The bombing was the final act of breaking the economic Serbia, which terribly suffered because of economic blockade and hyperinflation before …
Directly responsible for all this
are countries in Western Europe and the USA.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUn-cONTrxk&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQPYITT7fvI&feature=related

My mistake, I was not precise enough. I took as an example of my municipality in which 40% of employees lost their jobs in the period 1999-2009. They were employed in the real production sector. While 40% of manufacturing workers lost their jobs, only less than 5% found a job in the administration and thus we have increased public spending. This was done during a democratic and pro-European government.
In the period from 2003 to 2009 Serbia has increased the public sector for an amazing 60% more employees in the various administrations.
The conclusion is clear, the new democratic and pro European government performs vital reforms backward!
Complete Serbian economy can be divided into 2 parts: import lobby (for the whole of Serbia know this term) and wretched remains that actually produce something.
Pro-European and democratic government has helped to increase imports with a series of benefit for the importers, the most important of which is artificially strong dinar exchange rate against the euro. Unlike China, which has artificially weak yuan to the dollar exchange rate and euro and thus stimulate strong exports.
Pro-European policy, “Serbian” government has brought to a huge and uncontrolled borrowing. The NBS report states that the total external debt Serbia in 2008. year reached about $ 30 billion or about 21 billion euros. Then it says that the average interest on the debt is 4.96%.When we have this in mind, we come to the conclusion that, based only on interest to foreign creditors in 2008. year, Serbia paid about 1 billion euros! NBS also states that, in the same period, we paid 2.3 billion euros of debt principal to the foreign creditors. So, Serbia in 2008. year paid a total of approximately 3.3 billion euro to the foreign creditors? This amount is comparable with 40% of the Serbian budget adopted in December 2008! Specifically, the Serbian state, citizens and companies, allocated a sum that is comparable to the 40% Serbian budget, not for their benefit and welfare of their families and the Serbian economy, but to pay interest and debt to the western creditors (or the maintain a economical and social system that exists in the rich members of the European Union and the U.S.). To make this situation even more absurd, the Serbian foreign debt is not reduced in the 2008. On the contrary, the Serbian foreign debt has increased!
All this borrowing and other actions of so-called Serbian authorities are determined to support his statements in the high commissioners of the EU.
They are supported by the party in the elections, even blackmail and direct impact on Serbian voters …
All this time Russia supported the Serbian economy by selling gas to Serbia at the lowest price in Europe, with the exception of Belarus. In this way, the Serbian economy is subsidized with hundreds of millions of euros. Before the “democratic government” (until 2001) Serbia paid the Russian gas and oil in goods, so that the trade balance was much better for Serbia. “Our” pro-European “government has caused direct damage to all inhabitants of Serbia, or what they like to say in the the” west ” – “shot itself in the leg”…
EU member states also understand this creature will prove disastrous for them, as you can see in these two videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rj4crMCg-XY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJhsfPGL6To&feature=related

There is no doubt the bombing caused massive destruction to the economy. It is still recovering 10 years later. That said it is but one factor amongst many that has retarded growth, in particular Foreign Direct Investment. Those factors include the unsolved problem of corruption at all levels of government, the slow progress of legal reform, political instability and violence

The foreign trade deficit is indeed directly related to the flood of credit into the economy. Serbs have, like the Western masses before them, been fooled into participating in the great consumer credit swindle. Billions of Euro of loans have been given to people and they have promptly squandered that money on consumer goods. This is global phenomenon (or was, before the crisis) and not the EU’s fault. Blame the banks and the Serbian government for not regulating the consumer credit markets.

The loss of public sector jobs like municipality jobs is a natural consequence of post-Socialist reforms. Serbia, like other socialist countries of the region had (and still has) a massively bloated and unproductive public sector. Overpayment of the public sector is a leading driver of inflation too. Cutting these jobs is politically difficult and seems destructive, but this is a vital reform.

You seem to be saying that Serbia is like some African country that is being strong-armed into free trade agreements that go against its interests and being forced to compete at a disadvantage against European rivals in a deregulated market.

This ignores the fact that most of Serbia’s economic problems are indigenous (corruption, no effective legal recourse, the consequences of war and sanctions, brain drain, political instability, previous budget deficits etc etc). It also ignores that fact that protectionism is a two way sword that can damage as much as it appears to help. Finally it ignores the fact that reforms expected of all EU applicants are agreed best practices for economic management and governance.

Objections to the EU by Eurosceptics is based on the social and political consequences of membership (the loss of sovereignty) not economic arguments. The economic benefits are so obvious that these are the reasons for staying in the union that even militant Eurosceptics cannot argue with.

Only in the period from 1995 to 2001, the EU and it’s Member States (according the record which leads the WTO (World Trade Organization)) introduced 14,000 new technical regulations and standards. We can only assume how much trade barriers are created by those technical regulations and standards.
Therefore, the new protectionism is built using non-tariff barriers. But possibility for this have only the large and rich. Or, the EU, above all. Poor countries such as Serbia, remain the custom taxes, as the “last line of defense” of domestic production. However, using the phrase “free trade” and the political imposition of a damaging contracts such as the Interim Trade Agreement, and such protection shall be abolished. Which means growing foreign trade deficit in Serbia, as well as unemployment. For these reasons, industrial production may never reach the 1998 level. All this, despite the fact that since 2000 the Serbian regime was in an alleged free trade with the EU. Therefore, there can be no speech about some kind of fair trade between the EU and Serbia, but only on the exploitation of Serbia by Brussels…

In the period 1999-2009 about 40% of employees in my municipality lost their jobs, which is entirely expected because Serbian imports huge quantities of finished products from the EU, and exports far less goods and raw materials and semi products. Lack of foreign exchange is compensated by credits. So Serbia takes the interest money to buy consumer goods from the EU. Our economy becomes more similar to the economy of the African colonies, we have become the raw material base of the developed European countries. But still we have not reached the level of Hungary, which has 200 billion euros of debt and 7 billion interest per year. The EU has not solved the problem in Hungary, but only prolong the agony of new loans. Hungary still does not produce anything, it’s economy is based on the virtual services.
As Bulgaria and Romania, although they have a higher GDP per capita, the average income is still smaller then here. So it is difficult to convince the average citizen of Bulgaria or Romania that they live better than the average population of Serbia. There are Romanians who have moved and work permanently in Belgrade, but also in some smaller places.
The conclusion is that most of the EU countries supported the sanctions, participated in the bombing of the Serbs in Bosnia and Croatia in 1995 and Serbia and Montenegro in 1999. Damage caused In 1999 is over 36 billion euros directly (according to the estimates pro-European parties), and a huge indirect damages as well as human victims. After that EU companies bought, below price, factories that produce goods that are not worth transported: sugar, cement, packaging, milk … And the same goods sold exclusively on the Serbian market, with huge profits, as they allow the state monopoly and allow them to destroy the weaker Serbian companies.
Most EU investments, however relates to the purchase of ownership shares in Serbian banks, so that Serbia during this decade was flooded with a huge consumer credit interest (the biggest in Europe), while it was impossible to get a favorable development loan that would enable development of an enterprise.
If you want we can accurately analyze all German, Austrian and Greek investments to prove that they are not useful for the development of Serbian economy.
By the way, Norway is not a member of the EU …