“Referendum bad for EU integration”

“However, we should all keep in mind that Kosovo’s breakup with Serbia is a direct consequence of apartheid that Slobodan Milošević’s regime carried out in Kosovo. And I know that very well because I used to go their regularly during those years,“ Pack concluded.'

What a despicable liar. She must have learned from Josef Goebbels. Apartheid is what the Serbs are living under right now, with no freedom of movement and no human rights. Kosovo albanians had it very good in ex-Yugoslavia, even with education in their own language.
These Germans are the same as always, haven't changed one bit. We will take them down, yet again, if we have to.
Cheers!!

A pity this woman stopped going to Kosovo. She'd see apartheid is alive and thriving in Europe's most democratic, multiethnic, multicultural state :)

That's GREAT news! If the referendum will have a negative impact of EU candidate status, then the Serbs from Northern Kosovo are to be praised and commended. At least there are some Serbs somewhere that know that Kosovo and Metohija always need to be a part of Serbia- no matter if it defies the "Great" or "Not-So-Great" world powers. And no matter what Doris Pack, or other EU mouthpieces say, Serbia will ALWAYS be a integral part of Europe- even when we don't succumb to European rule....like our dear friends, the Greeks, are finding out the hard way.

If the referendum is bad for Serbia's intergration- that's good. The Serbs of of Northern Kosovo will save the Serbs from becoming slaves of Germany and their third Reich ambitions.

More diktats. Endless, isn't it? Ms. Pack would better turn her modest intelligence to the ethnic and population crisis in her own disappearing country.

Dear Miss Pack,

If such a referendum is bad in your opinion then I guess a unilateral (!) delclaration of independence is VERY BAD?
When you will tell the Albanians to revoke the UDI and get back to the negotiation table to get a mutual ageed deal?

Can any journalist ask her this please?

Everybody should hold referendums. Sandzak, Presheva Valley, Vojvodina, Pirot region.
(Avni, 29 January 2012 18:13)

Republika Srpska, Istria, Herceg Novi, Northern Epirus, Dragas municipality, eastern Slavonia.

There is nothing more repulsive to than a German trying to lecture others on apartheid when they have blood on their hands that can not be washed for hundreds of years.

Perhaps that is what you get when your daddy was wearing an SS uniform and rampaging throughout Europe murdering and stealing.

Unfortunately for old Doris she looks like something out a Monty Python sketch. But on the issue of this referendum affecting Serbia’s chances of joining the EU; Doris old girl from your mouth to God’s ear.

I am amazed how deluded these EU politicians have become. They talk of an EU as if this is 1995, as if nothing has happened and the money tree is bearing billions of Euros and the party is continuing.

The IMF is now going around trying to establish a trillion dollar fighting fund to stave off economic collapse in the US and EU and has invited the BRIC countries to contribute to this fund – naturally the US is not going to Congress to seek any new money (how can they as the US now owes 15.6 trillion and well on its way to at least 17.2 by December 2012.

Amer, 29 January 2012 23:12)


Where do I start? Prior to the GFC the US economy was boasted to be 14 trillion per year. Now after all the massive changes where banks went belly up and federal Government had bailed some out plus the real estate going down the tube, mass unemployment etc we still hear of a 14 trillion dollar US economy. That in any person’s language is impossible. On top of all that only late last year it was disclosed that 50% of Americans have lost nearly all of the value of their assets. On top of that poverty now affects 80 million Americans……..

The article you attached is only a feel good piece much like the stuff you read or hear in the media about the US growth rate increasing, but when taking a closer look its growth is miniscule. Its to avoid greater pessimism amongst the population as it would make matters even worse.

Your so called debt reduction is a smoke and mirrors job in that it looks good, but in reality its nothing if not making matters worse. For example, the Federal Government has announced spending cuts of 1 trillion dollars over the next decade, but they will still have to borrow 1.2 trillion per year which equates to 12 trillion less1 trillion then you still owe 11 trillion over that period.

What you need to do is reduce current expenditure now to bring the budget into balance then you have to start setting aside money to pay for the current debt. That is how you reduce debt. The rest is called cooking the books.

A professor I studied at University use to tell us that broadly speaking a budget for country is much like a household budget with some minor exclusions. If you earn $500 per week but spend $800 you will have to borrow money but in the meantime you keep telling everyone how well you are going and that you can afford your lifestyle because of your greater income.

That is what is happening in the US now. If the EU goes down the deeper recession side then its going to hit the US even harder than the 2008 GFC.

Aparthied is perhaps an understatement?

A pity this woman stopped going to Kosovo. She'd see apartheid is alive and thriving in Europe's most democratic, multiethnic, multicultural state :)
(Balkan Anthropologist, 29 January 2012 17:24)



Oh my, she has been hundreds of times in Kosova, but wish you have been only one time to see it for yourself, bc, is not like what you are saying. The reality is the opposite from your blind vision/reality.

