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00:00:29You are watching Global. The focus topic of energy insecurity,
00:00:32instability, energy crisis, we continue with one of the most prominent energy experts
00:00:36in Serbia, Mr. Aleksandar Kovačević, who is a senior research
00:00:39associate at the Oxford Institute for Energy
00:00:42Studies. Good evening, welcome to
00:00:46Global Focus. Let's start with you, what are the basic geopolitical
00:00:50factors that cause the energy crisis, energy
00:00:53instability, and how does that affect us
00:00:55here? Uh,
00:00:59many, many factors, so we have the
00:01:01traditional ones, meaning what we have
00:01:05known for decades as sensitive points in energy transit,
00:01:08the Hormuz Strait, the Suez
00:01:11Canal, the Malacca Strait, and
00:01:15so on, in all those places we have some kind
00:01:18of political, political
00:01:22when you look at oil and instability, one dimension, the second dimension is
00:01:25that of course there is...
00:01:32"reorganization of the world market,
00:01:36liquefied natural gas
00:01:39has taken a very large
00:01:42part of the world energy market, coal has
00:01:45somewhat decreased, coal is
00:01:49relatively available in many places and
00:01:52easier to transport and so
00:01:55on, liquefied gas is not, it
00:01:58is in a smaller..." number of places
00:02:02uh, the problem of investments in terminals, ships and so on is
00:02:06significantly larger, now we have a situation where
00:02:09the sensitivity of one and the same transport route is actually
00:02:13greater, because much larger sums of money are involved,
00:02:17meaning far, far greater,
00:02:20a far greater problem, thus it
00:02:23gives
00:02:25also ideas
00:02:27from terrorist groups to states.
00:02:30political actors and so on that
00:02:33they could achieve something if
00:02:36they exert appropriate pressure on the same point we knew from before, but
00:02:39now that point
00:02:43has a far greater intensity of capital than it ever had before,
00:02:47that is one
00:02:51one special dimension,
00:02:54of course this dynamic and
00:02:57the distribution of energy consumption has changed.
00:03:01Mhm, so consumption is more in the
00:03:04East, Far East, not just
00:03:08China, but also those countries there that have
00:03:12intensive economic development, Indonesia, Malaysia,
00:03:15Vietnam, Thailand, India and
00:03:19so on and so on, so now we also have a slightly
00:03:23different direction, slightly different
00:03:26transport than it was, those countries are...
00:03:30"with modern industry in a position to pay a higher price
00:03:35feet, tingling sensation, for energy than Europe, for example, that's where the disruption
00:03:39occurs, and how does that affect us and
00:03:42spill over,
00:03:45well, uh directly, I suppose, well actually,
00:03:49actually, I would say more indirectly, mhm,
00:03:53namely Serbia is uh, not only a country
00:03:56that has no access to the sea, so
00:03:59it participates in this, let's say
00:04:02global world market, participation is actually
00:04:05indirect, precisely because it is
00:04:09indirect, where the influence of these global
00:04:12events affects those
00:04:16few partners
00:04:20that Serbia has, the Russian Federation,
00:04:23Ukraine, here, here, let's say
00:04:26that regional, regional cooperation, we actually
00:04:30uh, not only do we not have access to the sea, but
00:04:34every conceivable direction to
00:04:36the sea, there are some countries
00:04:40whose logistics, transport systems
00:04:43are very unreliable, expensive,
00:04:46bad, insufficient, small, and so on
00:04:50and so on, so actually there is no good access to the sea,
00:04:52yes, it seems that we are a bit and then of course
00:04:56the difference in price is large.
00:05:01uh, so now we are observing
00:05:03the European spot gas market, and we say the
00:05:07price is very high, yes, this,
00:05:10we don't see the price that
00:05:13is formed by long-term contracts, which is formed
00:05:16on a liquid maritime
00:05:19market, the European market is not
00:05:22a liquid maritime market, and what
00:05:26measures has Europe taken in the last four or five years, I connect this to the war in Ukraine, do they have effects, what
00:05:30are their limitations?
