LOCAL PRESS

UN Security Council today on Kosovo, Dacic represent Serbia (RTS)

Serbian First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Ivica Dacic will represent Serbia at the regular session of the UN Security Council (UNSC) on Kosovo-Metohija (KiM).

During the session, Dacic will reflect on the report of the UN secretary general concerning UNMIK work for the period April 16-July 15, 2015, and he will also voice Belgrade’s assessment of the current situation in KiM and UNMIK actions, the Serbian Ministry of Foreign Affairs released. Dacic’s attendance at the session will offer an opportunity for a meeting with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and UNSC members. UN Secretary Generals, among others, said that Kosovo and the region are faced with transnational challenges, especially when it comes to the youth radicalization and extremism, recalling the charges of terrorism against 32 people for allegedly joining or recruit people to fight in Syria, or collecting the funds for the Islamic state.

New round of Belgrade-Pristina dialogue set for August 25 (Tanjug)

A new round of the EU-facilitated dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina, with Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic and Kosovo’s Prime Minister Isa Mustafa, is set to take place in Brussels on August 25, the European External Action Service said in a release on Friday. At the meeting, the two sides will aim to finalize the agreements on energy, Telekom, establishment of the community of Serb municipalities. One of the topics will be the freedom of movement on the bridge in Kosovska Mitrovica, the release states. The dialogue is facilitated by EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini.

Belgrade “determined to reach agreement in Brussels” (Tanjug, Beta)

Marko Djuric says the negotiating team “is going to Brussels with a serious intention to fight for the formation of the Community of Serb Municipalities (ZSO).” The Serbian Government’s Kosovo Office director spoke during a news conference on Thursday held after a meeting with members of the negotiating team for Kosovo talks and with representatives of Serbs in Kosovo. Djuric stressed that the formation of the ZSO would be “in the best interest of both Serbs and Albanians,” and added:  “The ZSO is aimed against nobody in Kosovo. The ZSO will be a factor and a means for Serbs and Albanians be get closer, not one of their separation.”  He also “thanked Serbs from Kosovo for supporting the Serbian government and the team for negotiations with Pristina.”

“When it comes to the ZSO we have harmonized many things (in the talks with Pristina), two or three still remain,” Djuric said. However, he would not say which issues remain contentious.  In Pristina, the Kosovo government’s minister for dialogue, Edita Tahiri, said that Belgrade and Pristina will only reach an agreement on the ZSO “if Kosovo’s positions are taken into account.”  Speaking on Thursday, Tahiri added that “the positions of Belgrade are of no interest to the delegation of Pristina.” Speaking for the Pristina daily Epoka e Re, she said that “the demand of the municipalities with a Serb majority for an agreement on the ZSO to be reached, sent to the governments of Kosovo and Serbia, will not influence the course of negotiations in Brussels,” and added, “no deadline has been set related to the formation of the ZSO.” “We are now discussing the basic principles on which it should be formed. There has been progress in that, but talks will continue on the technical level on August 24, and on the level of prime minister on the 25th, with (Federica) Mogherini‘s mediation,” Tahiri said. She also “expressed her conviction the ZSO will not have executive powers and will not represent a third tier of government in Kosovo.”

Djuric: Our goal in Brussels is establishment of ZSO (Tanjug)

Director of the Serbian government’s Office for Kosovo and Metohija (KiM) Marko Djuric said Thursday that the representatives of Belgrade in the dialogue with Pristina will go to Brussels next week with an aim to bring about the establishment of the community of Serb municipalities (ZSO) in the southern province. After a meeting with the officials of Serb municipalities in KiM, Djuric said that the Belgrade delegation will try to justify the trust of all citizens of Serbia and bring about the agreement on setting up the ZSO. The ZSO is not aimed against anyone; it is a stability factor and an instrument to bring the communities in KiM together, he stressed. In the meeting on Thursday, the KiM Serbs expressed their support to the government of Serbia and Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic as the head of Belgrade’s negotiating team, and their efforts to achieve the establishment of the ZSO, to improve the economic situation of the local Serbs and give them a chance to run their own political affairs, manage their own property, and have a say on all matters of importance for the life of Serbs in the southern province, Djuric said.

