13.12.2018.
Minister Vulin: The year 2019 is going to be a year of challenges to Serbia
The next year, 2019 is going to be a year of challenges to Serbia. It will be a difficult year in which we will have numerous security challenges; a year during which some paramilitary will be created; a year in which the migrant crisis will not be of the same intensity, but it will not cease either – said today Minister of Defence Aleksandar Vulin at the opening of the Conference “Economist: the World in 2019” held in the House of the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia.
- That will be a year in which great powers will request from small peoples, Serbia included, to clearly and loudly declare themselves and choose a side, although Serbian people decided that it would never pick sides again and pay for that with its head, and that it would not and should not have its place in great world storms. Something that does not depend on us should not be a part of our life, nor be a matter of life and death – Minister Vulin said.
He emphasised that Serbia is military neutral and that it has its advantages and disadvantages.
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- As such, it stands alone. In the hour of trouble, we have no one to rely on. Military neutrality is costly. It’s the most expensive, though it is the most honourable. We have misgivings about weapons being amassed on our borders, about creation of some kind of the armed forces of Kosovo. Insanity – repeating the same behaviour and expect different result is insanity. To give arms to terrorists and expect them not to use it is insanity. And when our friends from Europe and the world rightfully point us towards France and Germany from some long past times, when they created modern Europe, they should not forget that back in those times they had de Gaulle, while we have Ramush Haradinaj; that they had a war hero, while we have a war criminal. That is why the times in which we live are not the times that can be so easily and simply compared, and some readymade solutions and mechanisms cannot be copied in the times in which we live – the minister of defence stated.The following year is going to be a year of continued economic development – said Minister Vulin – but each security challenge makes this strengthening more difficult.
- It is difficult to persuade an investor to come to a country on whose borders some paramilitaries are created or within which the paramilitaries are established. It is difficult to convince him to bind his capital and future in the next 10, or 20 years, when you are not completely sure that someone will appear and raise taxes 100 per cent on your goods, or that someone will appear and forbid any movement, payment schedule or ultimately start rattling their weapons – the minister of defence underscored.
According to him, Serbia is a stability factor and owing to the policy of President of Serbia and Supreme Commander Aleksandar Vučić, Serbia has become a reliable stability factor.
Reminding the present of the years of the migrant crisis and behaviour of Serbia in those moments, Minister Vulin stressed that “everybody could trust our word and organisation.”
- In the most difficult times of the migrant crisis, when Europe did not know what to do with itself and the challenge in front of it, Serbia was a stability factor. At that time, the world expected that Serbia was going to be a place where the migrants would pass with greatest difficulty, where because of the experiences, religious conflicts, wars from the recent past, they would in particular be the object of hate and violence. Serbia showed its best face then, just like in 2012 it showed its bravest face in economy, and the courage demonstrated by President Vučić, to face the challenge, changes of legislation, changes in economic rules, efficient austerity policy, which is something that now much larger and more powerful countries are doing, but many years later and with much less success - said Minister Vulin and added that “in the following year, Serbia will not change its policy of military neutrality and relation towards its region”.
- We will be the those that one can always rely on and who will actively seek peace. It takes one to start a war, but at least two to make peace. In the Balkans, such as they are, which we love and inhabit by our fate, it has always been the most peaceful and safest when we, who were born and raised on this piece of land, decided for ourselves. When great powers swept these lands, and we became unwilling participants in the events, then the Balkans was spoken of as the gunpowder barrel. However, that barrel has its fuse. The fuse which is long, long away from here - Minister Vulin concluded.
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