VLADIMIR POPOVIĆ

Belgrade, 2022.

The late first and early second decades of the 21^st century in Serbia were marked by a state of general social entropy. The so-called democratic forces were finishing up their decade in office, which started after the victory of the disgruntled people in the 2000 elections, leading to dramatic changes of October 5^th and the replacement of the decades-long communist regime.

More precisely, these were transformed communists, pseudo-socialists, who did not understand the geopolitical events of the late 20^th century, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and everything that came after that, and who were not ready to face the changes and give up on the totalitarian way of running a country. After several decades of indoctrination, co-existence with the significant help of new globalism, nationalism flared up and a bloody collapse of Yugoslavia, the country we were born and lived in, began.

With the opening of old wounds and stirring up of nationalism, a war broke out in the heart of Europe. Hence, the end of the second millennium brought to this part of the world hardship, desolation, annihilation of economy, hyperinflation, widespread robbery, deterioration of social norms, complete devastation of values, and finally, bombing of Serbia and Montenegro half a century after the end of all war activities in Europe – the end of the Second World War.

It is because of all the above-stated that the huge discontent of the people overthrew the grotesque regime, which in its last stage tried to maintain power even through political killings.

Instead of facilitating social prosperity and accelerated connection to democratic centers, as well as making up for lost time, these “democratic forces” that came into office had, unfortunately, once again, after a decade of rule, brought the nation into a state of utter despair, great disappointment and belief that the Balkans could never be part of the progressive world.

NEW ERA OF SERBIAN POLITICS

After the assassination of Zoran Đinđić in 2003 and radical cuts in the Democratic Party, which ensued as the result of that dramatic event, the so-called democratic government which ruled Serbia remained in power only off of the citizens’ fear that “the others are worse.” The “others” were the Serbian Radical Party, whose leader was imprisoned by the international court, where he stood trial for war crimes, while using the proceedings to additionally challenge and provoke the Serbian public, making threats and planting seeds of fear among the majority of the public whose memories of the nineties’ atrocities were still fresh.

Values of the former Democratic Party were disappearing, and the fact that Party President Boris Tadić managed to remain in office merely because he “is slightly better than the others after all” was destroying the party’s essence. Distancing themselves from the politics of Zoran Đinđić and fraternizing with the party of Slobodan Milošević, in addition to extreme ineptness of the executive government, increasingly prominent corruption, and absolute control of the media, extinguished the last atoms of energy among that part of the population who actually helped these Democrats come into office.

An attempt to form fractions from the collapsing Democratic Party, which originally sparked hope that they would be able to correct the idle wandering of the murdered PM’s party, proved to be unsuccessful. Faster than the party’s management itself, leaders of the fractions used their coming into office and the support of the public given for the purposes of correcting the lost political course solely for personal interests, causing even greater desolation and utter despondency.

During this time, through hard work, dedication to politics and analysis of societal needs, the opposition made the decision to form a new political party, which distanced itself from the politics and the rhetoric of the nineties. They saw their rise to power primarily in the criticism of the ruling coalition, with which most of the citizens were frustrated. At the beginning of the second decade of the 21^st century, it became clear that previous election wins, resting on the reassurances “better them after all,” were to be the last.

The state in the country, especially in political circles, led one group of politically active, but also former members of the mentioned democratic clusters, to start to seek out ways to confront the completely certain collapse of what used to be called the democratic part of the society in a more serious and active manner. Group of then-active MPs, former members of the DOS parties, was joined by one part of, at the time, non-party individuals, but active supporters of the democratic forces, trying to form some new form of more active political efforts.

With the intent to find a new face that could unite and preserve this voting potential, they started sending appeals and requests to me, asking for my return to Serbia and help with the creation of this new political form, which would try and save, at the time, still considerable political energy that remained after Zoran’s murder.

During 2011, first meetings of one informal group of about twenty individuals took place in order to find the form and opportunities for preserving these political and social powers. First confirmation that these powers are not insignificant came after the May 2012 elections, when this group was active in the creating of the so-called blank votes, which clearly demonstrated that you cannot rule Serbia simply “because the others are worse,” and that this was the end of such a futile approach.

However, immediately after the elections, this informal group was divided because some of us started making excuses that they were not aware that the blank votes would result in the victory of the Serbian Progressive Party, though I am certain today, as I was back then, that this was a subsequent attempt of “washing their hands” and unreadiness to accept reality and admit fake morality, which is sadly, the main characteristic of this part of the Serbian society.

