LOCAL PRESS

Vucic: Nikolic’s platform serious document; Serbia will not change relations toward Russia (TV B92)

Serbian Prime Minister Aleksnadar Vucic has repeated that President Tomislav Nikolic’s platform for Kosovo and Metohija is a serious document, which the state leadership will discuss upon his return from the USA, and if a realistic chance for the implementation of some of its parts is noted, it will be presented to the public. The Prime Minister has underlined he trusts the good intentions of President Nikolic in view of the platform and added there was no conflict between them. According to Vucic, it is the mutual desire to find the best options for Serbia. The reactions of the western politicians will also be a topic of the talks, but one of the important premises when making conclusions is the fact that Serbia exercises the policy of a sovereign and independent country, it has become a reliable partner and meets all its obligations, but also knows how to protect its own rights, Vucic told TV B92, while adding that he does not see the platform as an obstacle on the European course. Vucic pointed out that Serbia would not change its relationship toward Russia and would not introduce sanctions on it. Vucic said that the United States are important to the European path to which Serbia aspires as the “best type of society”, noting that it is essential to preserving peace in the region. Vucic says that the support of Serbian citizens for the European Union is falling. “Never before has a more negative relationship toward the EU been recorded, this shows why the right-wing parties are growing,” said Vucic, adding that a possible change in the SNS policy would dramatically threaten the orientation toward the EU. Speaking on the case of Serbian radical leader Vojislav Seselj, Vucic said that the Serbian government had not received a request to return Seselj to The Hague and said that Serbia is not “Fedex” by which someone could send a package, and then wish to get it back. “We didn’t receive an official request, but we would ask them, you returned him and packed him up, you didn’t ask for a guarantee aside from we take his passport. We will see how this develops, we don’t want to threaten Serbia’s EU future, but we will not fail to react. Explain to us when Seselj healed, whether he was so sick,” added Vucic. He said that he does not doubt that The Hague’s move is immoral. “We will see whether Seselj is arrested, everything will be done according to our laws,” added Vucic. According to him, many thought that someone can hardly wait to return Seselj to The Hague. “What’s the rush now after he was imprisoned for 12 years and not convicted? What would someone do for us to say, we arrest him, we’re sending him back, we don’t know the procedure, but we’re sending him, he’s undergoing chemotherapy, if he goes then it will stop and what if Seselj dies? Will the government be the killer? We will first see what the laws say, what the procedures say,” Vucic stressed.

Vucic and Brammertz: No open ended issues in cooperation (RTS)

Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic and ICTY Chief Prosecutor Serge Brammertz have concluded in Belgrade that there are no open ended issues in the regular cooperation of the Serbian government and the Hague Prosecution. While noting that the government has still not received the official demand from the Tribunal’s court of appeals to send Vojislav Seselj back to the custody, Vucic has said after the meeting with Brammertz that in that regard the state bodies will act in line with the Serbian and international laws. Namely, the Serbian Radical Party communicated on Friday that the Tribunal’s court of appeals had decided Seselj should return to The Hague by 26 May. Brammertz has come to visit Belgrade in preparation for his regular semi-annual report to the UN Security Council, due in June.

Djuric: Talks on ZSO finally to commence (RTS)

The Head of the Office for Kosovo and Metohija Marko Djuric told the Sunday evening news of Radio and Television of Serbia that the talks on the Union of Serb Municipalities (ZSO) will finally commence on Tuesday in Brussels, after a year and a half. He says that the Serbian delegation, which will include the Kosovo Serb representatives, will go to Brussels to fight for the right of Serbs. He points out that these talks are very important. Speaking about the platform for Kosovo and Metohija that was written by President Tomislav Nikolic, Djuric notes that this has not yet been discussed. He says he would leave this to the President and Prime Minister to inform the public about this. “My heart is full when I see that the leadership is working on the resolution of the Kosovo problem and this is significant for our people,” he said. He points out that there is a lot of extremism in the southern Serbian province and recalled the horrible images from Syria showing Albanian extremists committing horrible crimes. Djuric says this is the reason for concern and discomposure, but stressed that state organs are doing everything necessary. “It should be clear that one should not play with the Serb people, because Serbia stands behind them,” said Djuric. When it comes to the judiciary, Djuric recalls the huge tradition of the Serbian judiciary. The job competition for 48 judges and 15 prosecutors for Serbs and other nationalities expires on Monday, but nobody has applied yet. Djuric expects the candidates to apply for all posts today. He says that judges and prosecutors are responsible and that the list of judges and prosecutors will be submitted today in accordance with the agreement. Djuric expects them to occupy their posts as of 1 September.

