Economy

Economic expert of the Center for geostrategic studies

The end of last year and the beginning of this year brought to the world quite clear hints of all the expected major changes and earthquakes, which I wrote about earlier in the series on the website geostrategy.rs including my last article from September last year, HOT SUMMER AND EVEN HOTTER AUTUMN 2021. As the vast majority of my assessments and forecasts, both economic and political, turned out to be quite real, here I just wanted to point out some current phenomena and trends in the world and in our country, which will undoubtedly lead us to the answer to the question from the title of this article. Perhaps the outcome of the burning Ukrainian war, however, will most quickly lead us to the required answer, with all its far-reaching consequences? All the more, it is actually an open conflict between NATO and Russia, with NATO actually instrumentalizing Ukraine as its part and pushing it into an open conflict with Russia.

Since the beginning of the publication of my articles on this site, followers and readers have been able to notice that I almost regularly touched on this very painful topic of ours, especially in the article "war of ideologies or towards a healthy and contemporary concept of development" from March this year. If the somewhat troubled and war-time of the 90s was in some way a justification for all our economic wanders and stumbles, and transitional in the first two decades of this century deeply delimited by a neoliberal concept that had to be strictly applied; what about our current economic thinking, when, in an Interreg of a kind of World realignment, we witness the breaking of leading economic concepts and the birth of several new ones at the same time? Is it possible that our economic thought still remains a difficult prisoner of the deeply fallen Western neoliberal concept, where, apart from the honorable exceptions of Jovan Dušanić, Nebojša Katić and some of our economists, almost no one must complain about some new economic idea, and especially the desperately needed new concept of our development? Does not every intellectual, in this case an economist, who washes his hands from economics, even politics, that is, from the most important issues of his society, people and state, in fact renounce his own intellectual identity, but also his civil identity, by understanding these key issues alien to others? - as paraphrased by one of our authors.

Written By: Miloš Zdravković

Европска енергетска криза искристалисала је неке нове релације. Русија је „освојила” економски простор, који јој заправо и припада у Европи. У геополитичком надметању економија побеђује. Транзит гаса кроз Северни ток 1 и 2 оставља скоро шест пута мањи угљенични отисак од коришћења украјинских гасовода. Тактика САД да за скупу нафту окриве ОПЕК+ а за скуп гас Русију пропала је. А ЕУ ће морати да се суочи и са чињеницом да је азербејџански гас из каспијских налазишта све више руски.

Протеклих дана и недеља је баш све, као и увек, испливало на површину. Па и узроци европске енергетске кризе.

After a time distance of over half a year from my texts on this site, "one look at 2021. year " from December 2020. and " the grim and ominous winter of 2021. "in March of this year, I thought it was time for a new cross-section and a summary of the current predictions of economic and political developments, both world and ours. The order of topics covered has been partially corrected, and the latest cross-section of the economies of the non-Western world, primarily Russia and China, is now given within the first chapter. In general, on a significant scale, the predictions proved to be accurate and realistic, except obviously the pace and dynamics of certain economic and political developments and events in the world and in our country, but certainly, on a predominantly large scale, it was conditioned by the prolonged effect of the ongoing pandemic, the movement of which is almost impossible to predict. All odds are that the announced tectonic earthquake dynamics will only prolong within a year of the forecast, i.e. spring and summer 2022., with a completely unclear timeline, perhaps, in some forms, and until the year 2025. What is certain, these tectonic changes will change the existing world beyond recognition, bringing a completely new constellation of World Economic and political power, which will certainly reflect on the Balkans and Serbia itself.

Written By: Miloš Zdravković

„Више је него очито да се приватни капитал настоји убацити у лукративни енергетски бизнис. Питање је под којим условима и како ће држава (не само Србија,већ цео регион) одредити правила игре. Ако ће се законске процедуре одвијати као што је државна администрација из раздобља после 2000. омогућила бескрупулозно богаћење углавном страних инвеститора у циљу увођења обновљивих извора енергије, лоше нам се пише“.

И док централне европске власти у Бриселу планирају прелазак на „зелену“ енергију, у Европи се распламсава енергетска криза. Због недостатка гаса, драматично су скочиле не само његове велепродајне цене, већ и цене електричне енергије. У неким земљама Европске уније подижу се цене комуналија за обичне грађане, а у другима смањују порезе како “зелени удар” не би шокирао обичне  људе.

On the eve of the last New Year, on this site called "One look at 2021", I gave my geo-economic and geo-political predictions of the main currents, with special reference to Serbia. Considering that, in the meantime, both official and unofficial basic economic indicators of economic developments for the past year, as well as expectations for this current one have been published in the world and in our country, I considered it expedient to do one cut-off at the end of the first quarter of the current year. All the more so that on both of these world scenes, as well as in our country, there continued the interesting gibberish, which I announced in the previous article. To make the comparison with the previous work as good as possible, I did not change the order of current topics and events.

Written By: Miloš Zdravković

The EU's climate strategy is far more subtle than it seems at first glance. Political games over Russian gas are justified by climate concerns, amateurs lobby for renewable sources-against coal... not asking engineers about the green transition will lead to a financial blow to consumers, not only citizens but also the economy. Russia resists this, without giving up coal, and Serbia's decisions will pave the way for the development of our country.

Written By: Miloš Zdravković

In the cold waters off Bornholm, a Danish island in the Baltic Sea, a complex game of cat and mouse takes place. A fleet of Russian ships is rushing to complete the construction of Nord Stream 2, a 1,230 km long gas pipeline (two pipes with a capacity of 27.5 billion cubic meters each) that would double the capacity of direct gas delivery from Russia to Germany. It remains to build less than 150 km. meanwhile, the US government, new as well as old (Trump's) backed by sanctions legislation, targets companies involved, directly or indirectly in the construction of this pipeline. As the saga enters its conclusion, the fate of the pipeline may depend on the outcome of this race.