"Serbia could lose Vojvodina”

Radivoj Stepanov says that Serbia could "lose Vojvodina as well" if Belgrade "continues its centralist politics." “Sooner or later, Vojvodina will become a country thanks to Belgrade's politics,” said Stepanov, a professor at the Novi Sad Philosophy University. "Serbia could lose Vojvodina” Stepanov was speaking at a conference marking the first anniversary of the adoption of the new Constitution. He said that Serbia was trying to stop both Kosovo and Vojvodina from gaining independence by taking away the provinces' autonomy. “The unwarranted trampling of Vojvodina's justified right to autonomy and the current government’s – not to mention the right-wing opposition’s - primitive mockery of the contemporary processes of regionalization and Europeanization are turning calls for autonomy into calls for statehood,” Stepanov said. He said that the new Constitution was only a more radical version of the prior one, Slobodan Milosevic's constitution, as far as Vojvodina was concerned. “Maybe this is the real moment for Vojvodina to seriously test the potential of its citizens, for current and future generations, and obtain a better territorial status than it currently has,” Stepanov said. The conference was organized by the non-governmental organization Vojvodina Club.

"Serbia could lose Vojvodina”

Stepanov was speaking at a conference marking the first anniversary of the adoption of the new Constitution.

He said that Serbia was trying to stop both Kosovo and Vojvodina from gaining independence by taking away the provinces' autonomy.

“The unwarranted trampling of Vojvodina's justified right to autonomy and the current government’s – not to mention the right-wing opposition’s - primitive mockery of the contemporary processes of regionalization and Europeanization are turning calls for autonomy into calls for statehood,” Stepanov said.

He said that the new Constitution was only a more radical version of the prior one, Slobodan Milošević's constitution, as far as Vojvodina was concerned.

“Maybe this is the real moment for Vojvodina to seriously test the potential of its citizens, for current and future generations, and obtain a better territorial status than it currently has,” Stepanov said.

The conference was organized by the non-governmental organization Vojvodina Club.