Jahjaga signs decree proclaiming law on special court (Blic)

Kosovo President Atifete Jahjaga signed a decree on Aug. 20 on the proclamation of the Law on the special court and the Law on the legal protection of potential suspects in court proceedings before the special court. Jahjaga signed the decree on the last day of the eight-day legal deadline, before the laws would automatically come into effect or be returned to the Kosovo Assembly for repeated procedure. According to the portal gazetaexpress.com, Jahjaga asked the Constitutional Court about the effect of the request for the assessment of the constitutionality of amendment 24 of the Constitution of Kosovo, on signing the decree on the proclamation of the law. According to the report, the president received the answer that the Constitutional Court had not been asked to assess the constitutionality of the two laws, but only of amendment 24 to the Constitution of Kosovo.

Migrant crisis: State of emergency along Macedonian borders (Tanjug)

The government in Skopje on Thursday declared a state of emergency along its southern and northern borders due to a rising wave of migrants. This creates the possibility of deploying the Macedonian army, Interior Ministry spokesperson Ivo Kotevski said. Kotevski told a news conference that Macedonia’s inter-institutional coordination body was monitoring on a daily basis the situation regarding the illegal migrants intending to enter Macedonia across the southern border with Greece, “and in line with that, is producing analyses in order to respond in every possible way.” Kotevski then said it was decided that “increased and more efficient control of the border area where mass illegal crossings from the Greek sides have been registered was needed due to the increased pressure on the southern border and the increasingly higher intensity of transit through the so-called Balkan migratory corridor.” “We expect the army’s deployment to produce results in two directions. First, to increase security and peace of mind of the local population and second, to secure a more comprehensive approach to the treatment of persons who have expressed their intention of seeking asylum in the Republic of Macedonia, in line with the capacities and recommendations of the conventions signed by the Republic of Macedonia, which we are making an effort to consistently respect” – said Kotevski. He also “stressed that in order to act according to the government’s decision a headquarters will be formed with the Center for Crisis Management that should draft an action plan and realize the envisaged activities.”

Earlier on Thursday, Macedonia’s Plusinfo website reported that Macedonia’s border with Greece was blocked, and that more than 3,000 migrants were stranded in the duty-free zone. According to the same source, the Thessaloniki-Skopje railroad was also blocked. The website said that special military and police forces have already been sent to the border with Greece, and were controlling the situation in the border area.

Macedonian troops fire stun grenades at migrants on border (Tanjug, Beta)

Macedonian special police forces fired stun grenades to disperse thousands of migrants stuck on a no-man’s land with Greece, a day after declaring a state of emergency on its borders to deal with a massive influx of migrants heading north to the European Union. A crowd of 3,000 migrants who spent night out in the open made several attempts Friday to charge Macedonian police after the border was shut to crossings the previous day. At least eight people were injured in the melee, according to Greek police. One youngster was bleeding from what appeared to be shrapnel from the stun grenades that were fired directly into the crowd. Police backed by armored vehicles also spread coils of razor wire over rail tracks used by migrants to cross on foot from Greece to Macedonia.

Greece has seen an unprecedented wave of migrants this year, the vast majority fleeing war and conflict in Syria and Afghanistan. More than 160,000 have arrived so far, mostly crossing over water from the nearby Turkish coast — an influx that has overwhelmed Greek authorities, particularly those on its small islands. Few, if any, of the migrants arriving want to remain in Greece, a country in the grip of a financial crisis. The vast majority head straight to the country’s northern border with Macedonia, where they cram onto trains and head north through Serbia and Hungary on their way to the more prosperous EU countries such Germany, the Netherlands and those in Scandinavia. Macedonian police spokesman Ivo Kotevski said both police and the army would control the 50-kilometer (30 mile) border stretch to stop a “massive” influx of migrants coming from Greece. “This measure is being introduced for the security of citizens who live in the border areas and for better treatment of the migrants,” he said Thursday. Until now, the border has been porous, with only a few patrols on each side. Sealing it disrupts the Balkan corridor for migrants who start in Turkey, take boats to Greece or walk to Bulgaria, then make their way through Macedonia or Serbia heading north to the EU. Almost 39,000 migrants, most of them Syrians, have registered as passing through Macedonia over the past month, double the number from the month before.

