LOCAL PRESS

Nikolic: Serbia does not forget good deeds (Radio Serbia)

Expressing his gratitude to the participants of the Donor Conference in Brussels for solidarity and support, President of Serbia Tomislav Nikolic stresses out that Serbia does not forget good deeds and that he is proud to see how many friends our country has. He emphasized that the conference gives hope to everyone in Serbia that there is future in which they can revive their lives and provide prospects for their children. Friends of Serbia from all over the world gathered in Brussels and Serbian people will never forget it, said President Nikolic. According to him, Serbia does not forget good deeds, so it erected the monument of gratitude to France for its help in the World War I, and will also mark, in a dignified way, with a monument in one of the flooded towns, this unrecorded aligning of the whole world with our people. “It will be a warning for us to respect the nature, but also a monument which will immortalize human solidarity – the virtue that we are proud of,” stressed Nikolic. He informed the participants of the conference that the Government of Serbia, in cooperation with the EU and the UN, drafted a report on the damage estimation caused by floods and that it amounts to 1.5 billion Euros. In particular, housing sector, health and education sector, and agriculture were affected, as well as energy and mining sector, industry, commerce, water supply, environment, traffic and communications. Serbia will be removing direct consequences from floods for years to come, and it is already evident that this natural disaster will affect Serbian economy in terms of recession. It means that in 2014, instead of economic growth of 0.5%, Serbian economy will record decline of 0.4%. Donations will not be able to cover overall damages, so Serbia itself will have to provide three quarters of it.

Nikolic thanked French President Francoise Hollande for accepting to sponsor the Donor Conference, as well as the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon for understanding and providing support for the idea of organizing this gathering. He also thanked Slovenia and The European Commission as co-organizers. He added that he does appreciate dedication and arrangements of the EU officials, as well as the support of the Commissioner for Regional Development Johannes Hanh, and especially the Commissioner for International Cooperation and Crisis Response Kristalina Georgieva, who immediately paid a visit to the flooded areas in Serbia and handed the equipment for emergency situations. Nikolic expressed his gratitude also to the UN and UNDP for taking part in estimation of damages, and to representatives of 14 countries which sent bilateral aid. He reminded that humanitarian aid in food and water supplies were sent by the European Commission, OSCE, UN-WFP, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Great Britain, Israel, Japan, Romania, Russia, the U.S., the United Arab Emirates and numerous private donors.

Emphasizing that the nature is unpredictable, Nikolic underlined that lessons should be learned from the recent catastrophe and that it is necessary that all countries coordinate their activities in mitigating consequences of natural disasters, Serbia will contribute as well through its active participation in implementing goals for sustainable development, and through its support in achieving solutions and consensus about climate changes.

Ponta: Romania will not block Serbia’s EU path (RTS)

Romanian Prime Minister Victor Ponta said in Belgrade that Romania would never block Serbia’s path to the EU and would be a most dedicated advocate of its accession into the EU.
Romania is and will remain a most dedicated advocate of Serbia’s EU integration he said at a joint news conference after a meeting with his Serbian counterpart Aleksandar Vucic. “It is in the interest of Romania to see Serbia become a member of the EU, but it is also in Europe’s interest to be united. Serbia can learn a lot from Romania’s EU integration, especially from the mistakes it made. Romania wants Serbia to learn from Romania’s mistakes. The most important issue in Serbia’s relations with the EU is not the dialogue with Pristina, but the achievement of all the EU standards. The Serbian people face tough and painful reforms, but they will be of significance and will yield a result, which is EU accession,” Ponta said, emphasizing that Romania would hold its hand out for Serbia in perfect honesty and without any requirements.

Joksimovic: 40-50 million Euro from the Solidarity Fund (Tanjug)

Serbia may expect between 40 and 50 million Euros of irreversible assistance from the Solidarity Fund for the removal of damages caused by recent catastrophic floods and these funds might be available by November or December, stated Serbian Minister without Portfolio in charge of European integration Jadranka Joksimovic. In proportion to the overall damages amounting to 1.5 billion Euros, we may count on 40 to 50 million Euros, which is a significant amount, specified Joksimovic after the meeting with the European Commissioner for Regional Development Johannes Hahn. She added that those funds are apart from the money Serbia will receive from the Donors’ Conference.

