LOCAL PRESS

Eight EU conditions for Serbia (Blic)

The EU will open the first chapters in the negotiations with Serbia depending on the full implementation of the Brussels agreements. According to Blic, the EU has a total of eight requests from Belgrade when it comes to Kosovo. They expect the completion of the draft Statute of the Union of Serb Municipalities. They also request that Belgrade implements everything that had been agreed with Pristina in the field of telecommunications, energy, and construction of permanent administrative crossings. The requests also include the blocking of illegal crossings, acceptance of Kosovo documents at the crossings with foreign countries, full inclusion of Kosovo in regional cooperation. This also includes the regulation of the Peace Park in northern Mitrovica, which is opposed by Pristina. The EU conveyed to the authorities in Belgrade that European partners are not satisfied with the degree of the implementation of the Brussels agreement. Even though these conditions have been once again reiterated to the Serbian authorities, they had been known earlier. Full implementation of the Brussels agreement is especially important to Germany. The authorities in Berlin and the government of Chancellor Angela Merkel and the Bundestag parliamentarians opine that Chapter 35, which refers to Kosovo, should be opened first in the EU-Serbia negotiations. However, in order to open this chapter, it is necessary to implement the already reached agreements from the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue in Brussels. EU Commissioner for Neighborhood Policy Johannes Hahn said that, even though Kosovo still has no government, there are things that Belgrade can do alone. “Your government knows very well what it needs and can do and I can only appeal for this to be done, and, depending on the level of implementation, we will continue the process,” Hahn said during his recent visit to Serbia. Western diplomats seem to be a bit worried with the fact that the dialogue has been standing for six months because Kosovo doesn’t have a new government.

Djuric and Moro discuss Brussels agreement (RTS/Tanjug)

The Head of the Office for Kosovo and Metohija Marko Djuric and French Ambassador to Serbia Christine Moro discussed on Monday the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue, EU integration and the implementation of the Brussels agreement. Djuric and Moro underlined the importance of fully implementing the agreements reached as part of the Brussels agreement, and addressed open issues, such as the energy sector, telecommunications, and Union of Serb Municipalities, the Office stated. The Head of the Office said that the formation of the Union of Serb Municipalities is a priority for the Serb community in Kosovo and Metohija and voiced the expectation that after the provincial government is formed, conditions will be created for speeding up the launched processes. Djuric said that Belgrade’s decision to encourage the Serbs’ participation in the provincial government is of equal importance as the signing and implementation of the Brussels agreement. He underlined that Belgrade wants a concrete political agreement with representatives of the political majority in the province. “I am sure that the integration of the Serb community into the provincial institutions, which will represent the Serbs and their rights, will contribute to stability and sustainable political and economic development and better living conditions, not only for the Serbs, but also for all other citizens in the province,” said Djuric, who is heading the negotiating group for Chapter 35 in talks with the EU.

Why doesn’t EULEX respond to the requests of the Serbian Prosecution (Politika, by Biljana Mitrinovic)