Serbians advised to stay away from Gevgelija border crossing (B92)

The Serbian Foreign Ministry has said it is “not recommending” that Serbians travel via the Gevgelija/Idomeni border crossing between Macedonia and Greece. This comes as several thousand refugees from the Middle East, stranded at this railroad crossings, on Friday clashed with Macedonian police and soldiers. According to the Serbian MFA, Thursday’s introduction of “a crisis situation” in Macedonia “has not affected the traffic regime on the country’s main roads and border crossings, other than the increased presence of the military and the police.” Serbian citizens traveling to Macedonia have also been advised to act cautiously, and not accept hitchhikers to their vehicles – as this can, under Macedonia’s law, be considered an act of “migrant trafficking” – an offense that could result in imprisonment lasting several years. Serbian citizens can contact the embassy in Skopje for information and assistance using these phone numbers: +3892/3129-298,+3892/3131-299,+3892/3128-422, +3892/3129-305; and the Consulate General in Thessaloniki, Greece: +302310/244-265, +302310/244-266, +302310/244-267

Muiznieks urges Croatia to reconsider decision on Cyrillic (Blic)

Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe Nils Muiznieks has said that he is concerned about Vukovar City Council’s decision to forbid the Cyrillic script, used by the Serb minority, in city institutions and public places, and called on the city authorities in eastern Croatia to reconsider the decision. This is an unwise move contrary to the principles of the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities and the European Charter on Regional and Minority Languages, which Croatia has bound itself to, Muiznieks told Belgrade-based daily Blic. He urged the authorities to reconsider the decision and take all necessary measures for the full protection of language rights of all national minorities, ensuring social cohesion and stability in the country, as well as in the region.

Vucic: HDZ accusations senseless (Tanjug)

Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic refuted late on Thursday as senseless the accusations voiced by the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) and said that neither the Serbian government nor himself as the prime minister have ever asked for changes in the electoral will of Croatian citizens, but they have insisted and will continue insist on the fundamental rights of Serbs in Croatia. As the prime minister of the Republic of Serbia, I have the obligation to respond in a responsible and serious manner to accusations against our country, government and people, which are sometimes even slightly senseless. This is one of them, the prime minister said in response to the accusations by HDZ that the Serbian government headed by Vucic as the prime minister called for dissolution of the Vukovar City Council in eastern Croatia, and has thus interfered in the internal matters of the country. Never has the Serbian government or I as the prime minister called for dissolution of any city council, the prime minister noted in a statement for Tanjug. The HDZ majority in the Vukovar City Council adopted the amendments to the City Statute on August 17 according to which no bilingual signs (in the Latin and Cyrillic script) are allowed on local institutions, streets and squares. Vukovar is a home to a considerable number of the Serb minority.

REGIONAL PRESS

Covic to meet with Dodik today in Mostar, with Radoncic on Saturday (Oslobodjenje)

Dragan Covic, HDZ B&H President, announced the discussions for today in Mostar, with Milorad Dodik, SNSD President, on current political issues, among the most important being the announced referendum in Republika Srpska (RS) and the reconstruction of the Bosnia and Herzegovina (B&H) Council of Ministers. Covic stressed that this meeting is a continuation of the good political cooperation between the HDZ and the SNSD, as well as his personal relationship with Dodik.

