There is a sentence from the African anti-colonial experience that today sounds ominously familiar: “If we do not take our independence seriously, the old colonizers will return in the form of foreign investors.” Simon Mvansa Kapwepwe could not have known anything about 21st-century Serbia, yet he precisely described its economic position. It is with this very thought that the book “Mechanism for the Control of Foreign Direct Investments” by Dr. Aleksandar Matković begins — a study that reads as a political-economic warning, but also as a very concrete institutional proposal.
This is not an academic debate intended for a narrow circle of experts. The author consciously addresses citizens, students, activists, and local communities — all those who, in recent years, have come to understand that “development” often arrives packaged with pollution, non-transparent contracts, and the feeling that decisions are made far from the places where their consequences are felt.
Green Transition or a New Division of the World
The central question of the book is simple, yet politically uncomfortable: is the so-called green transition a path toward sustainability, or a new form of colonial exploitation? Matković demonstrates that peripheral countries, such as Serbia, do not enter the global race for critical raw materials as equal partners, but as resource bases. Mining, heavy industry, and infrastructure projects are not merely local environmental issues — they become matters of national security.
Particularly important is the author’s insistence on the fact that critical raw materials today also have military applications. In a world that, according to European officials, is increasingly shifting into a “war economy” mode, resource-rich territories cease to be neutral. In this context, Serbia emerges as a space of exploitation, but also as potential collateral damage in other actors’ geopolitical conflicts.
A State That Attracts but Does Not Screen
One of the most striking parts of the book is its comparison of institutional frameworks. While the SFRY had mechanisms for controlling foreign investments, present-day Serbia has an entire infrastructure dedicated to attracting them — but almost none for screening them. Development agencies, councils, chambers, and ministries operate as service providers to investors, while the assessment of social, environmental, and security costs is largely left to the political will of the ruling authorities.
The author precisely identifies the paradox: Serbia has legally equalized domestic and foreign investors, yet in practice has neglected its own investment policy. The result is inequality, dependency, and deeply entrenched deregulation.
How Others Do It
Matković’s argument gains additional weight through comparative analysis. The United States, Germany, China, Romania, Portugal — all of these countries have developed mechanisms for screening foreign direct investments. And the more technologically advanced the country, the stricter the control. Serbia, ironically, moves in the opposite direction: it opens its most sensitive sectors precisely where oversight should be strongest.
The Romanian example is particularly noteworthy, where FDI screening was introduced as an anti-corruption measure, with a clear recognition of the link between environmental degradation, political instability, and the rise of conflicts.
Environmental Security as a Political Issue
One of the book’s most important theoretical contributions is its insistence on the concept of environmental security. This is not reduced to protecting nature as an abstract value, but rather to protecting people and their living conditions. Environmental degradation is not merely an ecological incident, but a potential trigger of social conflict — a lesson the international community learned only after numerous “resource wars.”
The Serbian Model: From Municipality to State
The most concrete part of the book is the proposal of a Mechanism for the Control of Foreign Direct Investments tailored to Serbia. Unlike most existing models, its primary addressees are not the state and abstract national security, but people and local communities. Municipalities become the key point, while an independent commission — composed of economists, lawyers, environmental experts, and security specialists — serves as a bridge between citizens and institutions.
Especially significant is the idea of democratic oversight: the procedure may be initiated by local governments or by citizens through a petition. The commission’s work is public, and the National Assembly becomes the place where foreign investments are finally discussed politically, not merely technically.
Responding to “Counterarguments”
The author does not remain at the level of theory. He systematically addresses the most common objections: that screening will “drive away investors,” provoke lawsuits, or duplicate institutions. The answers are simple and empirically grounded: investors who respect the law have no reason to fear; liberal policies and oversight can coexist; and the real problem is not regulation — but its absence and selective application.
The Book as a Political Tool
“Mechanism for the Control of Foreign Direct Investments” is not a neutral book — and that is its greatest value. It does not offer the illusion of rapid prosperity through foreign investment, but calls for a change in economic paradigm. Control is not the end, but the beginning — the first step toward a domestic investment policy based on long-term development rather than short-term inflows of foreign currency.
In a country where development is measured by the number of newly opened plants rather than by quality of life, this book reads as a rare rational and politically courageous call to finally ask: who invests, why, and at whose expense?