Serbian lawmakers have cleared the way for a potential real estate deal backed by an investment company with ties to Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump‘s son-in-law, after days of heated debate plus a series of street protests by those opposing the plan. Thanks to a 130-40 vote in the 250-member parliament, the controversial project to revamp a once landmark Yugoslav military complex in central Belgrade that was partially destroyed by the NATO bombing campaign in 1999 has been given the go-ahead.
Last year, the Serbian government removed the site’s protected status, having signed a 99-year lease with the Kushner-linked, U.S.-based Affinity Global Development. However, the project was put on hold when Serbia’s organised crime prosecutors sought to determine whether the documentation used to overturn its protected status had been forged.
Despite the insistence of President Aleksandar Vucic‘s pro-Trump populist government that the project would be economically beneficial and would strengthen ties with the Washington administration, opponents were loud in objecting to the proposal, pointing out that not only were the buildings of architectural significance but that they were a symbol of resistance to the U.S.-led NATO bombing, which many Serbians y viewed as unjust “aggression.”
With the new law in force, the authorities can begin the proposed on-site work including the demolition of what is left of two buildings considered to be prime examples of mid-20th century architecture in the former Yugoslavia. “We are demolishing the ruins in order to build,” The Associated Press reported populist Serbian Progressive Party parliamentarian Milenko Jovanov as saying during the debate.
Critics argue that the special bill undermines the Balkan country’s legal system. According to Transparency Serbia, it “represents a combination of the two most dangerous forms of corruption – the legalisation of law violations and the tailoring of general rules to fit hidden interests in one specific case.”
President Vucic maintains the judicial investigation was the result of demands from abroad to “prevent Serbia from establishing better relations with the Trump administration.”
The $500-million project would include a high-rise hotel, a luxury apartment complex, office spaces and shops. Authorities say Kushner’s company has undertaken to construct a memorial complex within the site, commemorating the victims of the NATO bombing campaign.
When the parliamentary debate got underway, hundreds of protesters gathered outside with banners that read “Culture is not for sale”, and vowing not to give up the historic general staff building.
Aleksandar Jovanovic, an Opposition MP, termed the law a “crime”, claiming it would replace a heritage site with “casinos and Jacuzzis.”
When Serbia was bombed for almost three months in 1999, then President Slobodan Milosevic was forced to end his crackdown on separatist ethnic Albanians in Kosovo. To this day, anti-NATO sentiment in Serbia remains strong, with many outraged by the insensitive U.S. role in revamping the former army HQ.
Vucic has had to face protests over the past year, accusing his government of rampant corruption in state projects, most notably since a concrete canopy collapsed at a train station in the northern city of
Novi Sad killing 16 people.
