Piercing the Chinese Wall in Zrenjanin – Civic Activism VS. Linglong

The violation of many regulations, abuse of public powers, disregard for civil rights and extreme lenience of the national, provincial and local authorities to one investor make up the so-far experience with the Chinese Linglong company building an enormous tyre factory near Zrenjanin. The Prosecutor’s Office and the Administrative Court have ignored the criminal charges and applications related to the construction of that factory. The public in Serbia is deprived of the knowledge on how the operations of the tyre manufacturer will impact the environment, food produced in it, the nearby special reservation of “Carska bara” and the health of the people living there. Dissemination of information on these problems is made difficult because the pro-regime media ignore them or sweep them under the carpet. The monitoring of the Linglong company’s investment and its consequences on Zrenjanin and Serbia during the past three years is systematically conducted only by civic activists, with assistance of several associations and independent media.

This case study was developed as part of a joint effort by the Centre for Research, Transparency and Accountability (CRTA), the National Coalition for Decentralisation (NKD), the Belgrade Centre for Security Policy (BCSP) and Partners for Democratic Change, to encourage greater citizen participation in the decision-making process through the project “Citizens Have Power”, supported by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The views expressed in this case study are solely those of the authors and do not reflect the views of USAID.