Representatives of the ministries of Serbia, but also of both entities in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), had a live communication with their Montenegrin colleagues in recent days in order to create a similar one in their countries based on the "Europe Now 2" program, "Vijesti" learns.
The Montenegrin Ministry of Finance did not want to officially answer questions in this regard, but it was unofficially confirmed that there is interest from colleagues from the region to take over parts of the "Europe Now" program and implement them in their country under a different name.
As a reminder, in Montenegro, in seven months, according to this program, the minimum salary will be increased from 450 euros to 700, the average salary from the current 820 to 1.000 euros, while the unemployment rate, which is now 13,3 percent, will be reduced "to zero". . By the end of October, the same program will abolish the eight-hour working time and introduce a seven-hour...
The interlocutor of "Vijesti" involved in the talks said that the Federation of BiH was first interested in this program, at the suggestion of the new prime minister of that entity. Nermin Nikšić, which wants to speed up the path to the EU and improve standards. However, the source of our newspaper says that the main reason is that due to the new election law imposed by the High International Representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina, there will be new parliamentary elections in the whole country in the fall, along with local ones, and that something similar to the Montenegrin "Europe Now" would be a good pre-election the story.
"The people of Bosnia are no longer interested in nationalist stories, we also have to move on to economic topics," a representative of the new Federation Government allegedly said in the negotiations, stating that their program could be called "Germany now" or "Germany here". in order to prevent the further departure of young people from Bosnia and Herzegovina who most often go to that country "to earn their living".
In the talks, Nikšić allegedly said that those in FBiH will be a little more realistic with the program, that is, that the calculations will work for a lower wage growth, because the economy of that country is not as strong as Montenegrin's. Instead of seven-hour working hours, I can suggest non-working Friday.
That the Montenegrin government is helping the Federation in preparing the economic program, the president of the second entity - Republika Srpska, allegedly learned from his sources only at the beginning of March. Milorad Dodik.
The interlocutor of "Vijesti" says that Dodik was very angry because he did not want the Federation to overtake them with such an increase in wages, and that he threatened that Montenegro would not receive even a kilowatt of electricity from Bilećki jezar and "Buk Bijela", if do not help his entity. Allegedly, he emphasized that wages in the RS must be at least a mark higher than in the Federation.
The Serbian Ministry of Finance did not answer the questions of "Vijesti" whether it is true that they received analyzes and strategies from the "Europe Now 2" program from Montenegrin colleagues, whether they plan to implement similar measures in Serbia and when.
An unofficial source of "Vijesti" said that the current Minister of Finance of Serbia Sinish Mali he has had good communication with the Montenegrin Prime Minister for a long time Milojko Spajić. Mali will allegedly keep that department in the new government, and the negotiations with the Montenegrin ministry were also supported by the new Serbian mandate Milos Vucevic, former Minister of Defense, Montenegrin roots.
The green light to rewrite the Montenegrin program, according to the source of "Vijesti", which is participating in the negotiations, was also given by the President of Serbia. Aleksandar Vučić, but he explicitly asked Malog and Vucevic to keep it a secret and to give the program another name that would not even have associations with "Europe Now". Allegedly, he requested that, if information appears in the public or if someone connects their program with the Montenegrin one, he strongly denies it, and claims that in fact the Montenegrin government copied it earlier from Serbia, as well as that their program will be faster, better and bigger. .
According to this source, Vučić therefore requested that the calculations be made so that the average salary in Serbia would be at least ten euros higher than one thousand even before November.
I will make sure that the numbers fit well on the billboards
Vučić, according to the participants in the negotiations, asked to speed up the preparation of the program for Serbia so that it would be published before the June elections in Belgrade and 84 other cities and municipalities, i.e. "to have at least the main figures ready so that they could be put on the billboards and the rest would be to be done by our media".
"The program must be completed before they publish it in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, so that they can tell me that they copied it from us," Vučić was allegedly explicit.
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