The economy is declining, the people are rushing to the tower, for Serbia, 2024, is destined to be an unquiet year.
Serbs have been on the streets for a week, and the New Year's Eve event has directly stepped out of the taste of color, and the last nail in the Balkans seems to be starting to stir.
Then the question of this issue comes, why can't Serbia bear it?
There are many people on the Internet who attribute Serbia's problems to the system and corruption, but if I want to say, the system is not good or bad, only the unsuitable environment, and the root cause of all adverse social reactions basically comes from the economy.
Serbia's predecessor was a member of the Yugoslav Federation, and its status was about the same as that of Russia, which was once the tiger of the Balkans, and once became the leading big brother of the third world.
But come out and mix it sooner or later.
Yugoslavia relied on the Soviet Union for its establishment, and the way it collapsed was a replica of the Soviet Union, and it was the failed reforms that triggered the structural contradictions hidden within the bloc, the common people did not buy it, the member countries also broke up, and the empire that Tito forcibly put together collapsed overnight.
Although Yugoslavia was essentially the same as the collapse of the Soviet Union, the process was a shocking one, with the Soviet Union splitting up relatively peacefully, while Yugoslavia erupted in a bitter civil war and a protracted economic crisis.
In 1991, the Soviet Union could no longer play, and the younger brothers of Yugoslavia began to move. In June, Slovenia and Croatia declared independence at the same time;In March of the following year, Bosnia and Herzegovina held an independence referendum, and in April Macedonia followed suit
In the face of the collapse of the alliance, Yugoslavia still wanted to save it, and they successively sent a combination of the ** army and the Serbian militia to enforce the law, but they were all met with stubborn resistance from the other party's military and civilians.
The Slovenian war lasted for 10 days, Croatia fought for 4 months, and the Bosnia-Herzegovina war was the most tragic, tossing for more than 4 years, causing a total of about 100,000 deaths, more than 2 million ** from the home, only Macedonia is relatively mild, due to economic backwardness, ethnic singleness, coupled with the pressure of the international community, the federation ** simply let it go.
But this is not the end, but the beginning.
In 1999, Kosovo again asked to break away from the control of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia with the support of NATO, the war lasted 78 days, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was unilaterally bombed for 78 days, the family funds left by the Tito era were defeated in a war, and the infrastructure was also smashed to pieces, the army of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was not much, but more than 7,800 civilians were killed and wounded, more than 1 million people became refugees, and the economic losses exceeded 10 billion US dollars, and it will take at least 10 years to recover to the pre-war level.
In 2006, Montenegro's independence referendum also said that it could not be played, and Serbia passively became an independent country.
The war, which could not be said to be a civil or foreign war, resulted in the death of about 140,000 people and the displacement of 4 million**, of whom 1 3 were Serbs.
To make matters worse, the economic damage to Serbia caused by the war and international sanctions in the process of the disintegration of Yugoslavia is incalculable.
From the point of view of Greater Serbia, before the war, Yugoslavia was about 2580,000 square kilometers with a population of more than 23 million. After the war, Serbia had a land area of less than 80,000 square kilometers (77,474 square kilometers) and a population of just over 6 million.
Serbia has not only lost 70 per cent of its land, but has also lost its supermarket, which has a population of tens of millions, as well as minerals and energy resources from its member states.
In particular, Croatia and Slovenia, which have a relatively good industrial base and economic level, have always acted as the first bridge between Yugoslavia and Europe, and their economic share in the union has reached 20% and 15% respectively.
It can be said that the independence of Croatia and Slovenia has broken the balance of the Yugoslav federation and greatly weakened the economic strength and international status of the federation; coupled with the collective sanctions of the West and the armed intervention of NATO, the seriously reduced Federal Republic of Yugoslavia not only has no sense of existence militarily, but the national economy has plummeted.
In 1990, Yugoslavia's GDP was about $106 billion, but by 1999 it had plummeted to $8.3 billion, and its per capita GDP had fallen from $3,151 in 1990 to about $1,000 in 1999.
