O forse no? (Maybe not?)

Just the time to write (yesterday) something positive was happening in the Balkans ( I said we could have seen the glass as "half full") that I read (today) a report issued by Helsinki Committee of Human Rights in Serbia, providing a wiew not so optimistic..
Here it is:

Helsinki Committee: Serbia Stagnates in 2006
Helsinski odbor za ljudska prava u Srbiji

Last year, Serbia stagnated in all segments of political, economic and social life, reports the Helsinki Committee of Human Rights in Serbia in its report Serbia 2006: Human Rights – Hostage of Regressing State. The stagnation, followed with systemic lack of interest to establish efficient human rights protection, doesn’t result solely from the devastation of institutions over the past 20 years, but also of the self-isolation and promotion of the concept of neutral Serbia leaning towards Russia. According to the Helsinki Committee, the process of approximation to European integration is conditioned by many objective limitations. On one hand, Serbia is not capable of adapting to European standards. On the other, the “new political and economic class (the tycoons) is not willing to lose its positions gained over the last two decades”. Pressure and conditioning policies towards Serbia obviously don’t function anymore, states the report, “...having in mind that its political class doesn’t really want to go to Europe and is prepared to sacrifice its European future”. The Report adds that after the last Parliamentary elections, there was a total de-institutionalization of the state. “In spite of clear electoral results, the weakest of the three leading political parties, DSS, now controls, without any legitimacy, all political and social trends, thanks to the support by informal power centres. At the same time, this is the best illustration that Serbia functions as a country of a “’facade democracy’”. Furthermore, concludes the report, Serbia’s disintegration approaches a “dangerous point” of having no support for consolidation of state and society, while the political class – once the status of Kosovo is solved – will continue to seek new enemies and endlessly postpone the constitution of Serbia as a state. The Helsinki Committee adds that, in addition to the impoverishment, the national turmoil and the undefined identity, Serbia “... chose a model of values that moves is further away from the European civilization – a model that promotes intolerance toward the others and diverse (thus towards EU’s multicultural nature), promoting radicalism inside the country”. The 2006 report is divided into eight chapters – “Dismissing the European Options”, “Constitutional and Legal Framework”, “Instruments of Material and Spiritual Oppression”, “Social-Economic Processes”, “Decentralization”, “Final Stages of Status Solving”, “Minorities on the Margins of Society”, and “Stagnation of Foreign Policy”. The full report is available for downloads on Helsinki Committee website.