Serb MPs to take Kosovo oath (that mentions Republic of Kosovo and protection of territorial integrity) (Novosti)

Serb MPs will make official their mandates in the Kosovo Assembly today, while the procedure requires that they take an oath that mentions “MPs of the Assembly of the Republic of Kosovo” and “protection of territorial integrity of Kosovo”. Even though it is almost certain that the Serb representatives will not be able to avoid putting their signatures below this text, they told Novosti yesterday that they will discuss this issue once again before the session. Jasmina Zivkovic from Strpce, who was an MP in the previous assembly and is also in the present, tells Novosti that most of the deputies didn’t state anything when taking the oath last time, that no special attention was attached to this, but that the text had to be signed. “Regardless of how the oath reads, we view it only as a technical matter that doesn’t prejudge the status. We were told in consultations with Belgrade that there will be no special modus for Serb MPs and that there is no way for us to be part of the institutions without this technical step, and our wish is to defend our position and rights institutionally,” Zivkovic says.

The text of the statement that will be signed

Since 2010 the rules of procedure of the Assembly in Pristina envisages the following oath:

“I, the deputy of the Assembly of the Republic of Kosovo, swear that I will honorably and with dedication perform my task and represent the people with dignity, that I will work in the interest of Kosovo and all of its citizens, that I will engage in the protection and respect of constitutionality and legality, in the protection of Kosovo’s territorial and institutional integrity, in guaranteeing human freedoms and rights, in accordance with the laws of the country and European standards.”

Hizmet acts in Novi Pazar? (Novosti)

Several media close to mufti Muhamer Zukorlic published the information that activists of the famous Turkish Islamist and politician Fethullah Gulen, the leader of the Hizmet (Gulen) movement, whom Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan accused of cooperation with the CIA and preparing a coup in Turkey, are acting in Novi Pazar and Sandzak. It is stated that the main stronghold of Gulen are the organizations “Most” and “Horizont” in Novi Pazar that have organized over the past days a humanitarian Iftar (dinner after the daily fast) at the central city square, distributing packages and aid. Sandzak-pres claims that the organizations “Most” receives money from the Turkish humanitarian organization “Kinisi Jomi” and recruiting youth in the Raska region for studying at the “Burj” University in Sarajevo and other world universities close to Gulen.

REGIONAL PRESS

Fule: 195 million Euros to Serbia and B&H from EU (Beta/Oslobodjenje)

The EU will earmark the total of 195 million Euros for the removal of consequences of floods in Serbia and Bosnia Herzegovina, stated EU Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fule. At the Donors’ Conference in Brussels, he said that it is the money from the EU institutions exclusively and that individual donations from member-states are not included in the sum. Out of total of 195 million Euros, 85 million is earmarked for B&H and 30 million for regional measures for damage compensation, said Fule and added the European Commission requested from its members additional 123 million Euros for further rehabilitation and flood prevention.

Cvijanovic: Donors’ conference successful (Srna)

The Republika Srpska (RS) Prime Minister Zeljka Cvijanovic told Srna the donors’ conference in Brussels was a success because the EU and individual donor countries had promised extensive funds. “They have demonstrated a great desire to help our areas. They have all shown solidarity, both the EU and other countries in helping the repair of the extensive damage in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia,” Cvijanovic stated in Brussels. Cvijanovic said that EU Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fule had stressed that short-term assistance was a priority. The RS Government had told the World Bank, EU and UNDP during the damage assessment that priorities included the construction of schools by the beginning of the school year, enabling the people to return home and reconstructing all institutions so that needs of the citizens could be met, she said. “The donors are aware of the fact that little time is left before we send our kids to school and that those buildings are now used as emergency accommodation by the people who have not returned home,” said the Prime Minister. Talking about the transparency in spending the donations, Cvijanovic stressed the establishment of the Solidarity Fund for the reconstruction of the RS, which is linked to the Single Damage Register from which every household receiving assistance would be able to see where from the aid was provided. “Hence, something similar will need to be established at the level of international donors and we expect that their control will be adequate. I can guarantee for the RS that the spending of funds will be the way it should be – transparent and matching the purpose,” Cvijanovic said. 

