Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic said that due to joining the EU, the Constitution of Serbia has to change and that would be necessary a broad consensus for it.
On the question of the students of the Faculty of Law in Belgrade, whether the highest legal act will have to be changed because of a preamble in which Kosovo and Metohija is referred to as an integral part of Serbia; the Prime Minister said that it will be due to “Serbia’s accession to the EU.”
He, however, did not answer specifically whether the change implies deleting of Kosovo from the Serbian Constitution.
– There must be a broad consensus, we need to talk with everyone, it is pointless that two or three parties decide about it, but also with non-governmental organizations and regional factors – generally was speaking Vucic to students, when he lectured on the topic “Serbia between East and West.”
A month earlier, Deputy Justice Minister Cedomir Backovic was more precise. He said that the draft Action Plan for Chapter 23 in the accession negotiations with the EU, Serbia has pledged to change the Constitution by the end of 2017.
Recall that even the most optimistic forecasts do not envisage that Serbia will become an EU member by 2020, so the question is why Belgrade has pledged that it would change its supreme legal act by the end of 2017.
For the President of the State Movement of Serbia Slobodan Samardzic there is no doubt that the ruling regime insists on amending the Constitution because of Kosovo and that the changes in the legal system as the reduce of the number of MPs and the like are just excuses for it.
– No country before has changed its constitution because of the European integration, but rather after the conclusion of negotiations on all the chapters and when an accession treaty was concluded. Only then the state is obliged to accede to a change of the constitution, if it’s not in compliance with some European laws. So the explanation, that Serbia would change the Constitution due to changes in the judicial system serves only as a cover to change the provision on the status of Kosovo and Metohija in the Serbian Constitution – considered Samardzic, who teaches European relations and the EU at the Faculty of Political Science in Belgrade.