Pak: Agreement will be reached on the platform for Kosovo (TV Pink)

Serbian President’s Advisor Stanislava Pak told the morning broadcast of TV Pink that an agreement will be reached on President Nikolic’s platform for Kosovo and Metohija and that the limit below which the President will not go is recognition of Kosovo and Metohija. Pak says that Prime Minister Vucic has a positive stand on the platform, that he has trust in Nikolic who wrote the platform primarily because Serbia is expected at one moment to sign an agreement on normalization and that “Serbia is strategically planning to approach this event that awaits us”.

“We want to achieve some minimum, what we can accept according to the Constitution. Time will show whether this is realistic,” Pak said. She assesses that this is responsible behavior, because the Albanian side has for centuries had a strategy and plan on how to achieve a “Greater Albania” and that Serbia should have a plan on what it wants in relations with the Albanian side in Kosovo and Metohija. “The worst possible tactics would be not to have any strategy, any platform for further talks with the Albanians,” said Pak. “The Brussels agreement is not something that completely resolves that situation, but it is actually some final solution of our relations concerning Kosovo and Metohija,” said Pak. She says that she hasn’t seen the platform, that President Nikolic will discuss it with the Prime Minister, and that the intention is to help the government and to have a framework within which the government would talk with the Albanian side. “The platform is prone to changes and amendments to the limit below which the President will not go, and this is recognition of Kosovo and Metohija,” said Pak. She points out that the goal is preservation of Serbia’s territorial integrity, and to achieve what is the interest with diplomatic means and talks.

Experts on Serbian Constitution (Radio Serbia, by Djuro Malobabic)

The Serbian Constitution is full of weak points that need to be worked upon. Its preamble is unrealistic and we need to change it in order to join the EU one day. These are the statements of politicians that one hears daily. The Serbian parliament’s Action Team for Political System Reform, the formation of which was initiated by the ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS), held its first session on Thursday. Non-parliamentary parties, Serbian and international experts are to take part in its work. Experts on the constitutional law, professors Vladimir Petrov and Bogoljub Milosavljevic have been interviewed for our radio on the topic of the Constitution. At the very first session of the Action Team, the SNS caucus whip Zoran Babic, who is also the first president of the team, said that the Action Team would not change the Constitution, but would reform the political system. Vladimir Petrov, a professor of the Faculty of Law of the Belgrade University, says that the Action Team had neither constitutional nor legal prerequisites to change either the Constitution or the political system. On the other hand, he says, we need first to wait for the results of the Action Team and only then to assess whether the proposed changes of the political system are good or not, says Petrov. Serbian citizens, above all politicians, are traditionally unsatisfied with the supreme state act, which is certainly not characteristic of countries with a developed constitutional culture and the fact that that is the document with the highest dignity, he says. Any constitution enacted in unstable circumstances, including the Serbian one, will have its weaknesses, to which jurisprudence has pointed ever since its enactment. That primarily refers to some judicial issues and to the establishment of a better balance between the highest authorities. The Constitution, including its preamble reading that Kosovo and Metohija is a province within the Republic of Serbia can be changed according to a strictly envisaged procedure, stresses Petrov, adding that requires a two-third majority in the parliament and then a vote for of the majority of citizens turning out for a referendum. For the sake of the dignity of the Constitution as the supreme legal document, we should stop discussing the preamble as, in the end, all the Serbian citizens will be asked about this very important, but legally unbinding part of the Constitution, says Petrov. If one wants Kosovo and Metohija to remain within Serbia in terms of constitutional law, we need to develop a concept of an essential autonomy of Kosovo and Metohija and to enact a constitutional law on that question. I disagree with those who believe it is too late for that, provided that Serbia truly resolves to determine a position under which it will make no concessions, says Petrov. As for the Serbian President’s platform on the Kosovo issue, the contents of which have not been made public yet, Petrov believes that all the relevant political factors can gather behind that document and that the document can represent the Serbian state platform about essential autonomy for Kosovo and Metohija, which autonomy should be enjoyed by the Union of Serb Municipalities in Kosovo and Metohija as well. That should represent the final taking of the stands of the Republic of Serbia in terms of ultimate solutions to the Kosovo issue, says Petrov. A professor of the Union University, Bogoljub Milosavljevic, believes that the Serbian Constitution of 2006 is full of weak points, ranging from the election of judges, the status of independent judiciary, the election system, some poor solutions in the field of human rights, to the preamble on Kosovo and Metohija, which has been largely refuted by the Brussels agreements lately, as he says. I hope that this time experts will participate more in constitutional amendments as the supreme state document should not be enacted to last a few years, but a few decades. What I mean is compliance with EU standards as we are striving to join the EU, he says. Should Serbia tackle constitutional amendments seriously, a good text on which Serbian citizens would vote at a constitutional referendum could be created in six to twelve months, Milosavljevic told Radio Serbia.

