning. Panic and a stampede to the exchange offices are the citizens' response to the president's oil soap opera.
The oil spill also tainted the money, which was essentially the main reason why voters drove Milošević from power.
Bonus video:
