People in central Serbia demand fair land expropriation price

Villagers whose land was expropriated along the route of a motorway in central Serbia and for the expansion of the local "Morava" airport, demanded on Tuesday a meeting with Prime Minister Ana Brnabic about what they said was an unfair expropriation.

"We wanted to address you during the opening of the motorway section, but the police prevented us. You told the media then (after the opening of the section of the motorway on Sunday), you would talk to us, and we expect an invitation," the letter sent to Brnabic said.

During the opening of the motorway section near the central town of Cacak, the police prevented several dozen citizens from approaching Brnabic to ask her when they would be paid for the expropriated land for the motorway's construction.

Some 300 agricultural landowners from a dozen villages in the area demand the expropriated land be paid at "real" value and say the state has offered them a much lower price which they refused. The legal proceedings they have launched are underway.

People are protesting because the land has been permanently taken from them not only for the motorway route but for landfills for its construction and gravel extraction. They blame the Cacak Municipality for obstructing the legal process.

After opening the motorway section on Sunday, Brnabic told reporters she would personally help the locals who believed the expropriation damaged them.

"I will invite them to the meeting, so we will see what we can do. We will compare the prices of that land with some other. I promise that (the Mayor of Cacak) Milun Todorovic and I will sit with them and see what it is about," Brnabic said on.