00:05:33We will return to our situation,
00:05:36well, look at the
00:05:39crises, unfortunately, now
00:05:43it will be 34 years
00:05:46since I have been writing analyses about the crisis, or about
00:05:49energy crises,
00:05:51uh,
00:05:54there is a difference, when you look at the crisis from 2009,
00:05:58the effect was
00:06:02relatively modest, gas transit
00:06:04through Ukraine stopped, Europe
00:06:08found itself in a situation where it had to solve that problem in some other way.
00:06:13"adjustment was relatively quick, consumption
00:06:16was reduced to some extent,
00:06:19uh, prices went up a little
00:06:22more, but not much,
00:06:26and there was no significant release of reserves,
00:06:29the world market didn't even notice it, meaning
00:06:34gas prices in 2009, nothing particularly happened,
00:06:38look at 2022,
00:06:41the price jump didn't happen when the war started,
00:06:45no, it happened a few months later when
00:06:49public funds approved money to supposedly
00:06:53fill storage facilities,
00:06:55for a price jump to occur, you must have both
00:06:58sides, supply demanding
00:07:01a higher price, but also demand willing to pay that higher
00:07:05price, and that means, if I remember correctly, there were suddenly
00:07:09some repairs in Russia on...
00:07:13but you have you have subsidizing
00:07:17mhm which brings a new dimension
00:07:20of uncertainty, political risk
00:07:24and finally money to
00:07:27pay high prices, now who can
00:07:30pay them, the one who has a very large monetary and fiscal
00:07:34capacity to be able to withstand
00:07:38such fiscal
00:07:41uh effects.
00:07:43"in Germany, you just had a report,
00:07:47in Germany energy accounts for approximately 2%
00:07:51of industrial activity, in Serbia it's about 20
00:07:54percent, mhm, the fiscal
00:07:57capacity of both is not the same, of course,
00:08:00and we had
00:08:04a terrible effect on
00:08:08Serbia's fiscal capacity at
00:08:11that time. "due to circumstances of breakdowns in
00:08:15Obrenovac in December 2021, we had to
00:08:18import a lot of electricity, then we imported
00:08:22electricity at a terribly high price, so what was
00:08:25what what should we do, I mean we have to consume energy, that's what I'm talking about,
00:08:29so you simply have a fiscal
00:08:31this uh, fiscal intervention,
00:08:35mhm, that was not the case in earlier
00:08:38crises, so it is much better."
00:08:42uh, much better adjustment of
00:08:45demand, reduction of demand, look at the famous oil
00:08:48crisis of '73,
00:08:51demand adjustment was the key
00:08:54mechanism, and now
00:08:58uh, you are talking about that, you said that
00:09:01it seems from what you said that we don't have
00:09:05much choice now, what will we do in such
00:09:09circumstances, our budget again like any other country, we would not
00:09:13be able to find money for such interventions, and why has Serbia even come to a situation where it has
00:09:17no choice in such interventions
00:09:19that are happening externally. I think
00:09:23it's not only in Serbia but in Europe generally in this
00:09:26part of the world uh
00:09:30the problem of energy efficiency
00:09:33in general the effectiveness of energy
00:09:36use is a terribly big problem. So
00:09:40Serbia the degree of energy utilization
00:09:43in Serbia is low, when
00:09:46you look at uh, energy consumption
00:09:49per capita in Serbia is approximately
00:09:52the same as in Italy, mhm, and
00:09:55Italy has 2.8 times higher national product
00:09:59per capita than Serbia, with the same amount of energy per
00:10:03capita, that tells you Italy is not
00:10:06particularly good, mhm, if you compared Italy
00:10:10and Japan and... South
00:10:12Korea, you would have an approximately similar
00:10:15situation, but the fact that we
00:10:19are dramatically lagging in energy
00:10:22efficiency uh creates a problem. A problem,
00:10:25mhm, when energy efficiency is not adequate,
00:10:29then the economy pays energy
00:10:32costs with more difficulty, you need a larger quantity that needs to be brought from somewhere,
00:10:35you don't have access to the sea, you have increased transit costs
00:10:39and then plus we import huge