Not only do the courts chaired by EULEX pronounce sentences much lower than envisaged for war crimes for the crimes committed against the Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija, but the number of processes where former KLA members are being tried is also negligible. Deputy Prosecutor at the Serbian War Crimes Prosecution in Belgrade Dragoljub Stankovic has recently sent a request to EULEX to tell him how many cases they processed where the perpetrators of the crimes against the Serbs and non-Albanians are members of the former KLA but he still hasn’t received a response. “It seems to me that, over the past four years, EULEX’s war crimes unit has not much engaged in shedding light on the crimes against the Serbs where former KLA members would be suspects. The work of the war crimes unit comes down to mostly shedding light on those crimes that were perpetrated against the Albanians. That is a logical consequence of the fact that a man who is a Turk by nationality has been at the helm of the unit for investigating war crimes for four years, and who has brought all three investigators from Turkey to work on war crimes as policemen,” Stankovic tells Politika, adding that “obviously one could not have expected a Turk to work on KLA crimes”. Stankovic illustrates this sharp observation with the explanation that he had exceptional cooperation with this prosecutor when he was working on the case where the suspects were Serbs in the case “Pavljan, Ljubenic, Zahac” when there was a recent verdict for the war crime against the Albanian civil population during April and May 1999. Deputy Prosecutor notes that he had interrogated over hundred Albanian witnesses, that a EULEX unit provided him with technical conditions for work, facilities, they brought in witnesses and everything functioned flawlessly. “But, I am noticing that there are still working on Serbs as the suspects, and increasingly less on Albanians. Though, as far as I can remember, only five-six final judgments were pronounced during EULEX’s mandate in which the Albanians were the perpetrators,” says Stankovic, adding that he has been receiving from EULEX requests for identification of Serbs, that at issue are lists of entire police units, special units and army. “I responded to this that I will not send anything until they send me the same KLA lists and give me schemes of operative zones of responsibility of certain people,” says Stankovic, stressing that he hasn’t received responses to these requests. Regarding the affair on corruption and non-professionalism that has been shaking EULEX over the past weeks, Stankovic says he has noticed that “professional mistakes” have been occurring with some EULEX prosecutors when “they catch some big fish like Fatmir Ljimaj”. “The prosecutor in that case had until then impressed me as a professional prosecutor, however, he failed in this case in the sense of witness protection and changing the witness status on which he based his case,” says Stankovic. As regards the Special Court that should be formed, and which will deal with the crimes of the former KLA members, Stankovic opines that this will the first time for the international factor to deal more seriously with the crimes that were perpetrated against the Serbs and it will receive international significance for the first time. “I see a big deal for us in the creation of a special investigative team, because the world will hear how many Serbs were killed. Secondly, I have worked with most of these people while they were prosecutors in UNMIK, so that I can say that the selection of prosecutors for the special investigative team of this court has been well done,” says the Deputy Prosecutor.

Prosecutors of the Special Court for KLA are seriously doing their job

“The prosecutors of the Special Court in formation have so far interrogated over 500 witnesses, I assisted them, brought in witnesses, I see that they are experts and I believe this team will do something. Their jurisdiction is important, because they have the jurisdiction for not only war crimes, but also for crimes that were perpetrated after the war, at the end of 1999, 2000 and 2001, because the greatest killings of the Serbs occurred after the war, when the army and police left Kosovo. Then, all KLA units poured from the forests into populated areas and started killing the Serbs. Only then, after the war, they achieved their ethnic goal – that there are no more Serbs in Kosovo.” As opposed to those who do not trust that this court will process the “big fish”, Prosecutor Stankovic, on the contrary, expects the main names to be charged, because this court and these prosecutors have the strength that EULEX and Albanian prosecutors do not have in Kosovo. Asked what limits EULEX to professionally perform its job, Stankovic stresses the fact that judges and prosecutors live and work in Kosovo. “The atmosphere is such that it is very difficult to work on cases where the perpetrators are KLA members, because the complete KLA structure has resulted from criminal structures, they have become the pivot of the KLA and they returned to crime after the war,” says Stankovic.

Procedural mistake in the indictment against Ivanovic

Regarding the indictment for war crimes against Oliver Ivanovic, Deputy Prosecutor for War Crimes Dragoljub Stankovic opines that it is “unheard that his status was checked after the indictment, because this is done before the launching the procedure”. “Ivanovic was arrested, then he was indicted, after which the EULEX prosecutor addressed me, i.e. the War Crimes Prosecution, and requested something incredible – his status in the war. In a letter he asked me whether Ivanovic was or was not a member of Serbian forces in Kosovo: police, reserve or military. And the status of the indictee in the war crime was the previous question. What does this mean? When you first establish that he was a member of some formation, then an investigation is opened. Someone cannot be indicted, without having evidence that he was a member of armed forces. That is one strange request,” concluded Stankovic.

Gallucci: Serbia will have to recognize Kosovo (Novosti)

Serbia will have to recognize Kosovo before EU membership, and possibly much earlier, former UN official in Kosovska Mitrovica and former US diplomat Gerard Gallucci is convinced in such an outcome. In an interview with Novosti, he adds that presently there are several factors that benefit our compatriots in the north of the province: “They could use the status neutral elements of the ‘Ahtisaari plus’ package and to preserve, together with the Serbs south of the Ibar River, the community and historical heritage.”

