Professor at Belgrade’s Faculty of Economics, Danica Popović, said it is difficult to talk about ecology and political issues when people are barely making ends meet, and underlined that people n Serbia are “scared” because of this.
In order to increase income, productivity must go up too, she said, i.e. new “very productive” companies must be opened; in this way, according to her, many EU countries, including Slovakia and Ireland, have raised their citizens’ living standard.
“None of us want a future in which only companies are making money, in which Vučić and his SNS party stays in power, and in which they keep constantly repeating that the GDP growth is at 5%. We don’t care. We want new jobs, so that the country opens up to foreigners who are interested in coming, and investing here. We want software developers and advanced technologies, but we don’t want air pollution. We live in a country where the so-called elite is spending a lot of money on properties in Belgrade Waterfront while, only 150 kilometres south, a detrimental mine is going to be open,” Popović added.
“People are living off 20,000 or 30,000 dinars. In these conditions, people do not think about big things and the quality of life, but only of survival”, she added and underlined that citizens need activism and that someone should remind them that they deserve to live better.
“Our goal is not to protest in the streets. Nobody ever won an election because people took to the streets, but because they voted. This whole thing is about politics. Politics is about changing the environment, about having laws and rules that every person wants. Those are political issues we need to address”, Professor Popović added.
As for new investments, she said that it is necessary to improve the legal framework regulating investing so that investors do not have problems if they decide to invest in the country. “In order to have productivity and for investors to come, we need to have proper laws in place,” Popović explained and added that complying with the law would avoid a situation whereby investors and the state’s top officials do each other’s favours because there would be no interest in doing so.
(Nova, 12.09.2021)
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