Amer, America is not recovering from debt and faces a real bust unless immediate reform is made. First, we did not receive a credit downgrade last year for capricious reasons. In percentages, under Obama the federal deficit growth certainly outgrew GDP growth by a wide margin. Adding about four trillion dollars was about a 1/3 increase in 4 years. Exponential growth and you get the impossibility of this insanity. Only very low borrowing costs have staved off an immediate crisis. Also keep in mind the American "federal" deficit is not actually our national debt. Our national debt includes state, local and municipal debt. How worried are you about California and Illinois for example? At least 10% of the US lives in California and Governor Brown is struggling to prevent our own "Greece". Finally and this is the real elephant in the room...we are about 5 years at most from a very nasty Social Security and federal pension collapse and I see nothing being done. At a minimum, expensive military adventures or international financial bailouts for bankers are less and less likely. Less US Army, less IMF. It will be a better world.

I'd like to add one point regarding the US debt. Currently their debt is 101% of GDP and growing at approximately $4 Billion dollars per day.
http://www.usdebtclock.org/
Now, that means that the US is borrowing approximately $1.4 Trillion per year to pay the bills, which means that their GDP figure is bumped up substantially because of borrowing. So their claimed GDP of $15.1 Trillion is actually really more like 15.1 - 1.4 = $13.7 Trillion, if they were to actually balance the books. Their debt is $15.3 Trillion, and 15.3/13.7 = 1.12. So the US debt is already effectively at 112% percent of GDP, which is pretty close to Italy, at 120%. I have not even included state and municipal debt here, which is another disaster. Nor have I included liabilities for the aging population in the US.
To sum it up, the US balance sheet looks like a dog's breakfast, they are on a very swift road to bankruptcy, and none of the politicians except Ron Paul are even proposing any real spending cuts. The Titanic is heading for the iceberg and the neocons and war profiteers are stepping on the gas.
Cheers!!

Another stupid german! German arrogance over the euro and their ham-fisted diktats to the rest of Europe will not be quickly forgotten.

In a time of fundamental crisis, it has shown itself to be anti-democratic and a threat to the basic ability of a blocking minority of EU countries to stop the Franco-German axis into railroading the rest of the EU in to what they want. It threatens the basic democratic underpinnings of the new EU that many new EU countries thought would be sacrosanct and a very important reason they joined, not simply to be part ofan economic block.

There will a big political price to pay to undo this distrust. Support for a more British idea of the EU grow. If Hollande replaces Sarkozy, events may turn even more quickly.

It would be an irony it turns out Germany destroys Europe again. They are on thin ice.

Everybody should hold referendums. Sandzak, Presheva Valley, Vojvodina, Pirot region.
(Avni, 29 January 2012 18:13)

Republika Srpska, Istria, Herceg Novi, Northern Epirus, Dragas municipality, eastern Slavonia.
(Navi, 29 January 2012 20:26)
========================

Maybe that's the answer. Exchange of territory and each ethnic group can live separate knowing they are in charge of their own destiny.
Where Serbia may lose some territory, Serbia will gain somewhere else.
If Albanians want their own then sure secede some and get some in return but if there is nothing to get in return then it's not ok. Albanians cannot bargain with Serbian land.

As usual, nothing bu ultimatums. Yawn.

Everybody should hold referendums. Sandzak, Presheva Valley, Vojvodina, Pirot region.

If the referendum is bad for Serbia's intergration- that's good. The Serbs of of Northern Kosovo will save the Serbs from becoming slaves of Germany and their third Reich ambitions.
(Diana, 29 January 2012 19:44)

Diana the unfortunate thing is that all Europe regardless of being in EU or not are slaves to Germany, France the original 12. even if Serbia is not in EU they will buy Telecomm, Electrical production in due time, and all major industries where East europeans work for meager wages.

They are using East Europe and now expanding in Balkans for cheap labor nothing else.

"the US now owes 15.6 trillion and well on its way to at least 17.2 by December 2012.
(sj, 29 January 2012 22:31) "

What you never take into consideration is the size of the economy that owes these trillions. As a percentage of GDP, what the U.S. owes is less than what most European do (not to mention Japan). See, for example, http://www.economist.com/node/21543139 "The hangover -
America is recovering from the debt bust faster than European countries. Why?" Note both the ratio of total debt to GDP and the change in this figure since 2008.

"Maybe that's the answer. Exchange of territory and each ethnic group can live separate knowing they are in charge of their own destiny.
(Peggy, 30 January 2012 10:19)

Or maybe they all live in little kingdoms, princedoms, or whatever, where every town forms an own totally ethnic clean 'country' :)

Somehow ironic that nowadays where (most) people in the EU can move, settle, live and work freely in any other member country of their choice, there are persons who advocate ethnic clean territories.