Is there anything that makes their position favorable?

“First of all, they resist simple surrender and acceptance of direct authority of Pristina, which is an outcome yearned by the Kosovo Albanians and their international benefactors. Maintaining their territory and local institutions functional, despite NATO and EULEX pressures, the Serbs in the north have made it necessary for the international community to accept a much more balancing political approach. Secondly, Ahtisaari’s package envisaged Pristina and the Quint (US, France, UK, Germany and Italy) to accept a formula for local autonomy, continued ties with Serbia and the right to establish a union that will gather different Serb municipalities from the north and south. Thirdly, Belgrade’s decisive effort to fulfill conditions for EU membership by regulating relations with Pristina has ensured certain credit for the Serbs in the capitals of the Quint. At the same time, Kosovo Albanians showed that they are not completely capable of self-management. Fourthly, the UN –through Resolution 1244 and UNMIK – remain engaged and responsible for the status neutral approach towards Kosovo. They, just as EULEX, if it properly handles things, may play the key role of a mediator, in order to ensure that Pristina doesn’t undertake unilateral moves or sets obstacles to a fair approach.”

How realistic is it for the Serbs to fight for a special status?

“It is realistic if they head forward and use the status neutral elements of the ‘Ahtisaari plus’ package. Also, by assuming posts in the Kosovo Assembly they can play an important role in managing the territory.”

UNMIK punctured inside

EULEX has been shaken with the corruption affair, while UNMIK’s role has come down to a minimum. Has the international community failed the exam?

“Following World War II, Germany and Japan are the only examples of international intervention that led to successful state building. The forces that intervened in Kosovo have not fulfilled the obligations. The Quint countries have made UNMIK hollow inside through bad economic support, allowing its leadership to be ‘trapped’ by local Kosovo Albanians, only to drive it out prematurely, by letting EULEX to take its place.”

REGIONAL PRESS

RS parliament speaker Cubrilovic from DNS (Srna)

Nedeljko Cubrilovic from the DNS was elected the RS parliament speaker.Forty-four MPs voted for Cubrilovic, 38 voted against and no one refrained from voting. The parliament rejected a proposal by the NDP for the speaker to be elected by secrete vote. The DNS-NS-SRS Caucus proposed Cubrilovic for the office. Cubrilovic has so far held the office of the RS Minister of Transportation and Telecommunications. The Republika Srpska (RS) President Milorad Dodik and Vice-Presidents Josip Jerkovic and Ramiz Salkic took an oath of office in the RS parliament.Before the oath-taking ceremony, the president of the B&H Central Electoral Commission Stjepan Mikic presented certificates to Dodik, Jerkovic and Salkic. The RS MPs also took an oath office.

SDS will not go to consultations with Dodik on the new RS prime minister designate (Fena)

The SDS leader Mladen Bosic informed today the RS President Milorad Dodik that the SDS will not respond to the invitation for the consultative meeting regarding the proposing of the prime minister designate for the new RS government. Noting that the SDS doesn’t have parliamentary majority, and therefore doesn’t need to propose a prime minister designate, Bosic stressed in the letter that “corruptive processes of buying delegates and composing a parliamentary majority in this manner, are not only anti-democratic, but also criminal acts that need to be examined and sanctioned by competent state institutions”. The SDS considers that a parliamentary majority, gathered in this manner, is without legitimacy, while the RS parliament is brought into a situation of its shaken reputation as the highest democratic institution of authority in the RS.