“The SNSD’s participation in government at the B&H level will not be a key topic of this meeting, because Dodik already said that at the moment there is no interest to enter the Council of Ministers,” Covic said during today’s press gathering in Sarajevo. Covic expressed the desire to preserve good relations and political friendship with Dodik through tomorrow’s meeting, and in the future they could jointly resolve tough political issues like the referendum, economic development, participation in the Vienna conference, and so on. “I personally think that there will be no referendum in RS, but I believe that controversial issues connected with the work of the Court and Prosecutor, on which Dodik and others in RS insist, really should be resolved. We need an independent judiciary, established in accordance with the highest European standards,” stressed Covic, who is currently chairing the B&H Presidency. He stressed that “B&H is not a legal state,” but that this is a problem and a task for all relevant institutions. According to him, it can never again be permitted that in B&H there are rigged political processes. “The courts and prosecutors in B&H must be true professionals. It is impermissible that the parliamentary assembly for nine years has failed to accept reports on the work of the Court and Prosecutor, which says enough about their work,” said Covic. The HDZ leader also announced that on Saturday, 22 August, he would meet with Fahrudin Radoncic, SBB B&H President, in Mostar.

Covic: Meeting with Nikolic is necessary (Srna)

Chairman of the Bosnia and Herzegovina (B&H) Presidency Dragan Covic announced on Thursday that the previously postponed first official visit of Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic to Sarajevo would be realized in the course of September. The meeting with Nikolic is necessary, and it is our obligation to meet, Covic told at the news conference.  Covic stated that the visit of the Serbian president to Sarajevo is particularly important, especially after the attack on Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic in Potocari on July 11. The first official visit of President Nikolic to Sarajevo was postponed after the arrest of wartime commander of the Muslim Forces in Srebrenica Naser Oric, who was captured in Switzerland on June 10 based on a Serbian warrant issued due to suspicion of Oric’s involvement in crimes committed against Serbs. After Oric’s arrest, when it was still uncertain whether the suspect would be extradited to Serbia or Sarajevo, Bosniak member of the B&H Presidency Bakir Izetbegovic expressed the belief that the situation was not well-suited to the realization of Nikolic’s visit, and asked for it to be postponed until a better moment.

Journalists trace property of Dragan Covic’s family (Bosna danas)

The Sarajevo-based Center for Investigative Reporting (CIN) has published the results of a three-month investigation into property owned by the family of Dragan Covic, the Croat president of Bosnia and Herzegovina (B&H). It turns out that Covic’s family owns a lot. CIN’s investigation probes the complex ways property owned by Covic’s family members, which was at times worth hundreds of thousands of BAM (B&H Mark), switched hands among them since 1998. Beginning in 1997, when Covic was the general director of an arms factory, it covers the turbulent time when he served as Finance Minister of the Federation of B&H, on up to the present. Over the years Covic was indicted three times in connection with a variety of financial transactions but ultimately cleared. In one case, prosecutors alleged that Covic and Matan Zaric, acting as members of the Board of Directors of the Mostar-based Croatian Posts and Telecom, transferred the company’s debt of 4.7 million BAM to three private firms. The three companies paid the debt and became majority owners of the telecom. The court declared the transactions void, but the indictments against Covic and Zaric were dropped when the statute of limitations expired. In another case, Covic was accused of enabling the Lijanovic meat processing company to avoid almost 39 million BAM in taxes. He received a five-year prison sentence, but was acquitted on lack of evidence on appeal. In the third case, prosecutors accused Covic of colluding with the-then Prime Minister of FB&H, Edhem Bicakcic, of mismanaging 7.8 million BAM in state funds to buy and renovate apartments for various government officials. Both were acquitted, again due to lack of evidence.

Pleasure with adoption of reform agenda in B&H (Srna)

Republika Srpska (RS) Prime Minister Zeljka Cvijanovic, German Ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina (B&H) Christian Hellbach and Germany’s special envoy for the Western Balkans, Turkey and EFTA states, Ernst Reichel, have expressed pleasure with the adoption of the 2015-2018 Reform Agenda, one of the prerequisites for the continuation of the process of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s European integration. Cvijanovic pointed out that the RS Government had previously proved it was committed to an active implementation of reforms focusing on the stabilization of the business environment and economic growth, as well as the preservation of social security, the goals defined in the 2015 Economic Policy and aligned with the main guidelines of the Reform Agenda. The Prime Minister underlined that a successful continuation of the process of European integration requires political agreement and support from all levels of government, with full adherence to the Dayton Peace Accords and constitutional competences in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Government’s press office said in a press release. The three officials exchanged views on other political issues and economic topics current in RS and B&H, in light of European integration. They also spoke about the activities carried out in order to step up the preparations for the upcoming round of the Structured Dialogue on Justice.

