Serbia’s economy is benefiting from an influx of thousands of skilled, educated Russians who have fled their country since President Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine, Prime Minister Ana Brnabic said.
(Bloomberg) — Serbia’s economy is benefiting from an influx of thousands of skilled, educated Russians who have fled their country since President Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine, Prime Minister Ana Brnabic said.
The former Yugoslav republic has maintained a balancing act on Ukraine, condemning Putin’s assault while stopping short of adopting European Union sanctions targeting Moscow. Brnabic defended the stance with a reference to Serbia’s isolation during Yugoslavia’s violent breakup in the 1990s and punitive measures aimed at the government in Belgrade.
“Our people feel strongly against sanctions,” she said on a panel at the Bloomberg New Economy Gateway Europe conference outside Dublin Thursday. “Our view is that sanctions do not actually diminish a country’s capacity or willingness to wage a war.”
The premier said her government is offering incentives to Russian exiles that include “engineers, mostly very young, very skilled, very talented people” who become taxpayers and provide sought-after skills for the nation’s information-technology industry. In addition to being attracted to Serbia’s economy, young Russians “did not feel welcome elsewhere,” she said.
“These young people are really western-oriented, very well educated, against the war,” the premier said. “It’s a good thing for us.”
Serbia is under pressure as a candidate to join the EU to fully align its foreign policy with the 27-nation bloc. It also must mend ties with Kosovo, whose sovereignty Belgrade doesn’t recognize since the nation of 1.8 million broke away from Serbia in 2008, almost a decade after NATO drove out the military of Yugoslav strongman Slobodan Milosevic.
The process is “difficult” and “emotional” for Serbs who cherish Kosovo as their historic heartland, but “we owe this to the generation that are coming after us and we want to find a mutually acceptable compromise” in negotiations mediated by the EU and US, she said.
Serbia’s economy was hit hard by sanctions directed at the rump Yugoslavia in the 1990s. They were lifted after Milosevic’s ouster in 2000.
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