Complete breakdown of the Democratic Party after losing those elections only heightened the actions of the mentioned political activists, with the intention of forming some new political party that would quickly take the place of not only the Democratic Party but also its derived fractions that also became completely compromised in the meantime.

My plans were somewhat different. I did not want to be politically active, knowing that I do not possess the characteristics of a good politician, especially in Serbia. It is precisely that type of dichotomy that caused the process to unfold very slowly. First moves of the new government, primarily the Brussels Agreement, had an additionally divisive effect on us. I was outnumbered by those who supported the decisions of the prime minister and first deputy prime minister of this new Government, believing that this was an excellent decision for the citizens of Serbia. We were not “angry or mad” that they “kidnapped our policies,” that they were “the others,” who had once been against these policies, as those who had more than a decade to do something, but did nothing, used to say.

FROM IDEA TO CREATION OF THE INSTITUTE

The need to formalize some type of influence still present among a significant number of individuals resulted in additional pressures, at least toward the forming of some political center or club, if I was not ready to start a political party. Among the most agile was Nikola Samardžić, former member of LDP, at the time coordinator of the Liberal Movement of Serbia, as well as a few of his politically like-minded peers. After numerous meetings, mostly organized by him, with the MPs of the Democratic Party, the Liberal Democratic Party, the League of Social-Democrats of Vojvodina, the Civic Alliance, numerous non-government organizations, the decision on forming the Institute somehow took shape on its own.

I did not want to actively take part in politics in any way, but I also did not want to hinder the wants and intentions of others with this position of mine. Instead of a political club, I suggested the forming of a think-tank organization, which would enable people with different goals, but the same political opinions, to have a form for joint action. There were among us those who wanted to contribute to the democratization of our society, by providing services primarily on an expert level, given the lack of such organizations in Western Balkans at the time, without an active role in political parties, but we were not opposed to making that think-tank a place where new political leaders could be created and later recruited. We firmly believed that both knowledge and experience gained through some form of expert activities were a must for some future political leader.

When the criteria were defined, we effortlessly scheduled our first meeting at Hotel Excelsior, which was attended, in addition to Nikola Samardžić, by professors from the Belgrade University, Stevan Lilić and Mijat Damjanović, economist Gordana Lazarević, art historian and Arts Academy professor Nikola Šuica, lawyers Boris Popović and Ante Bošković, historian Haris Dajč. At that meeting, it was agreed to start the process of establishing the think-tank organization, which would demonstrate by its name that our aim is to provide services to governments and politicians in the region, especially with the implementation of IPA projects, which were at that time gaining traction.

OPENING THE OFFICE IN PODGORICA

After a few more presentations, which were held by persons who had previously done this type of work, including Selena Tasić, who worked in the Serbian Government on projects of cooperation with the EU, we came to the opinion that we should call the think-tank Public Policy Institute, with the intent to open it in as many Western Balkans countries as possible, but starting with Montenegro, since back then, in 2012, Montenegro’s EU accession talks were long underway, and, therefore, demand for expert services was incomparably higher there. I took it upon myself to handle the technical-operational part of opening and setting up operations of the Institute, while the others undertook to be part of this new political center with their experience, knowledge and skills.

Though it was clear then that one part of us wanted to secure an active role in politics as fast as possible, either through public administration, or activities in one of the political parties, we all agreed that this form was best to start with and that each of us should find the best possible path for themselves through this form.

And so, in January 2013, we founded the Public Policy Institute. Selena Tasić and I moved to Podgorica, and judge and former ambassador of Montenegro to Serbia Anka Vojvodić, author and former minister of culture in the Montenegrin government Pavle Goranović, producer and associate professor at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts Sehad Čekić, professor at the University of Montenegro Dražen Cerović and historian Haris Dajč joined the Institute.

Our arrival in Montenegro was accompanied by numerous successes: from getting smaller projects, organizing round tables and panels with relevant topics, to notable interest in the experiences of experts we had to offer to that market. We implemented the project “Women, Peace, Security – Application of the UN Security Council’s Resolution 1325,” which was supported by OSCE and UNDP. In cooperation with the US Embassy in Montenegro, we organized the first simulation of the North-Atlantic Alliance for Youth, which was very successful and soon after, NATO Reach Out, which was supported by the NATO Public Diplomacy Department and Embassy of Slovenia in Podgorica. Unfortunately, this simultaneously caused the spread of panic amidst the ranks of the established NGO scene, lulled by their monopoly which they secured with extremely low standards of offerings and enormously high fees. Though competitors, they united against us and under the conductor’s lead of the owner of tabloid Vijesti and his business partner Nicola Bertolini (officer of the Brussels administration, who replaced the deputy head of the EU Delegation to Montenegro before our arrival, in charge of operations and awarding of grants), they made the decision to prevent any further growth of the Institute in Montenegro.

