Weekly magazine "Vreme" this August, it is launching a series of political debates called "The Big Picture" with the idea of rationally and qualified discussions on topics from various fields.
The theme EXPO was chosen for the first debate, and its title is "EXPO - the most expensive Serbian word". Is it EXPO 2027 an opportunity for Serbia or another proof that this government only knows how to build facades?
Kao interlocutors for this topic Siniša Mali, First Vice-President of the Government and Minister of Finance, Miroslav Aleksić, President of the National Movement of Serbia, Radomir Lazović, President of the Green-Left Front and Đorđe Miketić, leader of the initiative Belgrade remains, were invited. All participants confirmed their participation in the debate, except for Minister Sinisa Malog.
"The government is in favor of dialogue, but its representative in this debate was not ready to participate," pointed out the host of the debate, journalist Miša Brkić.
"With the title of this debate, I wanted to emphasize the price we pay as a society, but not only in monetary terms. That price has much wider repercussions, and the question is what will be the price of a possible political and civil consensus. Are we as a society ready to defend this project from the scourge called corruption, and what will the price be if we fail to do so? The price of cooperation, the willingness of the authorities, the opposition, the public and the civil sector together to try to work on a project of importance for Serbia. The price of the vision to devise the future of the new fair, i.e. the economic legacy of the EXPO and, in the end, the price of international embarrassment if we fail to do all that," Brkić pointed out and added that it is important that the EXPO as a topic returns to the space of political and economic rationalization.
He reminded his interlocutors that in September 2022 a meeting was held in the Parliament of Serbia with the commission of the International Bureau of Exhibitions and that a political consensus was reached that Serbia would apply for the EXPO because it was assessed that our country needs that manifestation, but he also warned that to date there is no analysis that would prove the profitability of the EXPO 2027 project and its impact on the domestic GDP.
Đorđe Miketić expressed his concern about the lack of a development strategy, the General Urban Plan of Belgrade, and in general the lack of documentation and data that would be relevant for making decisions about this and similar large projects: "What is crucial, in terms of the development of a country or a city, are the umbrella elements, i.e. development plans. Our institutions, our parliament, our broad public debate do not actually exist. We can only be binary based on this half-information that we have - whether we are for or against. But in order to think about something, to whether it works or not, we must have serious analyzes done by teams of experts and which are transparent."
"If we look at whose interest it is, it is always the simplest when we talk about how foreigners or we react. There will be no funds allocated from their budget that could be earmarked for the construction of kindergartens or better traffic in Belgrade, they will probably be warmly welcomed here, they will have good conditions, and there is no doubt about that. But we simply do not deal with it, because we think that we could invest the 1,5 billion, which is the smallest figure we have heard, and especially not the 18 billion into something from which Serbia would really benefit,'' warned Lazović.
Miroslav Aleksić referred to the fact that no one knows what obligations the state has taken upon itself, criticizing the regime for its lack of transparency: "It seems to me that this would affect the international reputation of Serbia if it were to stop it, but, on the other hand, whatever that reputation is, we must take care of the interests of the state of Serbia and its citizens. That project could be implemented in the state of Serbia, it is not disputed that it should be implemented, but of course according to legal procedures, in an open way, with the possibility for all citizens to know about what does it do, what does it bring us, what are the benefits, and that it should not actually be a source of corruption, but that it should be a good thing for the state of Serbia."
What the participants of the first debate "The Big Picture" think about whether the EXPO exhibition should be stopped, how to fight against non-transparency and corruption, how the application of lex specialis affects the safety and quality of built objects, see at the link:
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