00:10:43quantities of gas in terms of percentages, so 80 or
00:10:4690, the same applies to oil, it is specifically said for gas
00:10:50that we have no other choice but to do that
00:10:54uh from... Russia,
00:10:57why haven't we created a source for ourselves until now? Well, yes,
00:11:00that of course, uh, it's not the only thing, because
00:11:03this is not a problem from yesterday, the day before yesterday, it's that
00:11:06we have uh,
00:11:10oil supply through one route
00:11:13via this oil pipeline from Janif from
00:11:17Croatia, we have gas supply with the
00:11:20idea that it is a possible source, neither is
00:11:23true. Meaning there are enough
00:11:26different options that
00:11:30of course in the previous
00:11:33I would say 54 years
00:11:36could have been
00:11:39opened, arranged and used and so on and so
00:11:43on, uh more problems, energy
00:11:46efficiency is of course a problem
00:11:49uh terrible terrible
00:11:52seasonal sensitivity energy consumption is terribly
00:11:56sensitive to weather conditions, cold days
00:12:00produce high spikes, a large spike
00:12:03in energy consumption, very large,
00:12:07uh, again we have another situation, how do you assess the situation with NIS, so
00:12:10the Americans continue to insist that we must or rather that it must not
00:12:14be owned by Russia, at the same time they keep
00:12:17extending that license, so why on the one hand do the United
00:12:21States insist that it uh... should be taken from
00:12:25Russia, and why is Russia delaying the sale, will we in Serbia
00:12:28end up paying the price for all
00:12:32of that? Well, I mean,
00:12:35it's simple to conclude, the Russian Federation is
00:12:39at war, of course that country
00:12:42uses all its resources,
00:12:45property it has in the country, abroad, for war
00:12:49objectives,
00:12:52uh, so this property which is... enters
00:12:55Serbia, is not just commercial
00:12:58property with the goal of providing
00:13:02the highest income to shareholders,
00:13:06it has its strategic and other
00:13:08effects.
00:13:11Could management be better in a commercial sense? Yes,
00:13:14much, of course shareholders could have
00:13:17much better commercial
00:13:20effects than they have, unfortunately this has been going on for a long
00:13:24time. "uh, so it should not
00:13:27be viewed only as commercial, it is quite
00:13:30clear that a country with a strategic interest does not
00:13:34want to give up uh the tool that helps in
00:13:38executing that strategic interest, that is one dimension, of course
00:13:42everyone else has the opposite, the opposite goal
00:13:46to take that tool out of those hands
00:13:49or for someone else to take it out of those hands, Serbia's interest would actually
00:13:53be extremely simple."
00:13:55that this property yields the best possible, the best commercial
00:13:58result, because that would also enable
00:14:02the best market supply,
00:14:04the best fuel prices,
00:14:07finally the best result for Serbia
00:14:10or Serbian citizens who are shareholders in that
00:14:13company, so we have three
00:14:16completely different, completely
00:14:20different interests, now
00:14:22it's interesting that so far in... this discussion that
00:14:26has been going on for months, there has not been a
00:14:29way uh
00:14:32to align the interests of small shareholders and the Republic
00:14:35of Serbia, which would be expected, both actually
00:14:39have a very, very clear
00:14:43commercial interest,
00:14:45Mr. Kovačević, for this is all the time we have, thank you very much
00:14:49for being a guest of Global Focus on
00:14:55"Turkish opposition, the Republican Party achieved a great
00:14:58victory in the local elections of 2024, winning some of the largest
00:15:02votes in Turkey, the victory came at a price, the government attacked
00:15:05the opposition violently with pressures, arrests of opposition
00:15:09mayors, court disputes, and at the end of
00:15:12last week, surprisingly, the mayor of Izmir, the third largest
00:15:16city and opposition stronghold, defected
00:15:19to the AKP, President Erdoğan's ruling
00:15:23party. My colleague Dušan Mlađenović spoke about this with a member
00:15:27of the new party.