The campaign against the Institute followed the routine matrix, unsigned texts in tabloid Vijesti, series of recycled lies which had previously been distributed through Serbian tabloids during the administration of Vojislav Koštunica and Boris Tadić, aimed at discrediting the court proceedings for establishing the political background of Zoran Đinđić’s assassination, by the very instigators of that act.

Along with the fraudulent media campaign, standard provocations started: taking photos at restaurants, calling the founders, blackmailing and making threats. In one public address in a TV interview on the show Živa istina (Ain’t That the Truth), I responded and sent a message that we had come to Montenegro to provide services at lower prices but of incomparably better quality, that we were aware that certain lobbies were bothered by this, but that if they continued to disrupt our operations, we would not back down.

Since the crew of interest-related persons did not stop the attacks against me and the Institute, our response was organizing the First Podgorica Journalistic Forum, where we gathered over 50 of the best-known names from the media world of the entire Western Balkans region and beyond. The exhibit Word, Image, Enemy, with which we demonstrated how a decade-long monopoly of racketeering-criminal journalism with tabloids Vijesti and Dan at the helm looked, was a huge media event, our triumph and professional slap in the face of those who called themselves independent and professional media representatives. This conference was organized five years in a row, and year after year, it gathered eminent names from the world of media, despite incredible obstructions and attempts to prevent its realization, by corrupt officials from Brussels and their proteges from the media and NGOs, as well as individuals at the top of the Montenegrin government. After that conference was held, nothing was the same in Montenegro. Of course, the attacks became stronger, with constant attempts to discredit us, by trying to portray us as some para-political organization, which we never were, nor did we have any intentions of becoming one.

OPENING OFFICES IN BELGRADE

Already in December 2013, we opened an office of the Institute in Belgrade, too. From the very beginning, it was run by Milana Brisić, soon joined by professors at the Belgrade University, Nikola Samardžić, Mijat Damjanović, Stevan Lilić, Anđelka Mihajlov, Nikola Šuica and Nada Kovačević, lawyers Rajko Danilović, Marko Kljajević and Ante Bošković, economist Gordana Lazarević, and photographer Marija Ćalić, and occasionally others, like Maja Kovač, Jasna Slamnik, Kristina Đurić, Nebojša Pokimica, Slađana Lević.

The Belgrade office started to organize very successful and notable conferences and panels in the field of EU accession, which, again, disgruntled the also monopolistic non-governmental scene in Serbia, of course connected by mutual interests with the corrupt administration in Brussels, and, inherently, with the NGO scene in Montenegro.

First attacks in Serbia started precisely from such owners of a monopoly over human rights after it was made public that then-First Deputy PM of Serbia Aleksandar Vučić received a team of individuals who were interested in completing the started process of investigating the political background of Zoran Đinđić’s assasination. The team made of lawyers Rajko Danilović, Drgaoljub Todorović, Ante Bošković, Olgica Batić and media expert Vladimir Ćurguz Kazimir, with me in attendance as well, clearly indicated that the Belgrade office of the Institute was behind this initiative.

The inappropriate level of outrage, insults toward and attacks against the participants of this meeting were led by individuals who, up until the assassination of Zoran Đinđić, had spearheaded the persecution of him and his persona; the people who had insulted him, called him a PM-criminal, counted the days to his disappearance, and then immediately after his death, presumably aware of their own malicious works and in an attempt to redeem their sins, became the self-proclaimed protectors and guardians of the work and opus of that same man, but also “right-holders” to shedding light over the background of his assassination.

That is why, instead of support to see this initiative through, reporters of Peščanik, Vreme, Danas, B92 and similar media outlets, instigators of the smear campaign against Zoran Đinđić while he was alive, started to attack the initiative, and, of course, me, as the organizer of this meeting. Following the herd mentality, individuals started to join in, including the ones who had previously begged me to start a political organization.

