Business Advisory Council for Southeast Europe - BACSEE

TOWARDS A 2020 VISION FOR SOUTH-EAST EUROPE view from private sector

What went wrong and how to fix it: (view from Private part of PPP)

SEE Socio Economic Settlements

on the case of Post Dayton (cash)cows
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CROATIAN CORPORATION
You have Balkan cows on the Adriatic, The government decides, to rename them into Alpine cows and starts the initiative to move the border closer to Alps, where you can sell more milk for less.

KOSOVAR CORPORATION
You never had cows, The government suggests you to call your family members all over the world and ask them to send you money to increase and legalize your import-export business and selling milk powder across the new Northern border.
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FYROM CORPORATION
You have 2 Macedonian cows, The International Greek community does not allow you to call the cows Macedonian. So you decide to name them Aleksandra and Filipa. This way everybody understands, the cows are Macedonian.
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MONTENEGRIAN CORPORATION
You have 2 cows. Before the independence, you only had 1 Serbian cow. One day 2nd cow just appeared on the coast. People are gossiping, it was brought there by offshore super speed boat. Montenegro, like every Balkan country, will always have at least 2 national cows.
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SERBIAN CORPORATION
It seems that the number of Serbian cows is at all times greater by 2 than the number of people living in Serbia. Everyone in Serbia knows, why this is so. The parliament however decides to call for elections and let new parliament to decide, if the new president will be allowed to tell, why this happened.
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SLOVENIAN CORPORATION
Before 1991 youve had few (cash) cows And all the milk was sent to Belgrade. In return you received some yoghurt.
After 1991 you still have some cows, but today all the milk goes to Brussels. In return youve got an alternative to Belgrade and no yoghurt.
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BOSNIAN CORPORATION
Since 1984 youve had 1 Winter Olympic cow. The cow was among the casualties in the recent war. The BAC SEE has initiated the idea to grant you another Winter Olympic cow for 2022 or 2026.
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SEE priorities and last call to the political community

Balkans like most of the World needs a significant but simple reset. In the past 10 years, Balkans was heavily divided by EU. Charismatic leadership is limited to entertainment and sport. Politics is synonymous for corruption, clienteles, tycoons, new rich. The borders are the asset for cashing in the differences by those in power. The lack of courage of people to say: Enough! will be hit by Afro Arabic tsunami and religion has nothing to do with it. The attractive investment cannot be limited by the size of the SEE and motivated investment is the only solution. The only thing we all agree on is football and basketball. The rules in sport are set. If you want to play you have to adopt the rules.
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SEEs existing problems and threats

identity divisions inefficient levels of regional cooperation inadequacy of basic infrastructure lack of transparency in many aspects of public life more fragmentation and long-term crisis at the EU border pure economic losses in the medium to long term loss of political credibility of EU and the international community regional instability, crisis in welfare and social peace
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SEE with or without EU

EU without France is like Balkans without Turkey EU without Balkans is like France without Turkey EU without Turkey is like France without Balkans

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BAC in the SEE future

The question concerning the SEE future should not evolve around the whether but around the when SEE countries need strong and indisputable confirmation that their efforts are seen towards the right path, so that the underlying instability factors are contained and eliminated
Intensive and cohesive efforts for regional cooperation, political reconciliation and leadership along with economic development need to become more result oriented
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BAC Indicative initiatives

Trade and Transport Facilitation Project (TTFSE)

World Bank $72mn program, focusing on border crossing facilitation, local capacity building, trade volumes, waiting times reductions, security of supply chain

Visa liberalization initiative 2001 Thessaloniki Forum Excellence in Public Administration

Building public administration capacities on project management approach and PPPs Freight train running from Istanbul to Ljubljana three times a week within approximately 30 hours

Bosporus Express

SEE Regional Airline Network

Food for thought

We are operating in a high-cost neighborhood. Donors should aim to ignore useless conference brigades and encourage their competitiveness The remaining answers must come from within the SEE region as a whole The private sector should be seen as a reliable partner by donors and governments, and not as a convenient, ready to be milked Cash-Cow Together we need to award the region with the motivation and inspiration to believe in new future: 16 Sarajevo Winter Olympics 2022 or 2026

Do we want to see the obstacles?

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No more thanks
panem et circenses

Samo IVANI, Chairman, BACSEE www.bacsee.net

Paris, May 4th, 2011
copyright is not the right to copy

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