Minister of Labour, War Veterans and Disabled Persons Protection of Republika Srpska, Milenko Savanovic, has said that the Balkans is in a difficult situation when it comes to people’s social welfare, and that a stronger contribution should be made in terms of political solutions, which are assumptions for strengthening the economies of the countries in the region as a key precondition for a better life of the people living in them.
Today in Belgrade at the opening of the conference “The Future of Welfare State in the Western Balkans”, Savanovic stressed the need to warn about the consequences of politics and war, such as the one in the 1990s.
“The conference needs to send a message to all the policies, especially to those that can influence a stable political space, to turn to work and life, as the life is the greatest value to which we must subordinate everything else,” Savanovic has said.
He has pointed out that there are diametrically opposed policies in the territory of BiH that cannot in any way reach agreement on elementary issues.
“We in BiH cannot make a political agreement in term of a sustainable life, that people should live there because it is their country, their resource,” Savanovic has warned.
According to him, if political solutions are not good, as is the case in BiH and the Balkans, then discussing the investments, development, social policy and welfare, which the Belgrade conference deals with, is utopia.
“So, many assumptions have to happen before we come into the stage of talking about prosperity. Of course, the economy is the basis of everything, and the economy assumptions are investments, but without stable political space they do not exist,” Savanovic has stressed.
He has said that the Government of Republika Srpska is doing everything to protect people who are in a social need, but the consequences of a severe and bloody civil war and rapid privatisation are huge.
Savanovic has said that since 2004, Srpska has taken care of approximately 61,000 people who were made redundant over privatization process of large systems and allocated approximately EUR 100 million for those needs; it also allocates EUR 30 million annually for citizens without health insurance through the Employment Agency.
“Employment in Srpska is growing, but the economy is recovering slowly because we are dealing with the consequences. BiH’s policies are opposed and there is no agreement on living issues,” Savanovic has said.
Minister of Construction, Transport and Infrastructure of Serbia, Zorana Mihajlovic, has agreed that “political stability is the condition of all conditions” and assessed that the Balkans region is now in a much better position than it was in previous years.
“It is correct that we have to do much more to have political stability. On the other hand, we have the opportunity and privilege to have the right to choose whether we will fight and change the structure of spending money when it comes to social structures and what is defined in the agenda and politics, or will we wait for someone abroad to tell us about it,” she has said.
She has stressed that the Serbian government will take care of what social investments are and how to reconcile the existing restrictions, such as migrations, demography and etc.
Mihajlovic has concluded that the fact that five million people left the region within last ten years is a disastrous one, which means that not enough has been done to respect social justice.
Source: srna