Though the NGO scenes of Serbia and Montenegro, united in the campaign against the Institute’s growth, caused us great damages, none of us, founders and associates of the Institute at the time, thought about abandoning our set plans.

OPENING AN OFFICE IN LJUBLJANA

We are soon joined by Vanja Vardjan, media expert from Slovenia. Having defined our mutual goals, in June 2014, we opened an office in Ljubljana, the capital of an EU member country. The Institute was officially opened with the panel called “Ten Years of Slovenia in the European Union. Experiences and Challenges for the Western Balkans.” The main goal of this convention was to exchange experiences and analyze the integration context in Western Balkans countries, with the continuous support of Slovenia as an EU member. The speakers at the convention included Tanja Miščević, at the time the head of Serbia’s team in the EU accession talks, Gregor Virant, then-Minister of Interior in the Government of Slovenia, Tanja Fajon, representative of the Slovenian delegation in the European Parliament, and Aleksandar Andrija Pejović, who was the lead Montenegrin negotiator with the EU and Ambassador of Montenegro in Slovenia. Apart from Vanja Vardjan, founders of the Slovenian Institute were economist Maja Kovač, human rights expert Anita Ramšak, reporter Mojca Mavec, international law and cooperation experts Jasna Slamnik, Zoran Krunić and David Weindorfer, Ph.D. student of law Barbara Tekavec and professor Aleš Ekar. Among the first projects which the Institute implemented in Ljubljana was the project “Time for Women Rights and Gender Equality in Montenegro,” which was supported by the Slovenian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

INSTITUTE CONTINUES TO BOAST SUCCESSES

In late 2014, at the very end of the mandate of the then-Brussels administration, and in honor of the first anniversary of founding PPI in Belgrade, we organized a huge international conference with the leaving President of the European Commission Jose Manuel Barroso, “European Union and West Balkans – Partnership Opportunities and Mutual Concerns.” The conference was held in the Rectorate of the Belgrade University, the impressive Captain Miša’s Mansion, and the speakers included also the Deputy of the UN General Secretary in charge of innovative developmental funding Philippe Douste-Blazy, Vice-President of the European People’s Party and MP of the European Parliament Mario David, Jadranka Joksimović, at the time non-party minister in charge of European Integrations in the Government of RS, Ivanka Popović, pro-chancellor for science at the Belgrade University, chancellor of the University of Montenegro Radmila Vojvodić and others.

We believed that this attendance of a large number of internationally esteemed participants would help increase the support to the European Union among Balkan citizens. Unfortunately, our ability to organize such a conference sounded an alarm for caution and fear among our competitors, but equally corrupt representatives of administrations from the seat of EU, who thought that they should stop at all cost the development of an organization that was not under their control or part of the network created for years among the officials of European and American administrations.

Trivia: The convention where one of the speakers was the President of the European Commission was not attended by the Head of the EU Delegation to Serbia Michael Davenport, or any representative of the Delegation.

We were not part of the system inside which basic functions of such organizations and rules of operations in that world were clearly defined. We did not agree to be the extended “stick” coming from the powerful political centers, which is, according to its own creators, necessary, especially for political leaders in the Balkans, who often do not understand that the previously offered “carrot” was all there is to offer. So, when someone rightfully challenged this, a media-political lynch ensued, led precisely by that network of interconnected NGOs.

Despite everything, our Montenegrin office, as a consortium member, won at the biggest IPA competition of the time for actively tracking media policies in Southeast Europe, with the project “Civil Response to Clientelism in Media, MEDIA CIRCLE.“ Such an outcome caused consternation of the intertwined network of media and NGOs in Montenegro and Serbia, only to have the odium toward us spread like wild fire to Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, and the entire Balkans. Though the best won the competition, though we were just one member of a consortium, in charge of media in Montenegro, an insignificant part of the project in terms of territory and number of people (this was for a market of over 50 million people, in which Montenegro accounted for less than 10 percent), for the media-political NGO octopus, this was an unacceptable outcome. That is why the pressures started on the other members of the consortium to send blackmailing messages to their mentors in Brussels how they had to choose between them or us!

WITH SUCCESSES CAME THE ATTACKS TOO

Our successes obviously became a thorn in the side of other organizations, unaccustomed to healthy competition and competitiveness. Soon after, BIRN, with Gordana Igrić at the helm, a doyen of these para-media structures, whose organization was part of the consortium, started blackmailing the leader of the consortium to exclude the Institute and hire another organization from Montenegro, or they, as a member, would ask for termination of contract.

