Serbian nationalists want to build an extravagant Triumphal Arch in a Belgrade park · Global Voices
The Triumphal Arc in Skopje, North Macedonia, in December 2019. Photo by Global Voices, CC-BY.
The nationalist political party Serbian Renewal Movement (SPO), a member of the ruling coalition in Serbia, is pushing for the construction of a massive Triumphal Arch in the center of Belgrade to commemorate military victories achieved in the Balkan Wars and the First World War. The arch would be flanked by statues of King <PERSON> and King <PERSON> of Serbia.
Serbia's ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS), lead by President <PERSON>, has launched other controversial (and costly) urban projects since it came to power in 2012. Those including the Belgrade Waterfront, a musical fountain, a giant flag pole, and a cable-car in the Belgrade Fortress — the latter has been recently put on pause by a court ruling.
The SNS enjoys the support of the SPO, a small right-wing party that used to be influential in the 1990s — it even had its own paramilitary wing, the Serbian Guard — but that has since shrunk in size and importance. Writing for Serbian newspaper Danas, political analyst <PERSON> said that the Triumphal Arch proposal was “a way for them to show they still exist.”
The SPO proposal, put forward in the Belgrade City Assembly on December 6 without a cost estimate or a funding plan, drew comparisons with similar architectural shenanigans by authoritarian regimes in the Balkans.
In neighboring North Macedonia, the “Skopje 2014” project erected over 130 neoclassical structures — among them monuments, statues, government buildings, and museums — in the capital to the cost of at least 763 million USD between 2010 and 2014. 739
The single most expensive structure was a Triumphal Arc called Porta Macedonia, which came to over 7 million dollars. The entire initiative was marred by corruption benefiting cronies of <PERSON> VMRO-DPNME party, who ruled North Macedonia from 2006 to 2017.
Both SNS and VMRO-DPNME are members of the conservative European People's Party and have cultivated a strong bilateral cooperation at that time when VMRO was in power in North Macedonia. The two populist regimes have often been implicated in backsliding of democracy and degradation of human rights standards in their respective countries.
A 2011 cartoon picturing <PERSON>, former Macedonian PM who built a Triumphal Arc in Skopje. Cartoon by <PERSON> AKA Dar-Mar, via Citizens for European Macedonia. Used with permission.
In a statement, the SPO argues that Serbia needs such “monumental memorial” in order to “remind us of the glorious moments of our history, inspiring present and future generations to love and defend their homeland.” Party Vice President <PERSON> said:
Предлажемо да Тријумфална капија буде подигнута у некадашњем Краљевом, данас Пионирском парку између здања Скупштине Србије и Новог двора, односно садашњег Председништва. 260