Ogar: Europe must stop the farce (Novosti)

A political process is conducted against Oliver Ivanovic and the EU must immediately react in order to stop this farce, Jacques Ogar, former commander of the French special operative forces after the signing of the Kumanovo agreement, tells Novosti about the motives for launching the petition for the acquittal of Ivanovic.

Why is Oliver Ivanovic behind bars?

“Ivanovic’s ‘crime’ is that he insisted with all forces on the consistent implementation of the still valid UN Resolution according to which Kosovo and Metohija is an integral part of Serbia. He is the victim of a political process. Everybody realizes this, and that is why the EU must urgently do something. What is happening is neither acceptable nor normal.”

What do you hope to achieve with this petition?

“We want to alarm the public, media and the EU and warn them about what is Ivanovic experiencing. We cannot allow them to forget him.”

Where and when will you submit the petition?

“Federica Mogherini. She has the authority. The foreign and security policy is in her jurisdiction, therefore, the issue of justice in Kosovo.”

What is the response?

“In only 24 hours, the petition had more than hundred signatures. We will leave it open for several weeks with the hope that it will cause a reaction in the West.”

How do you see the present situation in the region?

“It is very bad. One can see that the story that started in Kosovo has not ended. The latest events in Macedonia showed this the best. The attempt of destabilization of the Balkan region continues.”

In your opinion, who stands behind all that?

“Always the same factors. The US and the EU are exerting pressure on Russia in all possible ways. Through Ukraine, but also by destabilizing Bulgaria, Serbia and the entire Balkan region that is very fragile. Kosovo is part of this mosaic. The events in Macedonia over the past days are not accidental. It is clear that the terrorists, who attacked Macedonia, came from Kosovo, from the KLA. Everybody knows that, but the US and EU are not doing their job for which they received the mandate.”

REGIONAL PRESS

PDP: We’ll form a new RS government without SNSD (Oslobodjenje)

Branislav Borenovic, Vice President of the Party of Democratic Progress (PDP), is confident that in the near future a new Republika Srpska (RS) government will form in which, as he said, there will be places for all parties aside from the SNSD. In a statement to reporters in Banja Luka, Borenovic said that the ruling coalition in RS has the most problems, but that they are skillfully concealed. “I think that the SNSD has the most problems. We will do everything to gather as many delegates of all political parties, aside from the SNSD, and as soon as possible form a new RS government without the SNSD. And this is the only guarantee of success for RS, and everything else is the path to its bankruptcy, destroying its resources,” he said. He believes that the new government will comprise responsible people and parties, and that this is the goal of the current opposition. “We will try to form a government to save the RS, and this is the greatest challenge that awaits us,” says Borenovic, with the claim that it is possible to do so, because as he says there is already enormous dissatisfaction among the delegates of the ruling coalition. “In the past eight years it was inconceivable that someone among the ruling delegates would vote against laws that came from the government. That is starting to happen, which means that the government is forced to withdraw its legislation in order not to experience a failed law in the parliamentary session,” the PDP VP says. He explains that everyone except the SNSD could be partners to the current opposition in the RS’s new majority, who are ready to work seriously on rebuilding RS. “We have nothing to do with the SNSD, because they bear the greatest responsibility for the situation in which RS finds itself, and with them there is no serious fight against crime and corruption, because all these years they were most responsible for exercising power and the situation we find ourselves in,” said Borenovic. He said that it is on the other parties that are now in power with the SNSD to show the courage to get the RS another new executive government that will work for the benefit of the citizens.