As the pressure was building up, this caused greater and greater indignation of the project leader, so they took their chances and refused to give into blackmail, at the expense of possibly making the competition void. After a couple of months of pressure, they won in the end, Munir Podumljak, his courage and righteousness. Though up to then, neither he nor anyone from his organization had known any of us, it was clear to all, especially regarding Montenegro, that a network of individuals, media, non-government organizations and officials in Brussels with mutual interests had been weaved for years. These officials had been awarding funds in competitions to the same participants without anyone following up on these projects, or any knowledge of whether they had been implemented. However, it was a public secret that a percentage of the money was going back to the decision-makers in Brussels upon project award.

Since the leader of the consortium, Munir Podumljak, director of NGO Partnership for Social Growth from Croatia, did not give in to blackmail, Gordana Igrić decided to up the ante and excluded her BIRN from the consortium, hoping that Brussels would deem the competition after that void. Munir Podumljak was called to Brussels, and he was asked on several occasions whether he was sure he wanted to work with us because he was risking losing everything. His answers were always the same, that the credentials of the members of the Institute were evaluated as best out of all when it comes to Montenegro, and that, though he understood the jealousy and anger displayed by the competition, he did not see why that would be a reason for him to change associates.

The fact that all of them had to accept that the Institute was staying on the media project in Southeast Europe, aim of which was to scientifically, not descriptively, measure the level of democratization of the media space, only increased the number of our enemies. During 2015, some friends from the EU openly said to us that we were a “thorn in the side” both for individuals from Brussels, and their proteges in the Balkans, and that, unfortunately, despite our top-notch experts and credentials, it was not likely that the EU Office in Podgorica would award any projects to us. It looked like the EU Office in Podgorica was operating as a service to tabloid Vijesti and their NGOs, which, of course, seemed grotesque-like. So, in response to our media conference in Podgorica, they hastily organized in Brussels some kind of conference about the media in the Balkans called “Speak Up.” It was hosted by Štefan Füle, another from the plethora of clerks connected to the tabloids in Montenegro as well as individuals from NGOs. “Independent” reporters and tabloid owners were given the spotlight and they tried to attack everything we had done up to that time. Mitja Drobnič, Head of the EU Office in Podgorica, though he came to the EU Commission as a Slovenian cadre, was not appointed as delegation head in Podgorica as an official of that country, but as a representative of the Enlargement Commission, at the time an extremely politicized part of the Brussels administration. In this way, Mitja Drobnič in Podgorica essentially represented only a narrow circle of political structures of European administrations and very clearly told everyone in the Montenegrin capital that he would stop us and help “pet media and NGOs” to restore their former influence.

VICTORY AT A COMPETITION IN BRUSSELS

We were aware that we cannot go against that. Selena Tasić suggested to apply in Brussels, because there were projects that were awarded directly, not through mediation of local offices of EU Delegations. Soon as part of the program “Europe for Citizens” in June 2015, we won at the competition for Montenegro with the project “Women’s Government of the West Balkans.” Since pet NGOs from Montenegro also took part in that competition, and since they were convinced they would win, our victory, which was the result of complete originality of project writing and an exceptional team of experts, caused shock, disbelief, and shortly after, outrage. This ignited an absolute explosion throughout the entire region, and that is when the most organized attack against the Institute, and primarily me, as its director, was launched.

In a clearly orchestrated campaign headed by the lower-ranked competition participants, with direct support of the pro-opposition tabloids in Montenegro, coordinated by their protectors from embassies of the Brussels administration, vicious attacks against the Institute started. They were based on various fallacies and lies. Next came a petition from organizations in the region asking the European Commission to revoke their decision on awarding funds to the Institute because that organization was known for “discriminatory behavior against women” and was not worthy of implementing the project “Women’s Government of the West Balkans.”

Since the petition signatories could not come up with a single argument to challenge the quality of the project, they used made-up fallacies at the expense of the Institute, primarily, me as the founder, like some which even the court previously found to be untrue. The fact that most of the signatories were anonymous or registered only on paper, that some of them were providers of taxi services, or people whose signatures were used without their consent, did not bother their protectors from Brussels to challenge the Institute’s project which was evaluated as one of the top 23 quality projects on EU level.