INTERNATIONAL PRESS

Could Thaci, Ceku and other Kosovo’s leaders stand trial for war crimes? (Sputnik)

The creation of a special court on war crimes was only recently approved by the authorities of the self-proclaimed republic of Kosovo. Pictures of former Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) members who might be accused of war crimes by a special court, including Deputy Premier of Kosovo and Foreign Minister Hashim Thaci, Speaker of Parliament Kadri Veseli, Vice Speaker of the Parliament Dzavit Haliti, former Prime Minister Agim Ceku and others, were published on by a Pristina daily called Bota Sot. The creation of a special court on war crimes was only recently approved by the authorities of the self-proclaimed republic after a year of intense international pressure. According to the newspaper, investigators from Kosovo will be working with the court that will be based in The Hague, though they are concerned that Pristina establishment might target them for prosecuting their friends and former comrades-in-arms. The first cases to be reviewed by the new court are linked to a report by Swiss politician Dick Marty regarding the alleged illicit organ trafficking in the 2000s involving high-ranking KLA officers. One such case details the killing of 14 Serbian peasants on July 23, 1999 in which, according to an investigation by UNMIK, the subordinates of Hashim Thaci were involved. The new court should probably consider the bitter experience of the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia, when dozens of witnesses in cases involving KLA officers died in murky circumstances. Fadil Lepaja, a political scientist from Pristina, told Sputnik that today witnesses should feel themselves safer than before because Kosovo politicians and the public opinion have a much lesser influence on the new court. He pointed out that previously the crimes of former KLA members were investigated by courts set up by EULEX and UNMIK, which were subjected to constant pressure by the accused themselves and suffered from corruption. Former Kosovo MP Rada Trajkovic also noted that virtually all of the KLA leadership was in bed with the Western intelligence services. It remains unclear whether these agencies will attempt to protect their ‘assets.’ But if the international community intends to expose those who conducted systematic ethnic cleansing and targeted people based on their ethnicity to murder them and harvest their organs, the guilty must pay for their crimes.

Europe’s Dilemma Over Migrants Can Only Get Worse (BIRN)

The confusion in Macedonia over how to deal with migrants – let them in or shoo them away – reflects a broader muddle over the issue in Europe as a whole.

Not long ago, Macedonia relaxed controls on the passage of asylum seekers through its territory, allowing them 72 hours to cross the country unhindered and the right to use public transport. Refugees remain stranded in no man’s land between Greece and Macedonia. If the intention was to ease the flow of foreigners through a country they have no intention of staying in, it has not worked. Increasingly chaotic scenes on the border with both Greece and Serbia suggest the measures have only spurred more and more people to try and use Macedonia as a transit route to the West. Now the Macedonians are going into reverse gear, deploying more police and troops on the frontiers and – as happened on Friday – even firing tear gas at crowds of waiting asylum seekers, to get them to disperse. Macedonia is not the only European country caught on the horns of a dilemma over what to do with one of largest migration waves in history – speed up their passage through the country, or try to divert them elsewhere? Bulgaria, relatively unaffected by the wave of migrants, has started building a border fence with Turkey to keep down the numbers. Hungary, much more affected than Bulgaria, is doing the same on its southern border with Serbia. Few believe wire fences are much more than a symbolic gesture. Unless they are permanently guarded the whole way along, they are easy to penetrate. Even if the fences worked, which appears unlikely, the only result would be to divert the human flow to another country. Because of that fear, of becoming the next “magnet” country for refugees, attempts to reach a Europe-wide solution to the crisis have got almost nowhere. Few countries want to take in any of the migrants in case it encourages a whole lot more to come. Britain, for example, flatly refused to take part in an EU-wide deal to share out some refugees among all EU countries, claiming it already had more than enough immigrants. But other countries were equally unimpressed by the quota plan, which is why it was torpedoed at an EU summit at the end of June. Slovakia, meanwhile, has since said it only wishes to take in refugees who are Christian. In reality, the plan to set quotas of refugees for all EU states was weakly thought out, as very few migrants want to stay permanently in any of the EU’s poorer countries.  Overwhelmingly they want to head for only a few, such as Germany, Sweden and Holland, where living standards are high and the jobs market stronger. The quota plan also covered only 40,000 refugees – nothing compared to the numbers now moving around and across Europe. In the absence of a continental agreement on how to react, Germany is being left to shoulder most of the burden. Germany is expected to receive an astonishing 800,000 asylum seekers by the end of this year, four times the number it took last year and more than all other EU member states combined received in 2014. It received 37,531 claims this July alone, almost twice the amount compared with the same month last year. In the first six months of this year, more than 400,000 asylum applications were lodged across all EU member states, according to Eurostat. Beyond Germany, 67,000 claims were filed in Hungary, and 29,000 in Sweden, 26,500 in France and 25,000 in Italy. By comparison, the UK received fewer than 9,500. For now, the Germans are behaving generously. But even Germany’s generosity has started to wear thin. Plans are ongoing to deport tens of thousands of failed asylum seekers back to the Balkans on the grounds that these are “safe” countries. What will happen in Germany starts closing the door on much larger numbers coming from the Middle East is anybody’s guess. The only clear point is that no other European country has the willingness or the capacity to take up the slack.