Ivanic: Covic can only lose Dodik (Patria)

The RS Alliance for Changes, with its partners the SDA and DF, will form state authority, the PDP leader Mladen Ivanic told Patria. There is nothing disputable for him in the fact that the SNSD-led coalition formed the government in the RS, and that the HDZB&H leader Dragan Covic had stated that the partner of his party in the state authority is the one that has majority in the smaller B&H entity, which now means Milorad Dodik. “What happened in the RS is nothing unexpected. It was known that Dodik would form the government. But it is also known that the RS Alliance for Changes has a signed agreement with partners from the Federation B&H on forming state authorities,” says Ivanic, adding that if Covic decides for Dodik to remain his partner then he will not be in the B&H Council of Ministers. According to Ivanic, the math is simple – Alliance for Changes – SDA –DF has a majority in the House of Representatives in the B&H Parliamentary Assembly. “In this phase, the key for the formation of the state authority is held by our partners in the FB&H. Covic is pushing Dodik, we have an agreement with partners from the FB&H, and we’ll see what will be in the end. If one looks what was given to the HDZB&H, i.e. to Covic, it is clear that he can only lose Dodik in this story on the formation of the state authority,” said Ivanic.

INTERNATIONAL PRESS

Kosovo Guerrillas Accused of Beating Prisoner (BIRN, by Behar Mustafa, Petrit Collaku, 25 November 2014)

A witness told the trial of the Kosovo Liberation Army’s ‘Drenica Group’ cell, accused of assaulting prisoners during the 1998-99 war, that her husband was seriously beaten at a KLA jail.

The protected prosecution witness, codenamed Witness K, told the court in Mitrovica on Monday that her husband suffered severe beatings at the KLA detention centre in Likovc/Likovac in 1998. She said her husband was taken away by two men in camouflage uniforms and when he returned the next month, he was badly injured with broken ribs, blood on his clothes, sore eyes and swelling all over his body. “I was surprised to see him walk in that condition and return home,” Witness K said. Pristina’s former ambassador to Albania and Kosovo Security Force ex-commander Sylejman Selimi is on trial for abuses at the Likovc/Likovac detention centre, alongside Sami Lushtaku, the current mayor of Skenderaj/Srbica, and five other former KLA fighters. Witness K said the men who took her husband away were clad in camouflage uniforms and carrying weapons but she could not recognise the insignia they were wearing. After he did not return home, she went looking for him at the Likovc/Likovac detention centre, but did not see him or the defendants there. “I have went every day, with my son and with my brother-in-law, but soldiers at the detention centre in Likovc told us that he was not there,” she said. Her injured husband finally returned home from the detention centre in mid-September 1998, she said. The trial continues on December 9.

South Stream of ‘national importance to Serbia’ – ambassador (RT, 25 November 2014)

South Stream is an essential gas project and will guarantee energy stability in Southeast and Central Europe, according to the Serbian Ambassador to Russia Slavenko Terzic.

“The South Stream project was granted a status of national importance in Serbia,” the ambassador told a news conference Tuesday. “We hope work on the project will begin as quickly as possible.”

Terzic said all the agreements with Russia have been signed and that Serbia is ready to get going once it hears from neighboring Bulgaria which has been stalling the project.

South Stream is a $45 billion project by Gazprom, due to be operational in 2018 delivering 64 billion cubic meters of natural gas to Europe. It’s a part of a Russian strategy to bypass politically unstable Ukraine as a transit country and ensure the reliability of gas supplies to Europe. The South Stream gas pipeline will deliver gas to south and Central Europe via the Black Sea and the Balkans.

The EU’s Third Energy Package has become as a major stumbling block for South Stream . The EU says South Stream violates the package which doesn’t allow a single company to both produce and transport oil and gas. As a result, the countries participating in the construction are facing pressure from Brussels.

Despite the EU pressure, Serbia isn’t planning to join any sanctions against Russia, the ambassador added.

“We will impose no sanctions on Russia,” said Terzic, adding that the question hasn’t even been raised.“Our policy is determined clearly as a policy of military and political neutrality, we will insist on this,” he said.

Why Serbia’s Leader Keeps on Producing Enemies (BIRN, by Antonela Riha, 24 November 2014)

Manufacturing plots and enemies is tempting tactic for any government seeking to divert public attention from poverty and difficult policies – but it comes at a cost.

According to a recent public opinion poll, carried out in early August, the popularity rating of Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic and his Progressive Party, SNS, now exceeds 50 per cent.

