Only a few days later, the Serbian government repealed a decree that would prevent independent research in many fields, thereby making academic freedom questionable and violating the right to freedom of speech under the Constitution.
A decree passed a few days ago allows the government to refuse to agree to research conducted in cooperation with foreigners if it estimates that such research endangers national security.
Jelena Pejić Nikić, a senior researcher at the Belgrade Center for Security Policy (BCSP), told EURACTIV.rs that the decree is shameful and its purpose is to place all research under the supervision of the Ministry of Defense.
“From the list of fields stipulated by the decree, we can also see how wide the scope of this field is-from natural sciences and mathematical sciences, to technology and technology, and then to humanities. This also includes Serbian minerals that have recently caused protests across the country. Resource exploration issues,” Pejić Nikić said.
The now invalid decree also mentions regular polls on the reintroduction of mandatory military service, Serbia’s military neutrality, and epidemiological studies in the context of a pandemic.
Nikic said: “According to the concept of’full defense,’ people can only guess what the scope of the topic’important to defense’ is.”
Serbia’s national defense strategy was passed at the end of 2019, introducing the concept of “total defense”, all citizens at all times on all fronts-whether it is peace or war, or during a state of emergency-to have a comprehensive defense.
In her words, the decree only targets research conducted by individuals who do not have Serbian citizenship or are funded by foreign legal entities, foreign institutions or universities (including the European Union or the OSCE).
The BCSP senior researcher also stated that the repealed decree “actually prevents rather than encourages international research cooperation, especially when domestic funds are limited.”
According to Academician Dushan Teodorovich, the passage of the decree was “Korean-style nonsense.”
“There is no Serbian science and Croatian science, Macedonia or Montenegro, only global science,” Teodorovic told N1 TV. He added that when President Aleksandar Vučić asked to declare the decision invalid, it turned out that he was smarter than the government.
Nearly five years ago, a decree with the same title was placed on the government’s agenda, but it was not passed after arousing public outcry.
At the time, the European Union National Assembly and representatives of the scientific community and civil society called on the Ministry of Defence to withdraw the draft decree because, in their words, it violated the constitution and prevented almost all research.
“Compared with the 2017 draft text, it can be seen that the text of the new decree was written’from scratch’. It is more specific, although the intention is the same, that is to treat all research activities as’under the control and supervision of the Ministry of Defense , Defend according to vague standards,” Peggy Nikic said.
[Edited by Frédéric Simon]
