NewsLab

Mojca Finc is a blond and beautiful young woman. She was the winner of the European Young Journalism Award from her country: Slovenia. But  Mojca wasn’t born in Slovenia. Twenty three years ago she was born in Croatia and she lived there till she was 8. But then the war came. Former Yugoslavia was falling apart piece by piece, and Mojca’s parents grabbed her and flew back to Ljubljana (Slovenia), where it all had started, long before Mojca and her brother came along. Whenever she can, Mojca goes to her old town, Pula, to visit her former school friends. She never actually saw “the war” – her parents took her before that could happen – but whenever she goes back, her friends that remained there tell her about those times. “I never understood how come two people that live side by side, that had been close friends during a lifetime, can suddenly, from one day to another, become enemies. Just like that!”. She snaps her fingers.

Me, Mojca Finc and about 30 other young journalists from all around Europe met last week in the Balkans for the award. Started in Belgrade, moved to Croacia and finally to Ljubljana. Meeting Mojca – and a bunch of other people from the former Federal Republic of Yugoslavia - made me realize a few things. One of them is that still today many people would like Yugoslavia to be reborn from its ashes. Because it was a good thing, they say, before it snapped, more than 15 years ago. On the other hand, although the former “federal dream” collapsed the hard way, people are very willing to join European Union today. No fears. Almost everyone is willing to join the euro club. More federal or less federal, that is still to determine… Although it’s very easy to understand why people are so willing to join the 27 (money, democracy, human rights, Schengen space access…), bearing in mind their recent history, shouldn’t people be (even just a little bit) more sceptic?