FB&H step away from the fiscal meltdown, Croatia from bankruptcy (Dnevni avaz/Hina)

The budget of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FB&H) in the first four months of got 270 million BAM (B&H Mark) less than planned, and the record low inflow of funds was recorded in April. According to the report, the FB&H government, in the first three months of this year collected 389.3 million BAM of revenue, which is eight percent less than planned. Comparing the data from the first three months of last year, revenues of the FB&H in 2015 decreased by 54 million BAM, and at the same time there is a continues borrowing – only the last session of the Federation Government has entrusted this entity of 100 million BAM. “No doubt that the Federation, if this trend continues, is going to experience the full fiscal collapse, before a possible approval of a new loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which at best can be expected at the end of summer,” writes Dnevni avaz. In Croatia, the economic situation has deteriorated dramatically and that country, just like Greece, is facing bankruptcy, writes the German newspaper Bild am Sonntag. The article entitled “Croatia could become a new Greece,” German newspaper stated that Greece and Croatia are favorite destination for the German tourists, but that both countries are on the verge of bankruptcy due to poor management and failure to implement reforms. The papers refers to a few days old “secret” analysis of the European Commission according to which the state of the economy in Croatia dramatically deteriorated and the Croatian government in five of eight key points has done next to nothing to reduce the deficit. The most important omissions are the ineffective control over state finances, a large number of departures in to early retirement, the lack of measures to stimulate the economy and the slowness of the courts in the implementation of the bankruptcy proceedings. German newspaper reminds that Croatia will be one of the key issues of the EU Summit in Brussels on 25 and 26 June.

Tokic released (Fena)

Sejfudin Tokic, President of the Bosniak Movement for Equality, by a decision of the Banja Luka district prosecutor, was released from detention. Also released was Adnan Bajric, who at the moment of arrest was with Tokic in Banja Luka. Maja Djakovic-Vidovic, spokeswoman for the district prosecutor, confirmed to Fena that the prosecutor received a report against Sejfudin Tokic and Adnan Bajric from the Center for Public Security in Banja Luka, because of the reasonable doubt that they committed the criminal offense of instigating national, racial, and religious hatred and intolerance. Tokic and Bajric, following a criminal investigation, are in the public prosecutor’s office for questioning. “After questioning of the subjects by the acting prosecutor, given that they had not fulfilled the legal reasons for proposing custody, they were released and will continue to defend themselves in criminal proceedings from outside detention,” said Maja Djakovic-Vidovic. Tokic was arrested in Banja Luka, and the duty prosecutor in Banja Luka ordered that he and Adnan Bajric, be investigated for committing a criminal offense of instigating national, racial, and religious hatred and intolerance.

INTERNATIONAL PRESS

Serbia Starts Mustering EU Accession Talks Team (The Journal of Turkish Weekly, 25 May 2015)

Although it is not yet clear when Brussels will open accession talks with Serbia, Belgrade is already mulling its negotiating team, assuming that the talks open sometime this year. Jadranka Joksimovic, Serbia’s Minister for European Integration, said the government had started interviewing potential members of the Serbian negotiating team with the EU. “We have a lot of names. Soon we will have suggestions for members,” Joksimovic told the daily newspaper Danas on May 21. The government will make a final decision on the team once its Office for European Integration has submitted its proposal for the members. According to earlier announcements, the negotiation team with the EU will be presented to the public by the end of May. Although EU members states are yet to agree on a date for opening accession talks with Serbia, Belgrade hopes that the talks will be launched this year. “We have done a lot and we will do more to achieve more results,” Alexander Vucic, the Serbian Prime Minister, said on Monday in Brussels at a conference entitled Friends of Serbia. On Tuesday, in an interview, Vucic referred to the problem of exhaustion over enlargement in the EU, noting that in the states awaiting entry there is an equivalent exhaustion of patience. “We have invested not only a lot of our time, our full energy, our political strength in today’s processes, we have also started the toughest and harshest possible economic reforms in Serbia,” he said. “We have achieved a lot in the dialogue with Kosovo Albanians, but then you see that you are not respected enough,” Vucic for EuroNews. Earlier this month, Johannes Hahn, the EU Enlargement Commissioner, said further progress in the normalisation of relations with Kosovo was essential before accession talks with Serbia could start. “It is of absolute importance that the dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina is continued and has concrete results. If that becomes the case, I think it is not impossible that we could start opening chapters this year,” Hahn said on May 7. Beside relations with Kosovo, Hahn stressed the importance of finishing economic reforms and making progress on justice, freedom and security. These issues should be the first to be discussed once the talks between Belgrade and Brussels start.

Tuzla Massacre Commemorated on Streets of Serbia (BIRN, by Ivana Nikolic, 25 May 2015)

Belgrade rights activists collected messages of condolence on the streets of four Serbian cities to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the killing of 71 people by Bosnian Serb forces in Tuzla.