Bulgaria asks Serbia for clarity on Dacic views on migrants (IBNA)

The Bulgarian embassy in Belgrade has asked the Serbian foreign ministry for clarification regarding an interview given by Serbian foreign minister Ivica Dacic to Belgrade’s Danas newspaper, the Foreign Ministry in Sofia said. Serbian website b92 reported on August 19 that Dacic said that Serbia will not build a wall along the border with Macedonia to stem the tide of migrants crossing into the country. Dacic said was reporting as saying that the flow of migrants from the Middle East on their way to Hungary will “redirect to Croatia and Bulgaria.” “I don’t believe that Serbia will make a decision to, at some moment, like Hungary (on the border with Serbia) build a wall on the border with Macedonia in order to prevent the entry of refugees and migrants to our country,” he told the paper. Asked “how Serbia will behave and what measures it will take if the Hungarian wall leads to refugees and migrants, who are trying to reach the EU via Serbia, staying longer here,” Dacic said that this will “not occur,” as migrants “know where they can go and pass through in order to reach their desired destination”. However, the Bulgarian Foreign Ministry statement said that Serbia had said the matter concerns what it described as inaccuracies in the translation in the Bulgarian media of what Dacic said. According to Serbia, Dacic said that because of Hungary’s wall, the refugees will be forced to themselves find other ways to reach the desired goal and this would probably redirect the traffic to Croatia and Bulgaria.

“I do not believe Serbia will follow Hungary’s example and build a wall on its Macedonian border at some point to stop the inflow of refugees and migrants, said,” Dacic said, quoted in English by the Serbian news agency, Tanjug. Asked what Serbia will do and what measures it will undertake if, because of the wall at the Hungarian border refugees and migrants trying to reach EU member states via Serbia stay longer on Serbian territory, Dacic says that longer stay will not be reached.

“They will go via Croatia and Bulgaria,” he says. Dacic says that migrants know where they can go and where to cross in order to reach the desired ultimate goal. As a consequence, this means that Serbia will not have to build campsites for asylum seekers because their number is not expected to grow once the Hungarian wall is built, Dacic said. The Bulgarian Foreign Ministry said that the refugee pressure in the Balkan region creates risks for the stability of all countries. This requires stronger communication among the competent state institutions, along with joint efforts and co-operation. Politicians in the region who make statements concerning other neighbouring countries should be especially careful about what they say and should take into account the level of responsibility called for by the crisis situation. The responsibility politicians have towards the public needs to be shared by the mass media as well, through their accuracy and professionalism, the Bulgarian Foreign Ministry said.