ENTANGLEMENT OF MEDIA, NGO INDIVIDUALS AND CORRUPT DIPLOMATS WON AFTER ALL

We learned about the problem with the already signed contract from the media and immediately responded with a letter to all the relevant addresses in Brussels. Our correspondence with the European Commission lasted for as many as six months. In it, apart from the then-active President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, four more commissioners were involved, Enlargement Commissioner Johannes Han, Migration and Internal Affairs Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos, Education, Culture and Youth Commissioner Tibor Navrascisc, as well as Social Affairs and Employment Commissioner Marianne Thyssen, as well as an array of directors, agencies and departments within the committees.

After 6 months, in June 2016, an absolute precedent happened and the already signed contract on the award of the project was annulled, and the Institute was added to the Early Detection and Exclusion System database (EDES-DB) for a period of three years.

DISPLAY OF THE POSITIONS OF THE PERSONS INVOLVED IN THE VARIOUS PROJECT APPROVAL PROCESSES FOR THE WESTERN BALKANS WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK OF THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION

Since we did not want to accept such an injustice and give up the project, we continued our fight for the truth. Soon, again from the media, we learned that proceedings were launched to ban the Institute from participating in all EU competitions. Since such proceedings had up to then been initiated only against bidders on EU tenders who were accused of money laundering, financing terrorism or arms trade, the decision could not be made lightly, so the process lasted for another six months. In June 2016, the European Commission made the decision to ban the Institute from EU competitions, and our organization is registered in the Early Detection and Exclusion Database for a period of three years.

Pressures on the Institute by its competitors, comprising interconnected largely heterogenic organizations, under the auspice and control of their protectors from the Brussels administration, became increasingly brutal. In the meantime we were banned from being project leaders, as local members of consortiums we won several IPA competitions, including “Strengthening innovative capacities of higher education and science“ and “Active Labour Market Measures for Employability.“

This caused another series of attacks, but also pressure from Brussels on the local members CFCU (Department for Contracting and Financing of EU-Funded Programs) to annul tenders simply because they had not been awarded to their pet NGOs, or at least consortiums with which they previously had financial deals about giving back a percentage to Brussels. The level of lack of audacity in the complete absence of scruples is best seen from the meetings in the Government of Montenegro, where corrupt officials from Brussels openly asked to annul the assessments where we won, to declare the second- or third-ranked winners, threatening to annul the competition and take back the allocated funds. If the ministers would not succumb to pressures, then lower officials had the obligation of solving that problem somehow.

So, after the visit of Nicola Bertolini, I was called in for a meeting with Ljiljana Simović, an official at the ministries in charge of IPA projects, asking me to help them and give up the won competition on my own, because they have been under open pressure to change the point system, but this was not possible since we were that much superior compared to the lower-ranked, so if I could meet them halfway and “they’d know how to show their appreciation.”

Since we did not want to agree to dropping out, they were forced to annul the competitions. Both projects were taken away from the consortiums they were awarded with vague explanations and references to altered circumstances.

INTEGRITY OVER INTEREST

The final phase of these organized defamation campaigns against competitors, be it the media or non-government organizations, is always the same: calling out and exposing to public condemnation the financers or founders and members of the Institute, with the intent to cause hesitation through such pressure. In the next phase, they portrayed this in their para-media as the start of system collapse, running away of financers or founders. Few people managed to sustain such pressures, so one part of our founders (well aware of the intimidation methods of the intertwined para-political group gathered around tabloid Vijesti and their NGOs), whose names and photographs started to appear in the media as arrest warrants, feared for their own careers and they started to distance themselves from the Institute. One part of individuals who did not succumb to this campaign of lies – primarily because they knew none of the allegations were true and that the attacks were the result of our competition’s fear of our strength and expert experience we all respectively had – started to build unrealistic expectations about benefits we were supposed to get from the government of Montenegro because we were exposed to such pressure and damages simply because we were ready to help the country on its path toward the EU and NATO.

The only people who remained in the Institute were those who, like me, wanted to be a group of experts with various backgrounds, who can provide highly professional services in various fields, primarily to the countries, governments and institutions on their way to EU accession.

Professors Mijat Damjanović and Stevan Lilić particularly contributed to supporting the Institute. Professor Damjanović was, at the time, about to retire, so he dedicated all his free time to PPI, especially to develop the Board of Trustees, but also to numerous projects he proposed. What is particularly rare nowadays is that they stood by PPI even when attacks of the entangled interest group of NGOs and their media began.