Judging by these results, Prime Minister Vucic can afford to relax and carry out the “painful reforms” he has warned about, even at the risk of losing a few percentage points. However, a constant feature of his rule since he became First Deputy Prime Minister in 2012 and then Prime Minister this April is that his government and his own life are under threat from mysterious, powerful enemies. The latest example came in a statement by the Minister of Labour and Social Affairs, Aleksandar Vulin, in connection with the provisional release of the ultranationalist leader Vojislav Seselj from The Hague Tribunal’s detention unit. “The Hague Tribunal is controlled by the US and the US released him – the US is, through his mouth, now saying that it will bring down our government,” Vulin exclaimed on November 12. Vukasin Pavlovic, a political sociology professor with the Faculty of Political Sciences, says the government is creating an atmosphere of tension and alarm to maintain its popularity and divert attention from unpopular policies. “There is need, internally and externally, to maintain the government’s high ratings, in order to resolve issues of geostrategic importance, such as Kosovo,” he said. He believes that by constantly insisting on conspiracies and threats, the government is trying to secure as much broad support as possible for the changes that it is planning to implement. “A situation in which it is being repeatedly said that we are endangered averts attention from a greater part of the society that is impoverished,” he observed. “Production and use of enemies” is a frequently used tactic for staying in power, Professor Dragan Popadic, a social psychologist, explains. This enemy is most often an ideologically opposed group, threatening the government. “But, in partisan battles, devoid of ideology, such as those in our country, an enemy can be just about anyone, an individual or another people,” he adds. “There is nothing easier than governing a place where you prove your own abilities by making nice promises, and you justify unfulfilled promises with the acts of the enemies.” For two years now, the tycoon Miroslav Miskovic has been the most frequently named enemy. In October 2012, the tabloid newspaper Informer wrote that the conflict between him and Vučić would “determine not only the fate of the Government but that of the whole state”. It carried Vucic’s dramatic message: “I know that those who are against me are powerful… I know I am a big problem for them because I will never give up and because I am prepared to pay any price!” Once court proceedings were instituted against Miskovic, Vucic then accused the media and reporters critical of the government of being on Miskovic’s payroll. In connection with the current lawyers’ strike, meanwhile, Vucic joined in with Justice Minister Nikola Selakovic in accusing Miskovic of being the one behind the protest. “Certain tycoons will do everything in their power to prevent the trial from coming to an end… partly in a political way, partly through the lawyers, partly with the help of third parties,” Vucic declared. Along with tycoons, the state and government also declare themselves under “attack” from such bizarre figures as Nikola Sandulovic. Presenting himself as the leader of a [non-existent] Republican Party, and as former advisor to the late Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic, he attempted to polemicize with the Prime Minister during the latter’s lecture at the London School of Economics, LSE, which a tabloid close to the government presented as “an attempted coup d’etat”. The Sandulovic case was quickly forgotten but a new threat soon emerged. When a meeting of the Trilateral Commission was held at the beginning of November in Mišković’s Crowne Plaza Hotel, the public was told that a counter-sabotage unit and an anti-terrorist squad had discovered a camera in the salon where the Prime Minister was to hold meetings with statesmen and businessmen. The Military Security Agency did not believe the hotel staff who insisted that cameras were usual in such facilities, and so launched a wiretapping investigation. No information has since been released on the results of this investigation, just as it is not known who back in 2012 tapped the phones of President Tomislav Nikolic and then First deputy Prime Minister Vucic – and for what reason. The Prime Minister’s safety has also been threatened by journalists, allegedly. Last summer he abruptly scrapped plans for a three-day lakeside holiday at Lake Bor, “because the room next to his was rented by ‘suspicious characters’, allegedly CINS and BIRN journalists”, an article on the front page of Informer read, along with photos of the “spy” journalists. In April 2013, prior to the signing of the Brussels agreement on the normalization of relations with Kosovo, Vucic declared his life in danger. “Messages that they will kill me are coming in every second,” he said. He showed reporters from Serbia’s Tanjug news agency text messages on his mobile phone, and the one most frequently cited read: “You have betrayed Kosmet [a term for Kosovo]. You will be killed just like Zoran [Djindjic, shot dead in 2003].” There is no information as to whether the author of this death threat was ever identified. Who sent other threatening messages to the Prime Minister’s family also remains unknown. In 2013, he complained to reporters that his son aged 15 “was crying and saying how he will kill himself because of the threats he gets on Facebook”. A month later, in May 2013, this same son became the centre of a scandal over which, the media reported, Vucic even planned to resign. It turned out that certain persons had tried to “blackmail him” with false information that his son, Danilo, beat up goal keeper Vladimir Stojkovic on a Belgrade barge. The conspiracy came from the Interior Ministry, claimed the tabloids, while Vucic filed criminal complaints against unidentified persons in the police. The outcome of this investigation also remains unknown and the case vanished from the media. “What seems easy at the beginning – to expose new scandals on a daily basis – soon becomes more complicated for the government because enemies are used up, so they have to keep finding new ones,“ Dragan Popadic notes. “A process that, although very cheap at the beginning…soon has its price because at least some accusations need to be proven, and some processes need to be completed, and the only way for these fabricated scandals to be forgotten is to ‘expose’ new, more dramatic ones,” he explains. As opposed to the speedily forgotten criminal complaints, the scandals that Vucic’s brother was involved in had a different epilogue. The Gendarmerie members who beat him up in September this year during the Gay Pride Parade because he refused to show his ID have been punished, while the tabloids described this event as an attack on the family. A month later, the leader of the opposition New Party, Zoran Zivkovic, also “attacked” the family when he claimed that Vucic’s brother had a private business. A swift investigation into these claims established that the PM’s brother was a victim of forgers who set up a company back in 2010 with a fake ID in the name of Andrej Vucic which, as the tax police explained, “was deliberately founded for the purpose of abusing business operations”. Professors Pavlovic and Popadic agree that the “use of enemies” is not only routine in Serbia. “It’s a populist-type political pragmatism similar to that in Hungary and Turkey, one that can have very authoritarian outcomes,” Pavlovic says. “Exposing scandals and conspiracies and dealing with various enemies becomes a pattern of handling social problems,” he adds. “In the short run, this tactic is very efficient for those in power, however, in the long run, it is disastrous both for them and for society. “When the government changes, it will leave behind a destroyed society with no resistance to populist demagogy and dictator aspirations. This is what already happened to us in the Nineties,” Popadic warns.

