Source: "Blic"
In all likelihood, the EU Report on Serbia’s progress on the path of European integration will once again bring up the question - what is the situation regarding restitution? Some five and a half years ago, the Law on Reporting and Recording of Seized Property was enacted in what seemed like a first serious indication of the government’s willingness to tackle an issue that most other transition countries had resolved long ago, namely restitution of or compensation for property seized without consideration through the operation of laws on nationalization, agrarian reform, confiscation, sequestration... Indeed, the government appeared willing to resolve this issue promptly, as the Law called for submission of claims as soon as possible, reinforcing this new-found resolve with a(n) (empty) “threat” – those who fail to present their claims by the end of June 2006 would forgo any right to restitution!!
And yet, five and a half years later, the government continues to use and dispose with the once seized property and even makes the most valuable part of it – building land – available to other new users. EU report or no EU report, is it not rather natural that the public is interested under which conditions this is done and for how long the practice will continue?
Problems regarding access to information in individual cases are hard to understand. All the more so because it remains unknown how much the implementation of the Law enacted five and a half years ago has actually cost us, what resources it required and in what quantities and what are the actual effects. But it beggars belief that requesters are denied access to information on draft laws or documents which should, as a matter of course, be open to public debate, or to information on the (non-)existence and balance of special-purpose bank accounts opened under the Law specifically for the purpose of restitution.
All issues regarding denationalization are a legitimate object of interest not only for the citizens directly concerned in restitution or compensation, but also for all other Serbian citizens. Not only because the way in which the issue of restitution is address will impact on the country’s European integration, which many see as a top national interest, but also because the manner, type and scope of restitution will determine the portion of the financial burden each and every one of them will indirectly bear.