A first journey into the heart of Balkan transition awaits many of the bankers, businessmen and government officials preparing to descend on Belgrade for the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development’s May 22-23 annual meeting and business forum.
They are due to arrive just as Serbia’s brief spring gives way to an early summer heat that will roast the capital’s concrete core. Belgrade is the eternal hothouse of Balkan business and politics; it is where central and eastern Europe’s economic transition looks south. Belgrade lies at the very southern edge of the Banat plain, which links northern Serbia to neighbouring Hungary, culturally and economically. It also marks the northern frontier of the Byzantine world in this corner of Europe, with Greece just a day’s drive away.
