Vol 9, No 1, 2010 pp. 107-117
UDC 323.174
ANALYSIS OF THE IMPORTANCE OF THE EUROPEAN CHARTER OF REGIONAL AUTONOMY (DEMOCRACY)
Jovan Živković
State University of Novi Pazar, Department for Legal and Economic Sciences
Email: jzivkovic@np.ac.rs
Despite Serbia's adoption of certain documents suggesting its readiness to undertake regionalization such as the Agreement on Stabilization and Integration (ASI), Strategy of the Regional Development of the Republic of Serbia for the Period from 2007 to 2012, Act on Regional Development (2009) and the like, still the fact remains that no concrete actions in that sense have taken place so far. The essence is in the fact that political, economic, legal and other elites preserve their old unitary concept without taking into consideration unequal regional development, all for the sake of preserving their centralistic and protectionist way of ruling the society which befits only their interests. In that sense, the Serbian society remains at the level of a pre-political system since, in that sense, the state still appears to be the only institution which determines the degree of its citizens' freedom. The stress put on the given documents affirming the regional approach to the state structure, first of all, on the European Declaration of Regional Autonomy (1997) as much as Helsinki Declaration of Regional Self-Government (2002) and the Draft European Charter of Regional Democracy (2008) clearly shows the intention to present, anew, Serbian people with the necessary paths of social development regarding the fact that the basic aspiration of all the efforts made by the contemporary democratic processes is the realization of greater rights and liberties of each citizen, that is, the institutional inclusion into social processes of all the citizens at many levels (from local through county and regional to central). With respect to these approaches, it is necessary for the Serbian political-legal and economic-social sphere – with all the subsystem aspects - to free itself from the traditional unitary concept (characteristic for the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries) for the sake of greater pluralism of the society which also implies greater equality and equal rights for all the citizens. With such transformation as the goal to reach, it is sure that the ideas of regionalism, through given documents and principles that most certainly include subsidiarity, should represent the genuine support for its realization.
A new approach to the social organization implies that the Serbian political and legal scene must undergo a change in the very concept of the state as an institution – namely, that it does no longer figure out as the only subject, that is, that the concept of sovereignty (as the main attribute of subjectivity) cannot be understood in a strictly traditional way any more. In this case no state integrity is in question – though the opposite is the misconception very often promoted by the opponents of regionalization; what is at issues here is, above all, the relationship which is established in the state, namely between its citizens and its elite ruling it. In other words, the centralist, oligarchic and, not rarely, despotic form of ruling the state and the society is the aspects that should undergo changes as suggested by all the intentions of the democratic standards focused in a more recent history in the European Charter of Regional Autonomy and the Draft European Charter of Regional Democracy. Speaking more concretely, the Serbian citizenry is presented with the aspects of the indispensable changes at several levels without which there is no democratization or closer relationships between public affairs and citizens. The achievement of the given social changes in the Serbian society as well, as pointed out in the documents of international importance, most of all, European Charter of Local Autonomy as the first notable act, implies that it is necessary to 1) introduce democratization in the governing institutions, 2) affirm political pluralism, 3) change the concept of autonomy and 4) enable integration processes on the principle of international cooperation.
The given plans of the democratic paradigm are supported in the text with particular articles quoted from many documents whose purpose is to present the public with those approaches to social organization that provide it with the essential trait, namely, that all citizens are equal, with equal rights, with the same responsibility and solidarity.
Key words: democracy, unitarism, regionalization, autonomy, equality, equal rights.