The Belgrade-based Youth Initiative for Human Rights, YIHR, will present its book of condolences, with over 500 messages written by ordinary people in Serbia, to the mayor of Tuzla and the victims’ families on Monday during the annual commemoration of the killings on May 25, 1995. The director of YIHR, Anita Mitic, said the aim was to pay tribute to the victims of the shelling on Tuzla city centre by the Bosnian Serb Army and to raise awareness of what happened. “There were crimes committed in Bosnia and Herzegovina and no one talks about them. It is important to take responsibility for what happened and to raise awareness about it here in Belgrade,” Mitic told BIRN. Activists collected signatures and handwritten messages for several days in Belgrade and three other Serbian towns – Novi Sad, Novi Pazar and Nis. Mitic said that many people didn’t know anything about the crime. “Lots of people confused it with the ‘Tuzlanska kolona’ [an attack on the Yugoslav People’s Army in Tuzla in 1992],” she said. Mitic said the attack was particularly tragic because so many young people died on what was the former Yugoslavia’s annual ‘Youth Day’. “At nine o’clock in the evening, the city centre was shelled and the average age of the people killed was 23,” she said. The former Bosnian Serb Army general who ordered deadly attack, Novak Djukic, was sentenced to 20 years in jail, but has not started serving his sentence because he has been in Serbia for over a year now. An international arrest warrant was issued by the Sarajevo authorities in October 2014, but Djukic cannot be extradited to Bosnia and Herzegovina because he has Serbian citizenship. The two countries do not have a mutual extradition treaty. But he could be jailed in Serbia, which signed an agreement with Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2010 which allows Sarajevo and Belgrade to ask each other to take over the enforcement of a prison sentence. The Serbian Justice Ministry told BIRN that Bosnia and Herzegovina asked for the international legal aid in 2008 while Djukic was on trial. Since then, the ministry said it had received no communication about the former Bosnian Serb general case. “Until they [the Bosnian authorities] send us a request [to ask for the enforcement of Djukic’s sentence], we as the Ministry of Justice and as the state itself have no obligation to do anything,” it said. Djukic’s lawyer Milorad Ivosevic declined to respond to BIRN’s questions about the progress of the case, saying the defence team would release a statement after the massacre anniversary. The rights group’s action sparked both positive and negative reactions. In Belgrade, a group of several men tried to tear the condolence book apart, but were stopped by police. But Mitic said that some people were keen to express their sorrow about the massacre. “A good thing happened in Nis, where people were standing in a line and waiting to sign in the book,” she said. She also said that in Novi Pazar in south-west Serbia, and entire high school class came to write messages. People were also given the chance to listen to the life stories of four people killed in the attack, which were recorded and played back on MP3 players. Seventeen-year-old Jana was one of the Belgraders who listened to the Tuzla victims’ stories. She said she had never heard about the crime before. “I am very disappointed that the shelling – that one moment – destroyed so many young people, their lives, their youth and their dreams,” Jana told BIRN. Twenty-nine-year-old Milan from Belgrade, who wrote a message of condolence, said he knew about the crime before. “I wrote that I am sorry for what happened. I am not sure that even one per cent of young people [in Serbia] know something about this crime, and that is a shame,” he told BIRN.

Dodik: Many practice themselves on Serbs (Sputnik)

The matrix for breaking the Serbian unity is still present on the scene, while third-grade politicians and officials practice themselves on Serbs, the Republika Srpska (RS) President Milorad Dodik said in an interview for Sputnik, answering the question of whether the EU has requested the termination or weakening of relations between the RS and Serbia. “We have very good relations and we are going to continue building them in that direction. But it is a spin that they are trying to affirm, as the story of an unwanted child – Republika Srpska – which continuously needs to be disputed, and at the end abolished,” said Dodik. According to him, the RS is today one of the most stable areas of ​​the region, both economically and politically.

“One part of the Muslims in Bosnia is unsatisfied, a part of the international community, and even a part of the opposition in the RS, which in order to prove themselves servile to the Europeans, wants to abolish the voice of the RS, which is most important. The matrix for breaking the Serbian unity in the region is still on the scene,” said Dodik. He pointed out that any degradation and the attack on the RS is an attack on Serbia too, because it guarantees the Dayton Agreement. “Continuous injustice is carried out against the Serbs in the Balkans. It is evident. If someone would do a cumulative study of the people’s positions before the war and after the war, you would see that we have been the most displaced people, with the largest cumulative suffering. Third-grade politicians and officials of various administrations practice themselves on us and thus maintain their preeminence,” he added. As he points out, there is a sense that the international community, or what we think it is, keeps this place in a permanent state of emergency that is constantly being deepened. “This suggests that we need to step away, as soon as possible, from all the aspirations to be governed and managed by someone else. Being called a Bosnian Serb, for me, that is inappropriate. For me, that is an allusion, that there are some other Serbs too, that the Serbs themselves are not a nation, but that there are some six segments of that nation. This says that we are not valued and that we are only one kind of experiment. Only a stable, national and state agreement between Serbia and the RS can change these things.