The vicious media-political campaign against PPI did not affect Ante Bošković, Rajko Danilović, Velimir Ćurguz Kazimir, Anđelka Mihajlov because they were sufficiently experienced to know the real reasons behind the attacks and they did not waver in their resolve to continue our mission of providing services to anyone who needed them in the region through their knowledge, experience and expert skills.

INSTEAD OF A CONCLUSION

Daily disappointments, clearly illusory fight against corruption from Brussels, but also clear messages which I received from friends in the EU that the only way to fight was to file lawsuits against the Commission, forced us to come to the decision to withdraw from this senseless war. Though I had assurances from lawyers that we would win these disputes, right before signing the lawsuit, after talking to my colleagues, I realized this was an illusion. Banning us from tenders for a period of three years was not worth the years-long court proceedings and outrageous litigation costs, legal satisfaction from which would be meaningless in terms of business.

We then reached the decision to direct our activities to other clients, which was the only sensible thing to do. This, however, was not well received by one part of the founders, and later members, especially because it soon became clear that their intentions were closely tied to personal ambitions, mostly career success, not only theirs but that of their families as well. It was clear that this was not going to happen through the Institute, so they started to seek out new forms of political engagement, by joining competitive organizations and political centers which were at the forefront of the attacks against PPI.

During 2019, we in the Institute decided that the only direction of our activities was provision of expert services, with the clear intent that PPI will not be used as a platform for entering the world of politics, and convinced that the original idea about such form of organization was not feasible for numerous reasons. The Institute remained a group of expert individuals resolved to, with their knowledge and skills, expand the service offering to the market of West Balkans to all who could use such services, and such institutions, organizations, companies and individuals are growing in numbers.

Still, all of this did not make us back down, and the new approach has proved to be very successful. The Belgrade office implemented a considerable number of important projects, and the number of employees increased. We continued our cooperation with the UNDP project “Strengthening the synergy between the Basel, Rotterdam, Stockholm and Minamata Conventions;” at the Serbian Mission in Brussels, we presented the results of our three-year monitoring and analysis national print media in Serbia before a large number of EU diplomats focused on West Balkans. As part of the program “The EU Support to Active Youth Inclusion” we started the IPA project “Youth Today, Leaders Tomorrow,” we expanded the Institute’s team and set up a department for youth work and political education.

This brought us new projects like “Webinar for Young MPs” which we implemented in cooperation with the Fund Konrad-Adenauer in Serbia, then “I want to work – modern tools for improving the position of youth in the labor market” which we are conducting in cooperation with the Center for Social Improvement and Commercial Chamber of Serbia.

Parallel to this project, we would often provide organizing services for regional and international conferences of the highest level. In this way, a need to start a separate department for organizing international events and promotion of public dialogue – Balkan Perspectives Today – arose. The first large conference was held in June 2019 in Banjaluka, under the name “Digitalization and intellectual property – end or a new beginning.” This was followed by numerous conferences, among which we are particularly proud of the award ceremony as part of the campaign “Benefactor” which marked 100 days of the Government of the Republic of Serbia. We would also like to emphasize the Belgrade event Academic Week, which was crowned with the award ceremony for the “Dositej” scholarships and presenting of the new visual identity of the most prestigious scholarship in the Republic of Serbia.

What we are certainly proud of, and which is the result of our history, is the fact that the founding of the Public Policy Institute in 2013 surely represented a turning point for the manner in which the non-government sector was dealing with public policy, especially in the sense of working with governments, in order to propel the region forward. Instead of the previous method of “attack” as the only tool for winning funds from foreign donors, we offered experienced experts and professional service, as real support to governments on their path to EU accession. Unfortunately, as it turns out, the non-government sector is inundated with money-dependency at expense of the citizens, for whom it, by definition, exists.

The Institute has been a symbol of everything foreign embassies and the EU asked from the NGO sector in the Western Balkans at that time: reform, start working with the government not against it, reach a level of cooperation, Milošević was long gone and there is no longer an enemy you need to fight, start specializing in certain areas so you could contribute to reforms with your expertise. However, it turned out that every extended presence of foreign donors on this soil starts to create new opportunities for business, so in this case, too, personal interest outweighed that of the public.

The Institute was and is a nucleus of people who have been from the nineties of the last century to today the pillars of democratic changes – but not with shouting and protest, but with their internationally recognized resumes and an array of successful projects behind them.