ANALIZA ZNAČAJA EVROPSKE POVELJE O REGIONALNOJ AUTONOMIJI (DEMOKRATIJI)
Uprkos tome što su u Srbiji doneta određena dokumenta kojima se nagoveštava da će se pristupiti njenoj regionalizaciji, kao što su Sporazum o stabilizaciji i pridruživanju (SSP), Strategiji regionalnog razvoja Republike Srbije za period od 2007. do 2012, Zakon o regionalnom razvoju (2009) i t.sl., ipak je činjenica da nekih konkretnih događaja u tom pravcu nema. Suština je u tome što političke, ekonomske, pravne i dr. elite zadržavaju stari unitarni koncept – bez osvrtanja na neravnomeran regionalni razvoj, sve kako bi zadržale centralistički i protekcionistički način upravljanja društvom koji odgovara samo njima. U tom kontekstu srpsko društvo ostaje na nivou pretpolitičkog ustrojstva, budući da se, u tom slučaju, država i dalje pojavljuje kao jedina institucija koja određuje stepen slobode građanima. Isticanje značaja određenih dokumenata koji afirmišu regionalni pristup državnog uređenja, pre svega kroz Evropsku deklaraciju o regionalnoj autonomiji (1997), ali ništa manje ni kroz Helsinšku povelju o regionalnoj samoupravi (2002) i nacrt Evropske povelje o regionalnoj demokratiji (2008), intencija je da se srpskoj javnosti iznova predoče nužni putevi društvenog razvoja, s obzirom da je osnovna težnja ukupnog napora savremenih demokratskih procesa ostvarenje većih prava i sloboda za svakog građanina, tj. da se u društvene procese institucionalno uključe svi građani na više nivoa (od lokalnog, okružnog, regionalnog i do centralnog). U sklopu takvih ideja nužno je da se i srpska političko-pravna i ekonomsko-socijalna sfera – sa svim posdsistemskim aspektima, oslobode tradicionalnog unitarnog koncepta (karakterističnog za XIX i prvu polivinu XX veka) ka većoj pluralizaciji društva, što podrazumeva i veću jednakost i ravnopravnost građana. Na putu ka takvoj transformaciji sigurno je da su ideje regionalizma, kroz određena dokumenta i principe – u koji svakako da spada supsidijarnost, pravi oslonac za dosezanje takvih ciljeva.
Novim pristupom društvenom uređenju na srpskoj političko-pravnoj sceni mora doći do promene odnosa prema shvatanju institucije države – da se više ne ispostavlja jedinim subjektom, odnosno da se pojam suvereniteta (kao osnovni atribut subjektivnosti) ne može više razumevati na strogo tradicionalni način. U ovom slučaju nije doveden u pitanje integritet države – mada tu zamenu teza stalno ističu protivnici regionalizacije, već, pre svega, odnos koji se uspostavlja u državi – između građana i elite koja rukovodi državom. Drugim rečima, centralistički, oligarhijski i, ne retko, despotski oblik upravljanja državom i društvom je onaj aspekt koji mora da pretrpi izmene, a koje sugerišu sve intencije demokratskih standarda fokusirane u novijoj istoriji kroz Evropsku povelju o regionalnoj autonomiji i nacrtu Evropske povelje o regionalnoj demokratiji. Konkretizovano govoreći, srpskoj javnosti se predočavaju aspekti nužnih promena kroz nekoliko nivoa, bez kojih nema demokratizacije i približavanja javnih poslova građanima. Ka ostvarenju takvih društvenih promena i u srpskom društvu, ukazuje se dokumentima mađunarodne zajednice, pre svega Evropskom poveljom o lokalnoj autonomiji – kao prvim zaokruženim dokumentom, da je nužno (a) uvesti demokratizaciju u institucijama vlasti, (b) afirmisati politički pluralizam, (c) menjati pojam autonomije i (d) omogućavati integracione prosese na principu međuregionalne saradnje.
Navedeni planovi demokratske paradigme potkrepljuju se u tekstu određenim članovima iz više dokumenata, čija je svrsishodnost da se predoče javnosti oni pristupi društvenom uređenju koji mu daju obeležje da su u njemu svi građani jednaki, ravnopravni, odgovorni i solidarni.
Ključne reči: demokratija, unitarizam, regionalizacija, ravnopravnost, jednakost
