The crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic deepens the already serious social and economic problems the societies in the region of former socialist Yugoslavia face. Our struggle must include solidarity politics, stated the four leftist parties that adopted the Declaration on Regional Solidarity.
The initiators of the Declaration on Regional Solidarity are the Social Democratic Union (Serbia), the Left (Slovenia), the Workers’ Front (Croatia) and the New Left (Croatia). They point to the fact that the societies of the former Yugoslav republics share a number of problems, stating that an effective response to them should therefore also be common.
We will either passively witness a further decline in living standards and working conditions, together with a growing dependence on domestic tycoons and foreign capital whose sole interest is profit extraction – or fight actively for the basic needs of the majority of the people. That struggle is impossible without joint efforts and regional solidarity, it is said in the Declaration.
The passing of this declaration was immediately motivated by the social and economic consequences of the coronavirus pandemic. According to the initiators, the pandemic caused the already present issues to deepen faster.
The guiding principles of regional solidarity emphasized in the Declaration, are: social justice and equality, gender and sexual equality, national and ethnic equality, preservation of the common environment and its resources, anti-fascism, cooperation and peace, empathy and mutual assistance.
Many public figures already signed the document. Some of them are: Boris Buden, Dubravka Ugrešić, Brano Milanović, Vedrana Rudan, Rajko Grlić, Mira Furlan, Dino Mustafić, Renata Salecl, Viktor Ivančić, Mitja Velikonja, Srećko Horvat, Dragan Markovina, Olga Dimitrijević, Antonije Pušić – Rambo Amadeus, Maja Pelević, Tanja Šljivar, Vladimir Arsenijević, Saša Ilić, Darko Cvijetić, Igor Štiks, Filip Balunović, Snježana Kordić, Todor Kuljić, Semezdin Mehmedinović, Asim Mujkić, Ankica Čakardić, Nerzuk Ćurak, Katerina Kolozova, Rumena Bužarovska, Duško Vujošević, Ognjen Glavonić, Nenad Veličković, Dejan Jović, Andrej Nikolaidis, Damir Arsenijević, Mirt Komel, Jovo Bakić, Marko Šelić Marčelo, Dobrica Veselinović, Dževad Prekazi, Dragomir Olujić Oluja, Alpar Lošonc, Ivan Medenica, Una Hajdari, Ljiljana Burcar, Artan Sadiku, Božo Koprivica, Lana Bastašić, Srđan Dvornik, Zlatko Dizdarević, Gal Kirn, Đokica Jovanović.
You can support the Declaration by signing it here.
A.J.
Translation from Serbian: Iskra Krstić
