Conference in Paris

Although the topic of the gathering of economists in Paris was expanded to economic development in the Balkans and eastern Europe, most of the participants were from former Yugoslavia, including the people still living there and others who moved to universities and institutes across the world or to international monetary institutions. Without ignoring speeches by economists from Albania and Bulgaria, I should say that the main event in Paris was a meeting of economists from former Yugoslavia with Serbian economists as the largest group.

People from all the former Yugoslav republics came to the conference and spent four days taking interest in each other and showing a great level of tolerance which would make their war leaders shudder.

The only person present who was not an economist was Stipe Suvar (Zagreb) who offered an estimate of the latest demographic changes in former Yugoslavia as a fact to be counted on in evaluating future economic trends. Suvar recalled that the former Yugoslavia, from the end of W.W.II to 1991, lost around 1.5 million citizens to non-economic emigration, almost as many to economic emigration and added that every fifth person in former Yugoslavia was a child of a mixed marriage but that migration inside the country was mainly directed towards the ethnic states. He concluded with an estimate of the latest demographic changes.

Zagreb economist Zeljko Rahatinski portrayed current economic trends in Croatia which had to be recognizable to economists from Serbia and Montenegro.

Rohatinski denied claims that Croatia's current stabilization policies were a continued trend since the previous policies caused hyperinflation and the stabilization "actually means the destruction of some vital segments of previous policies and the populist philosophy it was based on". Everyone in the FRY who does not readily accept the authorities' claims that an economic miracle occurred when hyperinflation was stopped, especially people who don't believe the fall of the dinar was caused by the sanctions, some of Rohatinski's words are indicative: the success of Croatia's stabilization policies has yet to be confirmed by the removal of the root causes of hyperinflation.

Also, another decisive factor that Serbians should take into account are Rohatinski's interpretations of relations between Croatia and international monetary institutions. To delay paying its debt to the IMF, Croatia had to accept the obligation of limiting its money mass and delimiting interest rates, a policy of forcing domestic companies to be more efficient in conditions of budget limitations and a speedy privatization of state owned companies as well as a sanation of the banking system. To meet that last obligation Croatia is negotiating with the World Bank which wants a three way policy in exchange for financial aid: restructuring and privatizing public companies, speeding up privatization of former state owned companies and the rehabilitation and privatization of the banking system.

The gathering's only delegate from Bosnia, Dragoljub Stojanov, almost made the conference laugh with a joke that Bosnia-Herzegovina's capitalism is going from communism to communism (the argument is that everyone in Bosnia, under various excuses, is implementing nationalization in the economy). He also noted that he can't see a way out of the situation without foreign aid. I assume he meant financial aid, but other forms of help are not excluded.

Another message for Belgrade, again from Zagreb: the term used in Croatia is change of social ownership and it does not mean the normal and expected privatization in the state that proclaims overall democratization but a mass nationalization of the economy. Therefore the comparison of Croatia and the middle ages with the difference being that some people are now getting successful companies for little cash instead of estates.

The prevailing opinion voiced by economists from Serbia and Montenegro is that the FRY authorities have taken a different road of transition to a market economy with privatization as the main driving force.

Probably because of the large number of FRY economists, the conference debated models of privatization. One of the more moderate conclusions came from Jurij Bajec: "Besides the sanctions as the main outside problem, the main internal economic and political issue in FR Yugoslavia is how to end the continuity of non-market economy behavior and ongoing state tutorship over the economy".

Most FRY economists defined those internal sanctions more fiercely, speaking out against the ruling party and its boss, but there were some (Jelica Minic and Tomislav Popovic from the Belgrade Economic Sciences Institute) who also directed attention towards possible joint interests with neighbors and other European states. None of the conference participants could find anything of common interest but traffic infrastructure to conform to the EU spokesman's words.

Boris Vukobrat

Who Doesn't Want Us To Talk

VREME asked Boris Vukobrat, founder and chairman of the Foundation for Peace and Resolving Crises, what his motives were in organizing the conference: "My main motive comes from my engagement: I look for every possible way to end the evil as soon as possible, stop the war. The other reason; besides achieving peace militarily and diplomatically you can also reach peace economically. That means that regardless of the crisis, war and sanctions people have to live off something, they have to eat and they have to make something under any circumstances. My approach, as an economist, is to start from the fact that if the people in Serbia, Bosnia, Croatia, even Slovenia had US$ 20,000 per capita incomes all this would never have happened, i.e. that the combination of the little work we did and good life we had we would not have asked for changes. Even the Devil's political system would have been good. It's certain that our economic bankruptcy created conditions for social and political behavior later. At moments like those everyone wants to get off as cheaply as they can and the inefficient system brought us to that, not only us but everywhere where the system was in place.

The best experts are here, but I would like to see more of them. Not everyone could come from Croatia because the system told them: don't count on getting re-elected if you go to Paris. The same pressure was applied to journalists, i.e. anyone who says the Croatian economy and people can't survive without communicating with neighbors. It's no different in Ljubljana. There was also pressure there on people who we invited. They do it very deftly and covertly, but efficiently. A large number of people didn't come because Ljubljana and Zagreb don't like anything that smacks of togetherness. They feel they have nothing to do with the Balkans, that they're an integral part of Europe. The further Vukobrat is from them, the better.

People from Serbia came and the people who said I'm Milosevic's extended arm in Paris now see this as proof. However, I'm very happy to have met people who are not exclusive and who argue their stands based on facts although they're from Belgrade. That shows economists there are healthy since they are people who should enable better living conditions for everyone.

The Foundation's goal was to meet here and take inventory together, as openly and truthfully as possible, without pretenses that this is going to be obliging to anyone.

This gathering achieved a lot since people talked. That is the essence".