INTERNATIONAL PRESS

Demolition Threat Alarms North Kosovo Serbs (BIRN, 17 July 2014)
Kosovo minister’s threat to send in bulldozers in to demolish newly erected monuments by both Albanians and Serbs in the divided town of Mitrovica has upset local Serbs
Ksenija Bozovic, President of the local assembly in North Mitrovica, has accused Kosovo’s Environment Minister, Dardan Gashi, of further raising tensions in the already tense north after Gashi on Tuesday threatened to demolish all newly erected monuments by both Kosovo Serbs and Albanians in Mitrovica.
“We may use the power of the state and the bulldozers in order to clean up those areas,” Gashi said.
In the past couple of weeks, local Serbs and Albanians have marked out their respective territories in the north of Kosovo by erecting rival monuments named after their respective heroes.
Serbs have erected a “Tsar Lazar” square on the main bridge of the divided town of Mitrovica, named after a 14th-century ruler of Serbia who led the country into battle against invading Ottoman Turks in 1389.
Albanians have responded by erecting a concrete monument dedicated to the Kosovo Liberation Army, KLA, in the northern village of Suhodoll/Suvi Do.
They have also put up another monument, named after an Albanian hero of the Kosovo war, Adem Jashari, in the so-called Bosniak Mahala, one of the few multi-ethnic neighborhood in north Mitrovica.
Bozovic said Gashi’s statement was inapropriate and did not help resolve the situation.
“Instead of going in the direction of easing tensions and putting pressure on the relevant factors to sit at the table and try resolve the issue through dialogue in Brussels, his statement has only raised tensions and led to further intimidation of the already frightened Serbs in northern Kosovo,” Bozovic said on Wednesday.
Goran Rakic, mayor of North Mitrovica, called on the minister to peacefully solve the problem and not test the good will of people in the northern part of the town.
“You cannot advocate solutions by agreement and at the same time threaten with bulldozers – those are opposing things,” Rakic said on Wednesday.  
The main bridge over the Ibar river in Mitrovica separates what are now two municipalities: South Mitrovica, largely inhabited by Albanians, and North Mitrovica, where mostly Serbs live. For several years, a large barricade manned by local Serbs has prevented the free flow of traffic.
Last month, the barricade made of stone and sand was transformed into a “Peace Park”, but this week Serbs decided to construct a larger square on the site, named after Tsar Lazar.
Tensions in the northern divided town of Kosovo revived on June 22 when a protest organized by Albanians from the south sparked violence. Several people were injured and many vehicles burnt.
The protest and subsequent events underscored underlying tensions between Kosovo Albanians and Serbs that persist despite the success of EU-facilitated talks, which have made strides in normalizing relations between Kosovo and Serbia.
An April 2013 agreement between Kosovo and Serbia – which does not recognise Kosovo’s independence – brought Serbs in northern Kosovo back under the overall authority of Kosovo institutions, with the offer of limited autonomy through an association of northern Serb municipalities.
Since then, Serbs in the region have participated in local and national elections held last November and in June.
Kosovo parliament convenes, opposition seeks coalition deal (Reuters, 17 July 2014)
PRISTINA – Kosovo took a step towards forming a new government on Thursday when parliament convened for the first time since indecisive June polls, with the opposition seeking a majority to take power from outgoing Prime Minister Hashim Thaci.
Thaci’s Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK) emerged as biggest party from June 6 polls with 30 percent of votes, but three opposition parties have united in a bid to outmaneuver him.
Days of talks with a fourth party, however, have so far failed to produce a majority in the 120-seat chamber, raising the prospect of a fresh election.
Opposition parties refuse to govern with Thaci, accusing his administration of corruption, nepotism and failure to press economic reforms – accusations he denies. All parties seek a closer approach to the European Union.
The opposition says their candidate for prime minister is Ramush Haradinaj, a former guerrilla commander twice indicted and twice cleared of war crimes by the United Nations war crimes tribunal in The Hague.
Today’s session is largely procedural. It remains unclear if they will vote for the speaker of the parliament or delay for another session.
The president will in the next few days nominate a candidate for prime minister who will then have 15 days to name a cabinet and win its approval by parliament.
Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008, almost a decade after NATO air strikes drove out Serbian forces accused of expelling and killing ethnic Albanian civilians in a two-year counter-insurgency war.
EBRD Leads Bid to Drive Recovery in Flood-Hit Balkans (Bloomberg, by Gordana Filipovic and Misha Savic, 16 July 2014)
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development offered as much as 458 million euros ($619 million) in aid to Bosnia-Herzegovina and Serbia after the worst flooding in a century tipped both back on the path to recession.
The London-based lender will make as much as 300 million euros available to Serbia and 58 million euros to Bosnia to repair infrastructure, it said in an e-mail as donors gathered in Brussels to raise additional funds. Both countries can tap funds from regional Infrastructure Development Fund of 100 million euros, it said.
