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A latecomer to the post-Cold War Central European credit explosion, the Western Balkans now need help dealing with the global credit crunch.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) announced Nov. 6 that talks with Belgrade about how best to design a tight Serbian budget conforming to IMF demands will be extended until Nov. 11.

The Western Balkans region — of which Serbia is a part along with fellow former Yugoslav republics Croatia, Bosnia, Macedonia and Montenegro — was a latecomer to the post-Cold War Central European credit explosion. Now that the explosion has become a contraction, the region needs a helping hand.

Most countries in the region, including Croatia, began negotiating EU entry in the mid-90s and had joined by 2007. Serbia, Macedonia, Montenegro and Bosnia, however, are particularly at risk from the global liquidity crisis as they lack the protection of EU membership — or even an application for membership.

Belgrade hopes to attain a standby agreement from the IMF in case it needs to draw funds from the international body, although Serbia has said it does not need a loan at present. The global liquidity crisis and associated problems in neighboring Hungary and Romania have caused the Serbian dinar to fall to a 29-month low. To prevent capital flight, the Serbian central bank raised interest rates 2 percent to 17.75 percent Oct. 31.

For once free of internal political discord, Serbia thus far been the most proactive country in the region at working to stave off financial disaster. Early on in the crisis, it solicited advice from the IMF. Should things get really bad, Serbia therefore already will have done most of the legwork, and the IMF can simply write it a check. Its neighbors — including Croatia, which is well on its way to EU membership — may have much graver financial worries due to a lack of preparation, a particularly large credit explosion and weak economic fundamentals.

Credit did not begin freely flowing from Western Europe to the Balkans until after the 2000 revolution in Serbia that ousted strongman and regional troublemaker-in-chief Slobodan Milosevic. With the (somewhat troubled) democratization of Serbia, the largest economy of the former Yugoslav republics, foreign money began entering the region in earnest. But for Serbia, the real flow did not begin until the electoral ouster of nationalist Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica in early 2008. So while by many economic measures Serbia is the worst off of the Balkan states, it has experienced the smallest credit surge, and so has less distance to fall in the current crisis.