The Commissars of Capitalism

by Dimitrije Boarov

Of course, the representatives of Yugoslavia and Croatia and Slovenia, present to the occasion, continued their mutually paralyzing diplomatic wrestling behind the curtain, thus prolonging the BERD leadership's decision to freeze transactions with all Yugoslav republics

It might be too harsh, but its true to say that Yugoslavia was present only "in the sub conscience" of some 2,000 participants at the First Annual Assembly of The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (BERD), which took place last week in Budapest. The ambitious BERD president Jacques Athalie did his best to prevent the Yugoslav quarrels from spoiling his pompously conceived session of European governors and bankers, but the Yugoslav catastrophe, along with the collective resignation of Gaidar government in Russia, has undoubtedly given rise to a nervous general atmosphere and promises that the Eastern European democracies will finally get some substantial loans. Not a single word on Yugoslavia was uttered on the center stage at the impressive congress center in Budapest.

Some indications that the smell of fresh credits could, perhaps, assemble all Yugoslav conflicting parties into a single delegation, proved to be wrong. The official SFRY (Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia) delegation was headed by Slavoljub Stanic of the Federal Finance Secretariat. He told us that only the SFRY delegation had an official seat and treatment, while the others "were seated at the balcony."

The official meeting with Mr. Athalie was used for presenting the official SFRY position that Yugoslavia has a legal continuity, and is not willing to discuss the breaking-up of its quota in BERD's capital, which consists of 12,800 shares worth 128 million ECU or 1.28% of the total nominal capital of the BERD (10 billion ECU). Mr. Stanic had also insisted on activation of certain projects (the Belgrade railway junction, the trans-Vojvodina highway and the "high-speed railroads").

During the talks, Jacques Athalie, apparently, asked for a comment on Croatian and Slovenian requests for membership in BERD and for breaking-up the Yugoslav quota. Mr. Stanic stated that Yugoslavia had fulfilled its dues concerning the quota by using funds from the federal budget, into which neither Slovenia nor Croatia paid a single dinar during the most part of 1991. When Mr. Athalie mentioned the possibility that some sort of deal could be reached on the matter, the SFRY delegation rejected it as prejudicing of solutions that can be reached only after the Conference on Yugoslavia is completed in Brussels. Jacques Athalie then said: "We ought to work faster."

Whether such an ambiguous sentence or a more explicit one was pronounced during Mr. Athalie's meeting with Ante Cicin-Sain, the Governor of the Croatian central bank, we do not know. Mr. Cicin-Sain was very self-confident when he talked to VREME. Namely, he said that all decisions have already been adopted and that the European Bank will be "the first international organization to completely 'unseat' Yugoslavia."

An explanation followed that Croatian and Slovenian representatives have told Mr. Athalie that their position concerning the actual mode of admission to the BERD will be "elastic". That, apparently, means that their stand concerning the breaking-up of the Yugoslav quota is not steadfast, and that they would be satisfied if the BERD offered them the that which remained after the "breaking" of the Soviet quota. For even the minimal subscription (0.1% of BERD shares) provides the same chance of getting credits as the largest share.

Mr. Athalie has announced that Slovenia, Croatia, Macedonia and Bosnia-Herzegovina (out of those, only B&H did not apply for a BERD membership yet) will be accepted in the BERD. BERD missions will, allegedly, be visiting these republics within the next few weeks, with a routine task of formulating development strategies.