Dodik said that the problem of Bosnia and Herzegovina (B&H) is in the fact that the Dayton Agreement started to be degraded by the high representatives of the West in order to change its essence, before it began to be applied. According to Dodik, the resolution on the independence of the RS with the possibility of holding a referendum, for which his party voted, has precisely that aim to preserve the RS in the case of degradation or alteration of the Dayton Agreement.

“Serbs or any other people must not give up their right to express their democratic will through a referendum regardless of the issue. Disabling of that right means marginalization and degradation of that nation. The affirmation of the right to decide, in that way, on any issue is not contrary to the UN Charter, or any other documents, or to the principles and standards in the world. The RS is a signatory of the Dayton Agreement and, as such, has the right to decide. We feel that we have been imposed and that the jurisdictions have been taken from us without asking us. We just want to be asked and we want to make the decision by a consensus.

Asked to comment on a recently made analysis of the security situation in the Balkans, made by the West, where the three key risks have been identified; interethnic conflicts, radical Islam and the influence of Russia, Dodik pointed out that there is more violence between demonstrators and American police, than in the RS. “Indeed, a terrorist act has happened to us, but that happens in other places in the world too. This does not mean that the security situation is compromised. We are proud to be stable. We do not have these kinds of challenges, but we have those who are dissatisfied with the situation in the world. They need a thriving place, and then they return to the old place where they haven’t completed their job where they try to end that story.”

As he points out that the situation in Macedonia is the same, the ethnic positions between two majorities are clearly divided, and so they are in B&H. “Regardless of the imagination and a distant promise of a beautiful future, in a hundred years when we join the EU, they were unable to overcome historical differences, the current different positions and interests of the people who live there. It is obvious that in B&H, whatever people talked, Muslims want to build a unitary B&H and want to see others as a minority or displaced from B&H so that B&H remains only to them,” said the leader of the SNSD.

He states that the comparison of the Russian influence with Islamic radicalism is ridiculous.

“Only malicious people can make this comparison. Russia is present here as a good business partner and help in economic stabilization, for which we are very grateful. There is not one factor or a Russian individual, who is directed to a security breach, unlike the Islamist ‘fighters’ who were allowed, by West, to come here during the war and commit the worst crimes.” According to Dodik, manipulations spin and planting will not stop, because they need a war on the promotional level. “Russia, is not present here, either in the military or any other security sense. Their economic presence is not conditioned. Russian troops are not widespread in the world. I must say that the most correct and most comfortable talks I had with Russian President Vladmir Putin and I’ve never felt any weight nor received any political demand that would put me in a position to do something. Unlike the other side, where there were a lot of those. Asked about Kosovo, Dodik pointed out that B&H has not recognized Kosovo only because the RS has not agreed to it. “Kosovo is a proof of the international factor’s arrogance that ransacked and stole a part of the Serbian territory, through a series of punishments of Serbs. Serbs there are humiliated and degraded. The seal has been placed by the international community that promoted Kosovo as such.” Besides, said Dodik, the EU is not what it was a few years ago, the optimism is broken and there are many Euro-skeptics inside the EU. “Just the fact that Cameron has won the elections in Britain and his main election commitment is referendum on the separation of Britain from the EU, which is the reason he won the elections, talks about the instability of the EU itself. The European administration continues to work with us as if nothing had changed. Even if this region enters the EU, it will not be the same EU as it was from the beginning. I cannot predict how it will look, but I think it will probably be without Britain, or with Britain, but with major concessions from Brussels and Germany,” concluded Dodik.

Crisis in Macedonia Requires Meaningful and Swift Measures (Voice of America, by Isabela Cocoli, 24 May 2015)

The political crisis in Macedonia has been a cause of concern for the United States and other international interests. The international community has called on Macedonia’s leaders to take concrete measures in support of democracy to end the crisis. U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) said  he was very disturbed by the “backsliding” inside Macedonia “when it comes to respect for the rule of law, human rights, freedom of the press,” in an interview with VOA’s Macedonian Service.  In a reference to the country’s wire-tapping scandal that broke earlier this year, Senator Murphy said that the government needed to make “an absolute commitment to respecting the rights of its citizens, to repairing the damages that were done by these really damaging and harmful revelations about their conduct.” The scandal involves reports that the government of Macedonia tapping the phones of as many as 20,000 people, including dozens of journalists over several years.

