Back to the Balkans a Year Later: Beograd

A year after our roadshow across the Balkans, Benny and I were back in the region. This time just Beograd. We were invited by the EC, DG Enlargement, to speak at their conference under the People to People (P2P) programme. The programme funds study visits to Brussels for civil society practitioners from IPA countries (Western Balkans and Turkey), and now also runs information events such as this in the IPA countries themselves.

If you haven’t been there don’t wait. Go! You will discover the European frontier where the EU is transforming government and society; where civil society is still a battleground. Isn’t exciting?

Ben and I ran an interactive plenary session at the European event, and then facilitated two breakout workshops. During the other sessions, I made a number of memorable points every time I had the opportunity and soon prompted twitters whenever the mic was passed to me. My style went down well with everyone but Miljenko Dereta, the ‘Don’ of Serbian civil society. There were a few tense exchanges between me and Mljenko.

He disagrees with my vision: network power in a Hobbesian world. He’s a peace&love type. Old school civil society. However, Civic Initiative, his organisation, made groundbreaking achievements for the sector: a new law for NGOs, an office of civil society in government and soon the abolition of the tax on NGOs’ income. We must pay respect to him.

We also learnt a lot about the sector in Serbia. It’s essentially dominated by Miljenko with a handful of other big fish but not a national umbrella body. Unless we consider FENS, another Miljenko’s babies thoughnot very active.

There is a major inter-generational division, with the more senior leaders viewing the world through an outdated ‘Balkans prism’, which is defensive and suspicious of outsiders. Miljenko even suggested there was no value in international networks. Can all of the Balkans’ solutions can be found within the region? This view won’t fit with life in the EU, where the focus is not on foreignors but the commonality shared by fellow Europeans.

On the other hand there is a new generation, much more progressive, fed up with the past – Kosovo and Bosnia – and keen on change. The sector is improving slowly but still has a way to go.

NGOs have a really controversial reputations: 1) the best people in the country work for NGOs but almost all moved to government after the Milosevic’s fall 2) American funded NGOs has tarnished the image of sector, supporting very unpopular causes such as Kosovo independence 3) without domestic funding source but driven by international donors, NGOs have become more like think tanks laying too far from people’s concerns.

Both Government and EU seem to agree NGOs are a vital player in European accession – the main country goal – but have to step up and become more proactive: get closer to people, improve financial sustainability and transparency, check government corruption and revamp Serbian international reputation.

As if we weren’t busy enough with the conference, we spent every spare minute in meetings. We met Giancarlo Miranda, CEO of the country’s biggest bank (Banca Intesa); Adriano Martins, the EU’s Deputy Ambassador; Zarco Sunderic, the Director of the Serbian Government’s Office for European Integration and his colleague Ivana Circovic, who is likely to become Director of the NGO Coordination Office when it starts work later this year,

I also met Boris Camernik, coordinator of British Council social enterprise programme in CEE. BC is investing quite a lot to position itself as an international expert in the field. More than half of BC experts are Euclid members. BC and Euclid are still sniffing each other to figure out how we can collaborate. It’s like the elephant and mouse!

We naturally met many NGO leaders. For instance, our new Serbian member Neven Marinovic of Smart Kolektiv -extremely impressive – runs the first CSR forum in the country developing a local business leader forum. Has been inspired by Prince Charles?

Kennan from ECAS was there too. He’s in charge of the regional programme. Nice guy and I fell in love when he confessed he was the bodyguard of DonaldRumsfeld.

We even found time for a surreal dance performance involving beautiful ballerinas and heavily disabled people writhing in their wheelchairs, part of an Italian-Serbian cultural cooperation project (Novi Sad – Parma). 

I forgot mentioning EN has also secured European funding to promote financial sustainability and results-oriented networking in Serbia. It’s our first project in the country. The EC liked it a lot, awarding it the highest mark out of 172 applications. Our local partner (CRNPS – Center for the Development of Non-Profit Sector) is very positive about the project and about working with us. I’m confident we’ll be able to run an excellent project together. Intesa, Government civil society Office and BC expressed interested in working with us. Quite a success!

The 12-month project starting in mid-June includes 20 exchanges for influential leaders to spend time with fellow leaders from EU countries. Their hosts (i.e. potentially you) will then travel to Serbia to help deliver training and support the growth of the networks.

The exchange part is crucial for the success of enlargement. The latter shouldn’t be limited to officials in Brussels but involve all Europe giving every citizen the opportunity to contribute and understand the value of the EU as a force of change in the world.

By the Way, this year the EC Delegation to Serbia (their third largest, behind Russia and Turkey), will spend €32m on civil society. Every project requires partners from EU countries. Now you have a very good reason for a visit!