Donors and creditors in Brussels pledged a total of about 1.8 billion euros for the two countries to “bring life back to normal,” Slovenia’s government, which co-organized the event together with the European Commission and France, said on its website.
Floods in May inflicted damage and losses in Bosnia of an estimated 2 billion euros and 1.5 billion euros in neighboring Serbia, according to a European Commission report prepared for today’s event in Brussels. Both economies face a third recession in five years because of the floods.
“We owe it to the victims of this disaster,” Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fule said, opening the conference. “We have to help Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina rebuild the damage caused by the floods.”
Extreme Events
Both countries will need to step up flood protection and management as the western Balkans “will be more prone to extreme weather events, to heat waves, droughts, flash floods, cyclones and wild fires,” Fule said.
Bosnia and Serbia “now have an opportunity to build back better,” UNDP Administrator Helen Clark said. “Both need international support to do that. While both will dig deep into their own resources, both also have pre-existing fiscal and other challenges, and the impacts on the economy and society from this crisis are exacerbating those challenges.”
Bosnia’s economy will contract 0.7 percent this year because of floods, the commission said, while the budget gap will more than double to 4.5 percent of gross domestic product. The commission sees Bosnia’s external financing needs at 4.6 percent of its 13.6 billion-euro annual output.
The commission cut its forecast for Serbia to a contraction of 0.4 percent, from an estimate of 0.5 percent growth. The contraction may be deeper “if reconstruction efforts are not accelerated and completed fully during this construction season,” the commission said.
The disaster will increase Serbia’s general government deficit by an additional 1 percent of GDP on top of an originally planned 7.1 percent of GDP, while gross financing needs are expected to rise by 330 million euros to 5.95 billion euros, the commission said.
Macedonia PM Makes New Push For Census (BIRN, by Sinisa Jakov Marusic, 17 July 14)
Macedonia’s ruling party says the Prime Minister wants to end the logjam over a population headcount, which has been delayed for years by ethnic disputes
Macedonia’s main ruling party, VMRO DPMNE, says Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski has launched a new initiative to end the years-long stalemate over a national headcount.
A source in the party quoted in the newspapers on Wednesday said the Prime Minister six weeks ago sent a proposal to end the dispute over the census to his coalition partners in the ethnic Albanian Democratic Union for Integration, DUI.
“Gruevski sent [DUI leader Ali] Ahmeti two proposals in writing on how the census should be carried out, but there has been no reply. We are waiting for the DUI to respond,” the Dnevnik newspaper reported, cited a high-ranking source from VMRO DPMNE.
The DUI has since confirmed that it received the proposals – but said it had not looked at them as yet.
“We have not looked at them properly, so we cannot comment. However, a headcount is not among our priorities right now,” the DUI spokesperson, Bujar Osmani, told Balkan Insight on Wednesday.
According to the unnamed source, Gruevski’s proposals suggested a change in the methodology of the operation.
Instead of going from door to door and using paper forms, he has proposed using software that would cross-reference people’s personal data contained in various state registers.
This would yield sufficient data on living and deceased persons, their age, gender and education, similar to a proper field survey.
In addition, Gruevski proposed installing devices on border crossings that would record entries and exits of citizens for the purposes of the census.
The last attempt to hold a census in Macedonia in October 2011 ended in fiasco, and it was scrapped shortly after it began due to ethnic disputes.
Ethnic Albanian parties claimed that the Macedonian majority on the census commission had arranged the criteria in order to underestimate the number of Albanians in the country.
Macedonian parties on the other hand argued that the census was being falsified in Albanian-dominated areas in order to exaggerate the true number of Albanians.
The government annulled the census after the commission tendered its collective resignation. It has not budgeted for a new headcount since.
One of the main disputes in 2011 was over whether the headcount should include people who have been absent from the country for over one year.
Ethnic Albanians, who have left the country to work abroad in disproportionate numbers, wanted them included. However, the rules of the EU statistics arm, Eurostat, advised against it.
As a result of the delays, Macedonians have no clear picture of demographic trends in their country.
The last completed census in 2002 showed that 64 per cent of the population was Macedonian and 25 per cent ethnic Albanian. Roma, Turks, Serbs and other minorities made up the rest.
The issue of the census was raised recently by the opposition Social Democrats, SDSM. After losing the April general and presidential elections to VMRO DPMNE, the SDSM refused to recognize the results, and, among other things, demanded that a proper headcount be carried out as soon as possible.
The party said this was necessary in order to reduce the possibility of the ruling parties adding fictive voters to the electoral roll.
In January, a coalition of NGOs and population experts launched a campaign called “Census Now”, saying that Macedonia’s regional, education, economic, infrastructure and transport plans must not be held hostage to the political elites and their quarrels.