Serbia—From Authoritarian Regime to Democracy

On October 5, 2000, after a ten-year struggle against the authoritarian regime of Slobodan Milošević, the people of Serbia finally overthrew him. They expected that Serbia would very quickly join the EU; that the economy would flourish, that the standard of living would be higher and unemployment lower. Ten years later, Serbia is not yet even a candidate for EU membership. Serbia has not handed over General Ratko Mladić to the Hague Tribunal. The standard of life—with the average salary standing at 300 Euros—still ranks amongst the lowest in Europe. The problems are obviously much larger and deeper than many could have even imagined ten years ago. Serbia with its history, problems with Kosovo and Metohija, and its own tradition, was a complex and troubled framework in which the post-2000 changes have taken place.

This article is an attempt to measure Serbia's progress by first outlining the positive achievements since 2000 and then presenting some major failures. It concludes with an explanation of why reforms have been so slow in an effort to address the causes behind Serbia's lagging behind many other countries in transition?

My involvement in politics for more than twenty years has served as preparation for this article. I had the opportunity to conduct a number of interviews with leading Serbian politicians who represent different political options. Many of them did not want to speak on the record, and I have tried to reflect their opinions by also, where appropriate, citing public sources. This included a number of interviews which Serbian politicians gave to the media as well as analyses of other scholars.

The Past Decade

Before outlining the positive achievements, it is useful to have a brief overview of what has happened in Serbia in the past decade. This period in Serbia has been characterized by constant fighting between the parties of the so-called "democratic bloc." The main problem was that the two leading politicians who had replaced Milosević, the late Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjić and Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica, spent the vast majority of their time in an exhausting political conflict instead of trying to reform state structures: the judiciary, the police, the army, and the education and health systems, etc. None of Serbia's main institutions were working properly—the parliament was blocked, the National Bank Governor was sacked and his successor was appointed in a questionable legal manner; presidential elections were obstructed three times in a row and Serbia had no President for quite some time. This period of conflict and bickering culminated with the assassination of Prime Minister Zoran Djindjić in March 2003.

Also, during the last decade Montenegro left the Union with Serbia, becoming independent in June 2006. Kosovo declared its independence in 2008. Kosovo is a particularly painful issue since it is considered to be the cultural and religious heart of Serbia. As opposed to the success stories of some other transition countries like Slovenia, Hungary, and the Czech Republic, which took big strides towards the EU and NATO, the new authorities in Serbia had to address the problems of the past, which constantly interfered with the desire to achieve a better future. The new democratically elected governments had to deal with Kosovo and Metohija, the breakup of the Union of Serbia and Montenegro, and the delivery of Slobodan Milošević to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). They are still dealing with the legacy of the past as they are still attempting to find and hand over Bosnian Serb General Ratko Mladić, indicted for war crimes by the Tribunal.

If one also takes into account the 1990s, during which Serbia went through wars, sanctions, poverty, hyperinflation, NATO air strikes, the devastation of its economy, and a massive brain drain of its young and well-educated people, it is not difficult to understand why Serbia still lags behind some other former Yugoslav states (not to mention other former communist states from behind the Iron Curtain) with respect to EU integration. Serbia, which had been far ahead—in terms of economic and political stability and reform...