The United States should not take for granted the fact that the Balkans are a peaceful region today, he said, but needs to play a more active role that it is actually playing, to prevent the escalation of tensions and spillover to neighboring countries.   “Tensions that erupted in regional war just over a decade ago are still simmering, are festering,” Sen. Murphy said.

Key region

There is a lot of unfinished business in the Balkans, said Luke Coffey, a Margaret Thatcher Fellow at the Heritage Foundation. “Right now it would be a tragedy for the United States or for Europe to turn their backs on a region that is not only important to Europe’s history, but also to Europe’s stability.”

The U.S. needs to use the present situation as an opportunity “to re-energize the debate inside Europe on Macedonia joining the Euro-Atlantic structures, like NATO and European Union,” Coffey said… If Macedonia would have been able to join these institutions years ago, a lot of political problems that country faces today would not be an issue,” Coffey added.

“Clearly, Macedonia is in a crisis,” said Daniel Serwer, professor of conflict management at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). Although the country is a democracy, at present “it does not have the normal functioning of a democracy,” he said.

The internationals have delineated what Macedonia should do to exit from current state of affairs, Serwer said. The country should take concrete actions in support of democracy, namely to promote the free press, independent courts and to bring the abuse of power to an end, he said. The firing of two government ministers and the head of the intelligence service point to that direction, but more concrete measures must be taken, said Serwer.

Serious crisis

Macedonia is in a serious crisis, said Edward Joseph, Executive Director of the Institute of Current World Affairs. “This is a terrible demonstration of the state of democracy, not only in Macedonia, but in the entire region, when the situation comes to this kind of confrontation. We need to see what the government will do to address the very serious allegation before it.”

To end the crisis, Joseph said, the government of Macedonia needs to accept its responsibility for all the very serious questions raised about the wire-tapping. “If these wire-taps are accurate and they say what they are purported to say, they are unbelievably serious and an incredible indictment of government commitment to democracy”. A full inquiry to the allegations is an imperative necessity, according to Joseph.

Prime Minister Nicola Gruevski should consider giving his resignation immediately, Joseph said, adding that Macedonia is a parliamentary system and “this is a complete, open and massive lock of confidence in his governance.”         

The wire-tapping scandal prompted questions about how tightly the government controls the media, judges, and elections during Gruevski’s nine years in power.

Clashes between gunmen and police that the scandal sparked in the city of Kumanovo earlier this month left 22 people dead.

^{VOA Macedonian Service Contributed to this Report}

Attack On Macedonian Journalist Condemned (RFE/RL/AP, 24 May 2015)

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) has joined media organizations in condemning an attack on a Macedonian journalist who has been critical of the government. Sase Ivanovski, the owner of the online news portal Maktel, was attacked by two unidentified people on May 22, sustaining injuries to his head and back that required medical treatment. Dunja Mijatovic, the OSCE’s representative on freedom of the media, condemned the incident on May 23, saying it is one of a string of attacks and threats against journalists in recent months. Mijatovic called on Macedonian officials to conduct a complete investigation into the incident. Local media organizations say such attacks often result in the culprits not being detained. Macedonia has been stuck in a political crisis as Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski has been trading accusations with opposition leader Zoran Zaev over a wiretap scandal that apparently

Why Does Putin Care Who Runs a Tiny Balkan Nation? Gas Pipelines (Bloomberg, by Ladka Mortkowitz Bauerova, 22 May 2015)

Russian leaders, whose conflict with Ukraine has seen them tussling with eastern Europe’s largest country, are now turning their gaze to a Balkan nation with fewer residents than Brooklyn. There’s a common theme, though: gas pipelines. Macedonia, a statelet of 2 million people carved from the ruins of Yugoslavia, is struggling with rampant corruption and lingering ethnic tensions. Premier Nikola Gruevski’s embattled government, embroiled in a wiretapping scandal, supports plans for a Russian gas pipeline to Europe that would provide much needed revenue, and help the Kremlin sideline an existing supply route through its troublesome Ukrainian neighbor. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov this week accused the West of trying to incite an overthrow of the Macedonian government. “I don’t have any hard-line facts, but it’s a logical suspicion,” Vladimir Chizhov, the Russian ambassador to the EU, said in a Bloomberg TV interview when asked about the claims. “If you look at the geography of the region, Macedonia is the best place for constructing the extension of the newest energy infrastructure project in the region, the so-called Turkish Stream,” Chizhov said. Russia’s proposed pipeline would run as an extension of a link between Russia and Turkey. It’s OAO Gazprom’s latest plan to deliver gas to southern and central Europe after the state-run gas exporter abandoned the $45 billion South Stream project in December on opposition from the European Union. Like its ill-fated predecessor, the so-called Turkish Stream is designed to bypass Ukraine, depriving it of vital income from transition fees.