Due to the impact of sanctions and the inability to earn foreign exchange, the alliance could only use the money printing machine to pay for domestic spending, which directly led to the worst inflation in human history.
In 1993, the inflation rate of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia reached 5 percent multiplied by 10 to the 16th power, that is, the monthly commodity rate soared by 3.13 million times, the domestic unemployment rate exceeded 50 percent, the poor population was close to 70 percent, and the per capita income was only 1 5 percent.
This report card can't be said to be unprecedented in human history, it is also unprecedented, like the Weimar Republic, ** Lao Jiang can only be a younger brother, and Zimbabwe** must be willing to bow down.
To say that this alliance has not done nothing, they have scrapped money five times, but none of them have fundamentally solved the problem of inflation, because there is no way to control the fiscal deficit and the issuance of money, and the external ** has also dropped from 13 billion US dollars in 1990 to 3 billion US dollars in 1999.
Obviously, in the 90s, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia almost completely lost control of the country's economy, because the national currency was worthless, the common people began to barter, which directly led to the continuous expansion of the scale and scope of transactions in the black market, and later upgraded into a criminal and violent gang, and the growth experience refers to the Russian gangsters, which are still a major hidden danger in Serbia.
In October 2000, Serbia's opposition party, together with student organizations, independence, and the broad masses of the people, launched the "October 5th Revolution" that overthrew Milosevic, on the grounds that Milosevic had cheated in the election, and the form and content were almost exactly the same as today's "anti-577" routine.
From a historical point of view, the Serbian nation is actually very similar to the ** people, in the final analysis, the two groups of people are the same ancestor, the ** people are the Slavs in the east, and Serbia is the Slavs in the south.
They are full of desire for territory in their bones, but their strength always can't catch up with the strong aura, ** people like to engage in big chauvinism, Serbs like to engage in big Serbianism, and as a result, they have made a lot of historical grievances, and they can barely make do with strongman politics, once the strongman goes offline, the people's hearts will be scattered, and the team will not be able to bring it up.
In addition, in terms of economic construction, the Slavs were simple and rude, Russia completely failed in the privatization process in the 90s, and Serbia did not escape the fateful arrangement.
After 2000, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia began a top-down economic reform to reduce its fiscal deficit and debt problem through fiscal austerity, cutting public expenditures, and raising taxes
In 2001, the financial system was restructured and privatized, with the closure of banks with high non-performing asset ratios, the introduction of foreign capital competition, and the large-scale privatization of state-owned enterprises.
Objectively speaking, policies are all good policies, but as soon as they are implemented, they immediately change their taste.
In order to enter the EU as soon as possible, Serbia has completely let go in the process of privatization and marketization, colluding with interest groups, selling the country's high-quality assets at a low price, and foreign capital has also taken the opportunity to enter Serbia's manufacturing, finance and energy industries.
At its peak, in 2006, Serbia's total foreign direct investment (FDI) reached 5.1 billion euros, accounting for 14 percent of GDP3%, 6 percentage points higher than the world average.
You must know that foreign capital must be looked at separately, the proportion of FDI is too low, indicating that the national economy is not optimistic, but the proportion of FDI is too high, but it means that the national economy has been kidnapped by foreign capital to a certain extent.
In the early days of the reform, Serbia was indeed favored by Western capital, but with the impact of the global financial crisis in 2008 and Kosovo's declaration of independence, Western capital began to flee in large numbers, and by 2020, Serbia's FDI accounted for only 61%, which is much lower than the general level of international counterparts.
From 2006 to 2020, Serbia's economy can be described as "first rising and then declining, and finally being beaten back to the prototype", and in 2006, due to the independence of Montenegro, Serbia's economic growth rate was 36%, and in 2007 it rose to 75%, but the next decade was wiped out, with an average annual growth rate of only a measly 23%, which also fell into negative territory in 2020.
