All members Association of Professional Publishers of Serbia, part of the Association of Publishers and Booksellers of Serbia, as well as part of independent publishers, decided to Boycott the Competition for the purchase of books for public libraries, which was recently announced by the Ministry of Culture.
It was another invitation from the publisher to the Ministry to look at and consider their arguments in order to find a common solution, and to answer them on everything.
The Minister in the Technical Government, Nikola Selaković, answered them, but not directly, but through "Evening News".
The state is to blame for the Cyrillic alphabet.
The minister did not comment on the first reason why the publishers decided to boycott, ignoring their proposals.
He paid the most attention to the Cyrillic alphabet, that is, to the negative reaction to the Ministry's decision to purchase only books published in the Cyrillic alphabet for public libraries in the future. Publishers characterized that decision as restrictive.
Selaković found justification for this decision in the Law on the Protection of the Serbian Language in Public Space and the Use of the Cyrillic Alphabet, which Serbia and the Republika Srpska adopted in 2021.
The minister also identified the culprit why "fewer and fewer books are published in Cyrillic":
"One of the causes of the publishers' reaction is certainly that my predecessors did not deal with this activity in such a way and that the ministry did not pay attention to this area," he said.
As well as that "it is absolutely clear to everyone that the passive attitude of the state means that the Cyrillic alphabet as the mother script of the Serbian people and the Serbian language is completely doomed. And we had a passive attitude of the state in the previous, we can safely say, three decades."
That's why "the Ministry of Culture is absolutely the most called upon ministry to take care of the protection of our language and our native script", stressed Minister Selaković.
Selaković blames the students for the reduction of the budget for redemption, which is one of the reasons for the boycott - their fourth demand.
The money was taken away because of the students
"I regret that this year, due to unforeseen circumstances that entailed reducing the budget, and in order to meet the fourth request of the students, we were not able to increase the amount of funds for the mandatory purchase of books," he said.
This year's competition for the purchase of books for public libraries was not announced for editions published in one year, in the past, as it has always been and as is the practice of all other competitions announced by the Ministry, but refers to two years: 2024 and 2025.
Calculation
Minister Selaković claims that it is not true that this change of competition conditions is against the interests of publishers, and states that the competition is open until September, so the competition commissions will meet several times during the year, that is, that it is actually an improvement compared to previous competitions.
September as the end of the competition is unfavorable for publishers because then, and until the Book Fair that starts in October, they publish a large number of titles, which means that they will not be able to compete with the entire production.
Competing with the production for two in one year means the following: if up to now the state annually set aside about 110 million dinars for the purchase of books published in one year, it means that in the future that sum will be divided into two years. Also, this year, that 110 million was reduced to almost half by the recent decision of the Government of Serbia to designate part of the money from the already approved budget for the state reserve.