“However, we should all keep in mind that Kosovo’s breakup with Serbia is a direct consequence of apartheid that Slobodan Milošević’s regime carried out in Kosovo. And I know that very well because I used to go their regularly during those years,“ Pack concluded.'

What a despicable liar. She must have learned from Josef Goebbels. Apartheid is what the Serbs are living under right now, with no freedom of movement and no human rights. Kosovo albanians had it very good in ex-Yugoslavia, even with education in their own language.
These Germans are the same as always, haven't changed one bit. We will take them down, yet again, if we have to.
Cheers!!

That's GREAT news! If the referendum will have a negative impact of EU candidate status, then the Serbs from Northern Kosovo are to be praised and commended. At least there are some Serbs somewhere that know that Kosovo and Metohija always need to be a part of Serbia- no matter if it defies the "Great" or "Not-So-Great" world powers. And no matter what Doris Pack, or other EU mouthpieces say, Serbia will ALWAYS be a integral part of Europe- even when we don't succumb to European rule....like our dear friends, the Greeks, are finding out the hard way.

Aparthied is perhaps an understatement?

A pity this woman stopped going to Kosovo. She'd see apartheid is alive and thriving in Europe's most democratic, multiethnic, multicultural state :)
(Balkan Anthropologist, 29 January 2012 17:24)



Oh my, she has been hundreds of times in Kosova, but wish you have been only one time to see it for yourself, bc, is not like what you are saying. The reality is the opposite from your blind vision/reality.

Everybody should hold referendums. Sandzak, Presheva Valley, Vojvodina, Pirot region.

A pity this woman stopped going to Kosovo. She'd see apartheid is alive and thriving in Europe's most democratic, multiethnic, multicultural state :)

If the referendum is bad for Serbia's intergration- that's good. The Serbs of of Northern Kosovo will save the Serbs from becoming slaves of Germany and their third Reich ambitions.
(Diana, 29 January 2012 19:44)

Diana the unfortunate thing is that all Europe regardless of being in EU or not are slaves to Germany, France the original 12. even if Serbia is not in EU they will buy Telecomm, Electrical production in due time, and all major industries where East europeans work for meager wages.

They are using East Europe and now expanding in Balkans for cheap labor nothing else.

"the US now owes 15.6 trillion and well on its way to at least 17.2 by December 2012.
(sj, 29 January 2012 22:31) "

What you never take into consideration is the size of the economy that owes these trillions. As a percentage of GDP, what the U.S. owes is less than what most European do (not to mention Japan). See, for example, http://www.economist.com/node/21543139 "The hangover -
America is recovering from the debt bust faster than European countries. Why?" Note both the ratio of total debt to GDP and the change in this figure since 2008.

If the referendum is bad for Serbia's intergration- that's good. The Serbs of of Northern Kosovo will save the Serbs from becoming slaves of Germany and their third Reich ambitions.

"Maybe that's the answer. Exchange of territory and each ethnic group can live separate knowing they are in charge of their own destiny.
(Peggy, 30 January 2012 10:19)

Or maybe they all live in little kingdoms, princedoms, or whatever, where every town forms an own totally ethnic clean 'country' :)

Somehow ironic that nowadays where (most) people in the EU can move, settle, live and work freely in any other member country of their choice, there are persons who advocate ethnic clean territories.

Dear Miss Pack,

If such a referendum is bad in your opinion then I guess a unilateral (!) delclaration of independence is VERY BAD?
When you will tell the Albanians to revoke the UDI and get back to the negotiation table to get a mutual ageed deal?

Can any journalist ask her this please?

There is nothing more repulsive to than a German trying to lecture others on apartheid when they have blood on their hands that can not be washed for hundreds of years.

Perhaps that is what you get when your daddy was wearing an SS uniform and rampaging throughout Europe murdering and stealing.

Unfortunately for old Doris she looks like something out a Monty Python sketch. But on the issue of this referendum affecting Serbia’s chances of joining the EU; Doris old girl from your mouth to God’s ear.

I am amazed how deluded these EU politicians have become. They talk of an EU as if this is 1995, as if nothing has happened and the money tree is bearing billions of Euros and the party is continuing.

The IMF is now going around trying to establish a trillion dollar fighting fund to stave off economic collapse in the US and EU and has invited the BRIC countries to contribute to this fund – naturally the US is not going to Congress to seek any new money (how can they as the US now owes 15.6 trillion and well on its way to at least 17.2 by December 2012.

More diktats. Endless, isn't it? Ms. Pack would better turn her modest intelligence to the ethnic and population crisis in her own disappearing country.

Everybody should hold referendums. Sandzak, Presheva Valley, Vojvodina, Pirot region.
(Avni, 29 January 2012 18:13)

Republika Srpska, Istria, Herceg Novi, Northern Epirus, Dragas municipality, eastern Slavonia.