00:15:33Mr. Bilici, thank you for speaking to
00:15:36N1.
00:15:38I'm glad to be with you,
00:15:40Dušan.
00:15:44Izmir has long been an opposition stronghold. What does Cemil
00:15:47Tugay's defection to Erdogan's party mean for the people who voted for
00:15:51him, and how did your party react? We saw
00:15:54protests.
00:15:59Yes, if I may, I would go back a step to explain things from
00:16:03the beginning. As you may know, the opposition won
00:16:06the local elections in 2024,
00:16:09then for the first time in 47 years, the main opposition
00:16:13party CHP became the leading political party. Izmir
00:16:17is the third largest city in Turkey, a stronghold of progressive and
00:16:20social democratic politics. During various mandates and periods,
00:16:24it was inclined towards that political option. In the local
00:16:27elections of 2024, 49% of Izmir's citizens
00:16:31voted for the opposition, while only
00:16:3437% voted for the ruling party. This
00:16:37decision was a shock, our party, its members and
00:16:41leadership strongly criticized it because we believe that
00:16:44the citizens of Izmir deserve a clear explanation that their
00:16:47democratic choices and decisions must be respected.
00:16:51By doing this, they feel betrayed and believe that their
00:16:55choice was not
00:16:56respected.
00:17:00Why is this happening, what makes opposition mayors
00:17:04join the ruling party, what do you hear about the pressures before?
00:17:15In short, there is a crackdown on the opposition, especially on
00:17:19the main opposition party. Just a few months ago, control
00:17:23over the main opposition party was taken. By a court decision,
00:17:26a disputed court decision, the leader of the opposition party
00:17:30Ozgur Ezel was removed from office, and the former party
00:17:33president was reinstated. This caused
00:17:36great disappointment in Turkish society, which is why
00:17:39we had no other choice, besides me, 90
00:17:43of my colleagues, including the president of our party, Ozgur
00:17:47Ezel, had no other choice but to start
00:17:49from scratch, so we founded a new party, but to
00:17:53answer your question, currently more than 40
00:17:56opposition mayors are in prison, all of them are from
00:17:59the opposition, this points to something dark, confusing,
00:18:02unusual, something you would not hear or see in democratic
00:18:06countries. One of the consequences is that since the local
00:18:09elections of 2024, around 76
00:18:13mayors have switched from the opposition bloc to the bloc
00:18:16of the ruling party or to the ruling party itself. In addition,
00:18:20around 20 members of parliament have also changed political
00:18:23affiliation and switched from opposition parties or the opposition bloc
00:18:26to the side of the ruling party. Politicians can, of course,
00:18:30make their own decisions, but there are allegations of
00:18:33enormous political pressure, blackmail, threats, as well as
00:18:37personal or political advantages and promises that were
00:18:40offered to them. We see this as a structural problem,
00:18:44because municipalities largely depend on the decisions and budget of the central government,
00:18:48including borrowing, financing, and the like.
00:18:51Large infrastructure projects also depend on the approval
00:18:54of the presidency. When political and personal survival, as well as
00:18:58access to money and resources become factors in
00:19:00decision-making, I think some people can succumb
00:19:03to it.
00:19:06But with these defections, Erdoğan's party gains positions it
00:19:10did not win in elections, how can the opposition defend
00:19:13the citizens' choice from such a transfer
00:19:16of power?