According to the ** report released by the European Commission, in 2023, Serbia's economic growth rate will be only 22%, the per capita monthly income is about 600 to 700 euros, which is the lowest limit of the European economy.
For a small country like Serbia, overseas investment and the European market are the fundamental driving forces for its economic development.
Let's give a few data, everyone can see it at a glance.
As we all know, China and Russia are Serbia's comprehensive strategic partners, and Russia is Serbia's main energy country and an important export market for SerbiaChina is Serbia's second largest partner and Serbia's largest importer.
But pay attention, everyone!
In 2022, the total value of imports and exports between Russia and Serbia was only 3600 million US dollars, and the bilateral ** between China and Cyprus is only 35$500 million.
The total import and export volume between the EU and Serbia is 70 billion US dollars, accounting for 64 percent of exports1%, imports accounted for 549%, although China and Russia have given Serbia enough confidence in other aspects, it is far less economically than the EU.
So there are European institutions**, if Serbia joins the EU in 2025 and implements a series of structural reforms, then by 2030, Serbia's GDP will be 9 times higher than if it did not join the EU8 percentage points, and in 2050 it will be 255 percentage points.
The data is here, how can the Serbs not be distracted?
But the problem is that the EU and Kosovo can only choose one, which creates a "Ukrainian-style" selective dilemma in Serbia.
Objectively speaking, although Russia is able to provide Serbia with security guarantees to a certain extent and does not recognize Kosovo's independence, its economic strength is there, and it cannot solve the objective demand of the Serbs to get rid of poverty and become rich.
The EU not only demands that Serbia reform according to the Western system, but also requires member states to unify their thinking and align themselves with the organization on foreign issues, which involves whether Serbia should recognize Kosovo's independence and whether it has the courage to make a complete cut with Russia.
Although Serbia submitted an application to join the European Union as early as 2009 and hopes to officially become a member of the European Union in 2025, the plan cannot catch up with the changes, and in 2022, the Russian-Ukrainian war began, and Kosovo submitted an application for accession to the European Union.
In the eyes of the big countries, only "small children" make multiple choices, but Serbia is a "child" after all, and it is difficult for the country's development direction not to be affected by the big countries.
Due to its refusal to sanction Russia, Serbia is facing strong pressure from the European Union to align Serbia with the European Union, otherwise it will affect the process of Serbia's accession to the European Union.
This trick must be said to be not poisonous, when Ukraine ** Yanukovych was balancing between Europe and Russia, but he was ousted from power by the people who did not know why, and since then Ukraine has become the main battlefield of the West against Russia, but the war has also been fought, people have died, and the promised promises are only verbal, and even the aid to Ukraine has been stumbling.
How can such an EU reassure Serbia?
Vučić's concern is not whether to cut off with Russia, but whether the West will betray Serbia again, once it loses Russia's backer and cannot join the European Union, then Serbia will really fall to the point of being slaughtered by others.
Moreover, the EU has not had a good time in the past two years, France and Italy have barely supported it, while Germany has experienced negative growth for six consecutive months
Ordinary people in Eastern European countries often look to Poland as a model to follow, believing that as long as they join the European Union, they can live a good life for the people of Western Europe.
But you must know that Poland can achieve a counterattack, because it is backed by Germany, and at the same time has rich minerals and a huge labor force of 36 million people, Poland is not only a processing plant with German production capacity overflow, but also bears the military pressure of NATO and Russia.
On the other hand, countries in the Balkans are still at the bottom of the country in terms of economic growth and per capita GDP for many years, not because they do not work hard, but because they are dispensable.
To put it more bluntly, what the EU needs is energy, food, population and markets, and Serbia may be second in importance behind Ukraine.
The truth is this, but the common people can't take care of so much, once the economy stalls, social problems will follow.
In general, Vučić is difficult, and Serbia seems to be following the old path of Ukraine, as for whether the future of this country is to the left or to the right?It depends on the game between the major powers and the patience of the common people.
End of this article.