Croatia Threatens Serbia EU Bid Over War Crimes (BIRN, by Sven Milekic, 25 November 2014)

Croatia’s justice minister warned that Zagreb will block Serbia’s EU accession talks if Belgrade does not prosecute war criminals and outlaw support for the nationalist Chetnik movement.

Croatian justice minister Orsat Miljenic insisted that Serbia must prosecute top Yugoslav People’s Army commanders and political leaders responsible for war crimes during the 1990s conflict or Zagreb will block Belgrade’s progress towards the EU. “If we are talking about prosecuting war crimes from the 1990s conflict in Croatia and if that means blocking the negotiations [on EU accession], then yes, we are going to block them,” Miljenic told the N1 television channel on Monday evening. “The Republic of Serbia must confront the issue of war crimes; it is necessary to prosecute the highest levels [of command],” he said. Miljenic said that this was a “basic, fundamental principle, which was demanded from Croatia as well [by Brusssels during Zagreb’s accession talks], and Croatia has the right to demand it from any other state entering [the EU]”. “We will insist on it, we are insisting now, and Serbia must comprehend that this is a test it has to pass,” he added. Miljenic also condemned the nationalist rhetoric used by the recently-released war crimes suspect Vojislav Seselj and said that publicly promoting the WWII-era Serbian nationalist Chetnik movement should be outlawed by Belgrade. “This is a fascist movement and this should be said loud and clear,” said Miljenic. Publicly displaying the symbols of the Chetniks or the WWII-era Croatian fascist Ustasa movement is illegal in Croatia.

