Opposition Official in Strasbourg: Students Are Anti-corruption Force

Tijana Peric Diligenski (Youtube/Printscreen)

The vice-president of the opposition party Serbia Center (SRCE), Tijana Peric Diligenski, has stated in Strasbourg that students and citizens in Serbia were seeking justice on the streets “because the institutions are blocked and are not doing their job,” the party announced on Feb. 13.

Speaking at the 16th meeting of the Stabilization and Association Parliamentary Committee between the European Union and Serbia, held at the European Parliament, she stated that “the students are an anti-corruption force” and “the avant-garde that the EU and Europe have not seen since 1968.”

“Unfortunately, none of the crucial EU pillars are being implemented. After the Nov. 1 tragedy in Novi Sad, the regime tried to explain to the people that the canopy had not been reconstructed. This was a deception of the citizens,” Peric Diligenski stated.

She also commented on the work of the prosecution, which, in her words, took three months to initiate a financial investigation over the grounded suspicion of corruption in the canopy case, adding that “Serbia has been reduced to a country of telephone justice.” As for Cluster 4, which covers the green agenda, Peric Diligenski focused on the matter of lithium mining, “which 60 percent of Serbian citizens oppose.”

She stated that lithium mining was “an ecologically unsustainable project” that would, according to the findings of the relevant institutions (Serbian Academy of Science and Arts and the Faculty of Biology in Belgrade), lead to a degradation of bio-diversity and an ecological exodus. She added that the project was also not financially lucrative due to low mining royalties, “which, in Serbia, are among the lowest in Europe,” and that each citizen would receive 2.6 euros from lithium mining.