Another stupid german! German arrogance over the euro and their ham-fisted diktats to the rest of Europe will not be quickly forgotten.

In a time of fundamental crisis, it has shown itself to be anti-democratic and a threat to the basic ability of a blocking minority of EU countries to stop the Franco-German axis into railroading the rest of the EU in to what they want. It threatens the basic democratic underpinnings of the new EU that many new EU countries thought would be sacrosanct and a very important reason they joined, not simply to be part ofan economic block.

There will a big political price to pay to undo this distrust. Support for a more British idea of the EU grow. If Hollande replaces Sarkozy, events may turn even more quickly.

It would be an irony it turns out Germany destroys Europe again. They are on thin ice.

Amer, 29 January 2012 23:12)


Where do I start? Prior to the GFC the US economy was boasted to be 14 trillion per year. Now after all the massive changes where banks went belly up and federal Government had bailed some out plus the real estate going down the tube, mass unemployment etc we still hear of a 14 trillion dollar US economy. That in any person’s language is impossible. On top of all that only late last year it was disclosed that 50% of Americans have lost nearly all of the value of their assets. On top of that poverty now affects 80 million Americans……..

The article you attached is only a feel good piece much like the stuff you read or hear in the media about the US growth rate increasing, but when taking a closer look its growth is miniscule. Its to avoid greater pessimism amongst the population as it would make matters even worse.

Your so called debt reduction is a smoke and mirrors job in that it looks good, but in reality its nothing if not making matters worse. For example, the Federal Government has announced spending cuts of 1 trillion dollars over the next decade, but they will still have to borrow 1.2 trillion per year which equates to 12 trillion less1 trillion then you still owe 11 trillion over that period.

What you need to do is reduce current expenditure now to bring the budget into balance then you have to start setting aside money to pay for the current debt. That is how you reduce debt. The rest is called cooking the books.

A professor I studied at University use to tell us that broadly speaking a budget for country is much like a household budget with some minor exclusions. If you earn $500 per week but spend $800 you will have to borrow money but in the meantime you keep telling everyone how well you are going and that you can afford your lifestyle because of your greater income.

That is what is happening in the US now. If the EU goes down the deeper recession side then its going to hit the US even harder than the 2008 GFC.

Everybody should hold referendums. Sandzak, Presheva Valley, Vojvodina, Pirot region.
(Avni, 29 January 2012 18:13)

Republika Srpska, Istria, Herceg Novi, Northern Epirus, Dragas municipality, eastern Slavonia.
(Navi, 29 January 2012 20:26)
========================

Maybe that's the answer. Exchange of territory and each ethnic group can live separate knowing they are in charge of their own destiny.
Where Serbia may lose some territory, Serbia will gain somewhere else.
If Albanians want their own then sure secede some and get some in return but if there is nothing to get in return then it's not ok. Albanians cannot bargain with Serbian land.

As usual, nothing bu ultimatums. Yawn.

Amer, America is not recovering from debt and faces a real bust unless immediate reform is made. First, we did not receive a credit downgrade last year for capricious reasons. In percentages, under Obama the federal deficit growth certainly outgrew GDP growth by a wide margin. Adding about four trillion dollars was about a 1/3 increase in 4 years. Exponential growth and you get the impossibility of this insanity. Only very low borrowing costs have staved off an immediate crisis. Also keep in mind the American "federal" deficit is not actually our national debt. Our national debt includes state, local and municipal debt. How worried are you about California and Illinois for example? At least 10% of the US lives in California and Governor Brown is struggling to prevent our own "Greece". Finally and this is the real elephant in the room...we are about 5 years at most from a very nasty Social Security and federal pension collapse and I see nothing being done. At a minimum, expensive military adventures or international financial bailouts for bankers are less and less likely. Less US Army, less IMF. It will be a better world.

I'd like to add one point regarding the US debt. Currently their debt is 101% of GDP and growing at approximately $4 Billion dollars per day.
http://www.usdebtclock.org/
Now, that means that the US is borrowing approximately $1.4 Trillion per year to pay the bills, which means that their GDP figure is bumped up substantially because of borrowing. So their claimed GDP of $15.1 Trillion is actually really more like 15.1 - 1.4 = $13.7 Trillion, if they were to actually balance the books. Their debt is $15.3 Trillion, and 15.3/13.7 = 1.12. So the US debt is already effectively at 112% percent of GDP, which is pretty close to Italy, at 120%. I have not even included state and municipal debt here, which is another disaster. Nor have I included liabilities for the aging population in the US.
To sum it up, the US balance sheet looks like a dog's breakfast, they are on a very swift road to bankruptcy, and none of the politicians except Ron Paul are even proposing any real spending cuts. The Titanic is heading for the iceberg and the neocons and war profiteers are stepping on the gas.
Cheers!!