00:19:21You are asking very justified questions: first of all,
00:19:25we must document these illegal pressures and
00:19:28challenge them in courts and in parliament. Secondly, we must
00:19:31strengthen accountability towards the public. Voters deserve
00:19:35to know why an elected mayor changes political
00:19:37affiliation, what reasons, pressures, interests or
00:19:41benefits influence that decision. Thirdly, we need
00:19:44institutional reform that will protect municipalities and
00:19:48elected officials from arbitrary arrests and detention
00:19:51before trial. Such a way of imprisoning people creates
00:19:55an atmosphere of fear and uncertainty. Finally,
00:19:57political parties and politicians can win
00:20:01and lose, but citizens have the right to elect their local government,
00:20:04central government and their representatives.
00:20:15We see that the circumstances are somewhat different in Turkey than in
00:20:19Serbia, when I compare it to Serbia, we only have one
00:20:22municipality led by the opposition, while all other municipalities and
00:20:26cities are governed by the ruling party or its coalition
00:20:29partners, but in Turkey you have arrests and court
00:20:32proceedings, how much do they affect your party's ability to
00:20:36resist?
00:20:52First of all, Turkey is a large country, our citizens believe in
00:20:56democracy, not just in words or theory, but they show it through
00:21:00personal participation in elections. High voter turnout in Turkish elections
00:21:03confirms this. I will give you an example. Ekrem
00:21:07İmamoğlu was elected mayor of Istanbul
00:21:10in the 2019 elections, he is now in
00:21:13prison. In those elections, he won with a narrow margin
00:21:16of 16,000 votes, but that provoked
00:21:20anger or dissatisfaction, so he had to face
00:21:23repeat elections, in which the difference grew from
00:21:2616,000 to around 8,000 votes. These
00:21:29are significant results and clear decisions by citizens. In the last
00:21:33local elections in 2024,
00:21:36Ekrem İmamoğlu again won in Istanbul with an even larger
00:21:39margin, more than a million votes. This shows
00:21:43that, although the ruling party has many advantages, voters and
00:21:46citizens of Turkey resolutely want to choose for themselves who they want to see
00:21:50in power. Investigations, arrests, and such an atmosphere
00:21:53of chaos can scare some people. However, our
00:21:57political leadership, especially the party president Ozgur
00:22:00Ezel, a key founder and driving force of our party,
00:22:03travels the country and organizes rallies since the arrest
00:22:06of the mayor of Istanbul. He held more than 120
00:22:10rallies across Turkey, he visited every city, every
00:22:13place. He went to suburban areas to first
00:22:17listen to the people and citizens, heard their
00:22:20spoke with them and addressed them. That energy
00:22:24and mobilization are yielding results. People are aware of this
00:22:27injustice and therefore support our party. Our party was also
00:22:31founded thanks to that support. Many people
00:22:34have applied for membership. Now we have about 700,000
00:22:37members, and the party was founded only a few months ago, at the end of
00:22:41July. In addition, citizens of a country with 86
00:22:45million inhabitants generously donated money
00:22:48to our party so that we could persevere in the political struggle and be the voice
00:22:52of people who are fed up with this system as a whole.
00:22:56Mr. Bilici, thank you for speaking to
00:22:58N1.
00:23:1210 PM. Next up is the daily review and
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00:30:00And all who think that without Europe we can do
00:30:04something alone are very wrong. After
00:30:07all, my colleague Marinka Tepić spoke about a special
00:30:11prosecutor for fighting corruption among high-ranking officials with the prosecution
00:30:14police 10 years ago, and
00:30:18seven years ago she wrote, together with
00:30:21people whose field it is, a law that we proposed to the
00:30:25assembly, I don't even know how many times. Today
00:30:28everyone talks about it, today everyone talks about the law
00:30:32on the origin of property, which we also propose for I don't know how many years, that those who
00:30:36stole money, and for whom we cannot
00:30:39prove criminal offenses, that they prove where they got it from, so that it
00:30:43becomes part of that
00:30:47fund for the return of plundered money that we will
00:30:50create. European Serbia is
00:30:53a summary word for that better life. It
00:30:56implies an ordered state with reduced corruption.