March 31, 2003 -
One news report over the last few months has been troubling me because I am not sure that people really understand the significance. It is the sugar story. According to these reports, which look as though they are true, it is very possible that part of the highly valuable sugar export quota granted by the European Union to Serbia, which allows Serbia to export Serbian sugar to Europe at high prices, was fraudulently filled with cane sugar imported from the Caribbean or some such place. This meant that instead of hundreds of hard working Serbian farmers who produce sugar beet getting the benefit of this generous business opportunity offered by the European Union, some crooked businessman tried to line his pockets with Euros by cynically breaking EU trading rules and pretending that the cheap imported sugar was produced in Serbia.
Before the current State of Emergency was declared it is sad to say that several people would have said: well, brilliant, how did he do it, I wish I could have thought of that. But now reality begins to strike. Maybe it was a clever manipulation in another world. I mean the world where you try to beat your
neighbor and if you can end up richer and better than him/her you feel you have won a game (whatever that game is). But in the real world of today, our dear friend who thought up this outrageous scheme to manipulate European rules and regulations is guilty of an astonishing insult to his people. Because that kind of thing can mean the end of all European support for Serbia and Montenegro. Just in case you don't get it I mean it is something directly against you, the readers of Blic, and all the honest citizens who are trying to make a normal living.
Unless someone in Brussels takes a very lenient view of all this (and frankly I don't see why they should given the financial problems in Europe) the next stage in such a situation is for all Serbian and Montenegrin citizens to start feeling again what it is like when their companies are prevented from exporting freely to their
neighbors because no one outside will believe that they will keep to the rules of international trade. If you accept that kind of gangster
behavior and expect it to be paid by the poor European taxpayer you better start thinking in a different way. Why should the workers in Germany or Spain pay for sugar frauds made up by crooks? I admit this is nothing to do with the World Bank but I don't see how we can be expected to put our money into a system like that. Like you I am horrified to see the ordinary people of Serbia threatened by a few crooks while we are trying to make things better for all citizens.
Hasn't the time come to turn away from the nineties and give a signal to the world that Serbia and Montenegro is in a new world? I mean, it really is a new world. But unfortunately there are some remnants from the past. And we have seen them with dramatic clarity these last few days. But also this pathetic sugar story must not be allowed to destroy the image of the people and the country to the outside business world.
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