Serbian Radical Party leader Seselj, who was on trial in The Hague for war crimes in Croatia, Serbia and Bosnia, was granted temporary release by the UN-backed court this month to have cancer treatment. Since then he has staged a rally in Belgrade and made a series of hardline nationalist statements which have infuriated Zagreb. He stirred up further anger when he sent a press release to the Croatian media on the day when Croats commemorate the fall of the town of Vukovar to Serbian forces in 1991, calling it “the day of Vukovar’s liberation”. Croatian President Ivo Josipovic complained directly to the Hague Tribunal about Seselj’s release, saying it was stirring up nationalist feelings and promoting hatred, and describing it as a setback for international justice. But the president of the UN-backed court, Theodor Meron, has defended the temporary release and argued that local politicians should be responsible for reconciliation.

“I’ve always believed that politicians, religious and other local leaders within their societies must be the ones who will speed up the process [of reconciliation],” Meron said in a letter to Josipovic.

Albanian Nationalist Demands Montenegro Territory (BIRN, by Dusica Tomovic, 24 November 2014)

Politician Koco Danaj, promoter of a campaign to create a pan-Albanian state in the Balkans, told the Podgorica leadership that the proposed entity should contain part of Montenegro.

Danaj on Sunday published an open letter to Montenegrin Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic which said that Albanians would regain their rightful territory in Montenegro “peacefully”.

The leader of an opposition party called the List for a Natural Albania and a former adviser to several Albanian prime ministers, Danaj is demanding the establishment of a state that he calls ‘Natural Albania’. It would cover all territories in which Albanians live, including Kosovo and parts of Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia and Greece. In his letter, Danaj said he was simply being polite by informing Montenegrin leaders of the need to give up the territory. “Why did I send this invitation to them? Because they are our neighbours, and Albanians first call their neighbours. They are neighbours in countries that unjustly own Natural Albania’s territory,” Montenegrin media quoted the letter as saying. Last July, Danaj launched an initiative to collect a million signatures from Albanian expatriates living in Europe to convince Western governments of the need to unite all Albanians in one state. According to his plan, ‘Natural Albania’ should include all areas inhabited by Albanian-speaking people, both where they currently form the ethnic majority and areas where they were in the majority in the past but were expelled over the past century. His platform envisages that the southernmost Montenegrin town, Ulcinj, on the Albanian border, should be declared a ‘free town’ and shared between Tirana and Podgorica.

Montenegro PM Criticises EU Enlargement Policy (BIRN, by Dusica Tomovic, 25 November 2014)

Montenegrin Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic said that Brussels cannot expect Balkan candidates for membership to match up to EU standards immediately.

Djukanovic said on Monday that Brussels still hasn’t got a complete and consistent policy on the Western Balkans and needs to create an investment framework for the full integration of the region into the EU. He praised the EU for encouraging the establishment of the rule of law, public administration reform and better economic management in the Balkans, but said that progress would take time. “It is not realistic from the EU to expect that the countries of the Western Balkans at the beginning of the negotiation process behave like a member state of the Union,” he said in an address to the Central European Initiative Forum in Vienna. This is not the first time that Djukanovic has criticised the EU’s enlargement policy in the Balkans. In October, after Brussels’ latest Progress Report on Montenegro, which sharply criticised Podgorica’s performance in the fight against organised crime and corruption, Djukanovic invoked the example of Iceland, which last year suspended negotiations to join the EU. For the first time in an EU Progress Report on Montenegro, a formal mechanism called an ‘overall balance clause’ was mentioned “that can be activated to stop negotiations with the candidate country if it does not show enough progress in key areas”. The suggestion caused Djukanovic to point out that Podgorica could also break off talks. “The balance clause is something that has not been brought into the negotiating framework so far… But the candidate country has the right, as Iceland did, to say: ‘Sorry, I do not like this company anymore,’” Djukanovic said.

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Media summaries are produced for the internal use of the United Nations Office in Belgrade, UNMIK and UNHQ. The contents do not represent anything other than a selection of articles likely to be of interest to a United Nations readership.