The coalition agreement among the Progressive Party, the group around the Socialist party and the United Regions of Serbia regulates the fundamental strategic points, and the additional details of that agreement will be the topic of further talks. Analysts agree that the economic policy and position towards Kosmet will be Government’s critical problems, and its fate will have first contours already with the adoption of the budget rebalance. Our reporter Mirjana Nikolic has talked with professor Slobodan Antonic and program director of CeSID Djordje Vuckovic.
From the coalition agreement we see the main direction of the economic policy of the new government, political analyst Slobodan Antonic tells our radio. Both the economic policy and the stance regarding Kosmet will merge in the rebalance of the budget, says Antonic, reminding that so far there have been an item in the budget relating to helping the institutions in northern Kosmet. “If that item is kept, despite the pressures from all around to remove it, I have the impression that the government will fulfill its promise and continue fighting for the Province. Financing of the institutions in Kosmet will be the primary collision point, and I believe the destiny and character of this government will be forged by the budget for 2013”, explained Antonic.
He adds that, although detailed, the coalition agreement on which the government is founded, is mostly declarative in nature, speaking more about good intentions that the means that will be used to realize those intentions. The overall impression is that it is more aimed at the public than being an operative document to which the government can hold on. Whether the reform of the VAT or establishing of the Development Bank is seriously planned, we will only find out once the team enters the cabined and faces real numbers. Professor Antonic also points that every Government has started off with the idea of rationalizing the state administration, but the experience of the past 20 years shows that each of those governments has actually expanded that administration.
Whether the point is the economy, Kosmet or the budget, the Government should be given time at least to September, in order to see what can be done in the beginning, and only then assess which of the agreed principles can be realistically brought to fruition, says Djordje Vuckovic, the program director of the Center for Free elections and Democracy (CeSID). He has specified that the key factor in a government’s duration is the assessment of the actors themselves, is the survival of the Government is more damaging or useful for them. To strengthen the democracy, it is good that the Government endures the entire term, because big state works sometimes take 10-12 years. If this government should stay for the full four years, like the previous one, then in the end the public will pass the judgment and either reward or punish its actos, concluded Vuckovic.