NGOs to international public: Abandon policy of cooperating with Vucic regime

NEWS 13.10.202322:54
REUTERS/Johanna Geron

Over ten non-governmental organizations from Serbia called on the European Union (EU), its member states and other Western partners to abandon the policy of cooperating with the regime of Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and immediately engage in a dialogue with the pro-European actors in the country and region aimed at creating conditions for the country’s democratic restoration and liberation.

In the appeal, read out at the end of the three-day Belgrade Security Conference by European Movement in Serbia President Jelica Minic, 12 non-governmental organizations say that “today it has become obvious that the policy of appeasing and cooperating with the regime in Serbia will not bear fruit.”

“It is for this reason that we call on the EU, its member states and other Western partners to reset the policy of engaging in transactional deals with autocratic leaders, to ensure the continuation of the negotiations on normalization of Belgrade-Pristina relations, to immediately engage in a structured dialogue with pro-democracy and pro-EU actors in the country and region, to refrain from introducing sanctions that would affect the Serbian population, support efforts to ensure a level playing field in the December general elections in Serbia in order to enable conducting them as free and fair,” reads the text.

The signatories, which also include the European Movement in Serbia, Center for Research, Transparency and Accountability (CRTA), Civic Initiatives, Belgrade Centre for Security Policy, Centre for Contemporary Politics, The International and Security Affairs Centre (ISAC Fund), said that it is necessary to “reset the current policy of engaging in transactional deals with autocratic leaders, as it has sacrificed democracy in the region for the sake of achieving short-term stability.”

The appeal, also signed by the Youth Initiative for Human Rights, Belgrade Centre for Human Rights, Lawyers’ Committee for Human Rights – YUCOM, Autonomous Women’s Center, Slavko Curuvija Foundation and Partners Serbia, said that punishment of the perpetrators of crimes should be ensured, and nationalist politicians prevented from bringing the Western Balkans “to the brink of yet another wave of chaos and destruction.”

“Recognizing that the risk of conflict breaking out in the region (especially in Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina) is even higher than after 1999, we expect the EU and NATO to do everything to preserve peace in the Western Balkans,” reads the appeal addressed to Serbia’s Western partners.