Pipeline Construction

“To help Gazprom reach Central European markets, Russia has advocated the construction of a pipeline that would run from Greece to Macedonia, Serbia and Hungary,” analysts from Texas-based consulting firm Stratfor wrote in a report. “These four countries are at the center of a Russian diplomatic offensive.” Yet the project faces a mountain of obstacles. Like South Stream, it would have to comply with the EU’s internal market rules that require the Russians to relinquish control over the pipeline at its borders. Even though Macedonia is not an EU member, the pipeline would first have to cross from Turkey to Greece, which is. “The offshore section of South Stream would have delivered Russian gas to the EU border the very same way as the Turkish Stream pipeline,” said Mikhail Korchemkin, the founder of East European Gas Analysis in Malvern, Pennsylvania. “The only difference is that South Stream was less expensive.”

Greek Offer

Russia says it will no longer insist on owning a stake in the parts crossing the EU. Instead, President Vladimir Putin offered crisis-wracked Greece “hundreds of millions of euros every year” in gas transit fees if it joins the pipeline plan. The pipeline would then continue through Macedonia and Serbia, running toward Italy and Austria. “For me it’s still a bit too far-fetched to talk about a pipeline that would connect to a project that’s still just on the paper,” said Nikola Dimitrov, a research fellow at the Hague Institute for Global Justice and a former Macedonian ambassador to the Netherlands. “It’s a big question if it’s ever going to happen.” Still, the Russians seem determined to let their transit contract with Ukraine expire by 2019 in favor of the alternative route under the Black Sea. Gazprom has already laid 472 kilometers (293 miles) of the so-called Southern Corridor, the onshore part of the pipeline in Russia, in anticipation of the deal.

Gun Battle

For Macedonia, any pipeline is a far off solution to the crisis rocking the country now. The opposition has accused Gruevski of abuse of power and the International Monetary Fund has warned that economic growth could be hurt. Meanwhile, a gun battle in the northeastern city of Kumanovo this week left 22 people dead in what the government called a terrorist attack by Albanian insurgents. “We’re very concerned — the Macedonian events are fairly crudely managed from outside,” Russia’s Lavrov said on Wednesday. “It’s very sad and dangerous that, to undermine Gruevski’s government, the Albanian factor is being applied.”

Montenegro Plans to Tighten Asylum Law (BIRN, by Dusica Tomovic, 25 May 2015)

Following a very sharp increase in the number of asylum seekers, Montenegro plans to strengthen its control measures including giving police powers to detain illegal migrants. The Montenegrin government plans to set clearer rules on granting asylum in order to distinguish “those in need of international protection” from a growing number of illegal migrants, mainly from Asia and Africa. Explaining the new law on asylum, the government said the intention is to prevent abuse following a sharp increase of the number of asylum-seekers from only 235 in 2011 to more than 3,500 in 2014 – a more-than-tenfold rise that is causing growing concern. The Office for Refugees says anything from 50 to 90 asylum seekers arrive in Montenegro a day, mostly from Syria. For most, Montenegro is just a transit country and after a few days the majority of them leave towards Western Europe. The Montenegrin police in 2014 also recorded a sharp increase in the number of illegal migrants from Asia, Africa and the Middle East crossing Montenegro en route to the West. The new law introduces the possibility of “administrative detention” for asylum seekers or immigrants who illegally cross the border. They will be detained in police facilities in the capital until the judicial authorities decide their requests for asylum. The law will also set out the conditions under which the asylum-seeker or migrant must apply for a solution to the judicial authorities. The new law also enhances police powers to distinguish between irregular migrants and asylum seekers and “between perpetrators and victims”. “Migrations are often paired with terrorism and organized crime, which, abusing the difficult position of migrants, use such situations to achieve criminal goals,” the government said. The new law obliges the state to provide asylum seekers and migrants with food, clothing, housing, health care and the right to privacy. Resolving the issue of asylum seekers is important for Montenegro’s EU membership negotiations, falling under the most demanding chapters in the talks, 23 and 24, on the rule of law. Last February, Montenegro has opened its first centre for asylum seekers after the European Commission advised it to strengthen its asylum reception capacities in order to cope with an increasing number of arrivals. The Commission called the centre a positive development but said further steps were needed to ensure the country’s full alignment with EU “acquis” in the field of migration and asylum.