Jared Kushner gives up on the Belgrade project: Another victory of Serbian nationalism

Jared Kushner decided to pull out of the real estate project in downtown Belgrade, the capital city of Serbia.

Public prosecution for organized crime announced that it had submitted an indictment against the Minister of Culture Nikola Selaković, State Secretary in the Ministry of Culture Slavica Jelača, acting Director of the Republic Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments Goran Vasić, and, acting Director of the Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments of the City of Belgrade, Aleksandar Ivanović. Yeah, we have a lot of appointed officials in this country in an acting capacity.

Yay, we won’t be getting another tacky tower of nepotist cabals! So why aren’t we jumping with joy?

What the foreign media and the commentariat keep referring to as the “historic landmark” at the site of the former General Staff complex, which has been in that state since the NATO intervention against Yugoslavia in 1999, is in fact a bombed-out ruin supported by rusted scaffolds, with a military recruitment banner strung all over one of its sides.

The only reason it is a “cultural heritage” is that it serves as a convenient spot for anti-Western fanatics to gather on the anniversaries of the bombing.

Protesting against Jared Kushner’s investment was fashionable and safe. The same way that putting Rio Tinto’s Jadar lithium project wasn’t a win for environmentalism, this isn’t a win for justice and accountability.

Think about it: if a bunch of alt-righters can protest unopposed against whatever they dislike from getting a go-ahead, like they have been able to do for the last for or so decades, nothing stops them from exercising Luddism and NIMBY nonsense at every possible turn. On the other hand, this is no excuse for the Serbian ruling kakistocracy to bend the law.

What goes on in Serbia now are the same protests we always had – not “giving up” on Kosovo, hating the EU/NATO/US, defending our dear war criminals from international tribunals, and so on.

We even have this ideology in kids’ sizes!

And it’s not like the Affinity Partners never planned for such a contingency. Forbes Serbia writes that the first and basic contract between Kushner’s company and the Serbian government gives the possibility that, despite the decision to leave the project on his own, he can ask for reimbursement of expenses.

The agreement states that the amount of claims that a strategic partner could have for breach of basic warranties is not limited. When it comes to all other claims, they are limited to a maximum of 50 million euros.

So much winning.

The public opposition did try to frame this as an attempt by the Serbian authorities to curry favor from the Trump administration. But considering how Serbia signed a deal with Kushner’s Affinity Partners for a 99-year lease in May of 2024, before Trump was elected, it doesn’t exactly fit the narrative, although MAGA and the Serbian ruling Progressives do have a rather cordial relationship.

Serbian “resistance” against NATO is considered sacrosanct and spotless in our local political mythology.

On the other hand, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic threatened lawsuits against those who caused Jared Kushner’s Affinity Partners to pull out of the project to build a hotel in place of a heritage landmark site in central Belgrade. According to him, Affinity Partners’ decision to pull out of the project has inflicted 1.5 billion euros in damages on Serbia.

We probably won’t be hearing the last of this.