LOCAL PRESS

Nikolic: Serbia will never recognize Kosovo (RTS)

Serbia wishes to part of the EU and I want this, but Serbia will never recognize independence of Kosovo and Metohija, Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic told the delegation of journalists from Germany. He said that Serbia will never recognize independence of Kosovo while it is up to the EU to say whether this stand of ours is completely contrary to the EU wish to be their member. In a one-hour-long conversation with German journalists, Nikolic assessed that “we are very close to the point where Europe will open completely its cards”. He points out that he is not giving up the idea for Serbia to become an EU member, as well as that, as long as this is possible, Belgrade wishes to take part in the talks with Pristina and in Brussels with the EU, as long as the EU doesn’t give up these talks. Nikolic thinks that Serbia has gone now, after all the praises for reforms implemented by this government, many years backwards in relation to the EU. Asked about relations with Moscow, the President said that Serbia doesn’t need to introduce sanctions to Russia and said that the EU should “openly tell us if it is punishing us because of this”.

Pak: Nikolic supports referendum on Kosovo and Metohija (TV Pink)

Serbian President’s media advisor Stanislava Pak has stated that Serbia will do everything it can to access the EU but she also noted that the country made it clear at the very beginning of the process that it will not fulfil the condition that refers to recognition of the so-called independence of Kosovo and Metohija. “The President stressed that it would be good for the widest possible consensus to be achieved on the matter and for citizens to be eventually explicitly asked to voice their view concerning the issue, Pak told the morning broadcast of TV Pink. She added that President Nikolic announced he would discuss this matter with Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic. She stressed that the items were placed on the table that are absolutely unacceptable, for Serbia to be in a position to send reports to its own province and for ministries to send reports on their work. “Does the EU want us in its ranks, you will have to ask them, they say they want, yet, when the conditions are placed on the table, it turns out that they don’t want us there,” said Pak. She says she is certain that the Germans are “our friends, perhaps there might have been a misunderstanding that the Prime Minister will probably fix through his contacts that we have in Germany”. Speaking about Kosovo’s initiative to become an UNESCO member, Pak announced that President Nikolic will talk on Friday with the ambassadors in Serbia and present them with the stand that it is absolutely unacceptable for a country that is not a UN member to become an UNESCO member.

Ten contentious points of the EU draft resolution (Tanjug)

Serbia has a number of objections to the EU draft platform on common negotiating platform for Chapter 35, and the most important ones Tanjug has had insight into are:

1) There is no standard part referring to harmonization of content with common rules and regulations of the EU (acquis communitaire), which is contained in all platforms for other chapters.

2) Progress in the process of normalization of relations with Kosovo (instead Pristina) is mentioned

3) Discontinuation of financial support to Serbian structures is requested, including provisional municipal bodies, which would leave around 5,000 people without jobs and lead to erosion of Serbia’s authority in Kosovo-Metohija.

4) Establishment of the Kosovo legal system in northern Kosovo, without specifying that this is feasible only after the formation of the community of Serbian municipalities (ZSO).

5) Submission of quarterly reports to Kosovo’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Ministry of Justice about pension payments to retired members of the Serbian Interior Ministry and workers in the judiciary, which is beyond the scope of the Brussels agreement, and something that has no grounds in the Serbian legislation.

6) Adoption of a special law on seats and territorial jurisdiction of courts and prosecutor’s offices in Serbia, which would be contrary to the Constitution and laws.

7) Acceptance of Kosovo seals and headers in official correspondence, which is contentious because they read “the Republic of Kosovo”.

8) Solving the issue of managing the Gazivode hydropower plant without noting that prior consent of both sides is required on this.

9) Enabling foreign nationals to enter Serbia from Kosovo as nationals of “third countries”, which implies that Kosovo-Metohija is a state.

10) Objections by the Serbian side to an earlier draft screening report for Chapter 35 have not been acknowledged.

Drecun: Ensure safe future for Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija (Tanjug)

It must be ensured that Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija have sustainable prospects and a safe future, the Chairperson of the Serbian parliamentary Committee for Kosovo and Metohija, Milovan Drecun said. Speaking to reporters in the Serbian parliament, Drecun said that normalization of relations with Albanians living in Kosovo and Metohija is important in that process. Asked to comment on the continuation of Serbia’s EU path in the context of opening Chapter 35, Drecun responded that there can be no talk about how much the fight for Kosovo and Metohija costs, but about “how much giving up on Kosovo and Metohija would cost us, and that would be unthinkable”, he said. A long-term agreement needs to be reached in the dialogue with ethnic Albanians on creating conditions for Kosovo Serbs to have sustainable prospects and a safe future, he said.

Dittman: Kosovo recognition not chapter opening condition (B92)

Germany is not requesting from Serbia to recognize Kosovo as a condition for opening chapters in the accession talks with the EU, German Ambassador to Serbia Axel Dittmann stated on Wednesday. It is known that inside of the EU Germany advocates, among other things, for Chapter 35 in Serbia’s EU accession talks to be opened now. The allegations that in this context the EU or Germany are asking from Serbia to recognize Kosovo are unfounded. There are no additional conditions, Dittmann told TV B92. Dittmann said that it is clear that the draft on the EU negotiating position regarding this chapter includes interim steps that refer to the implementation of the agreements reached in the political dialogue with Pristina in line with the EU documents and agreements with Serbia reached to date.

REGIONAL PRESS

SDA-SBB coalition agreed at all levels, signing next week (Oslobodjenje)

At the B&H Presidency building a meeting was held between Bakir Izetbegovic and Fahrudin Radoncic, SDA and SBB presidents, at which they harmonized positions and agreed on the SBB’s entry into coalition with the SDA. After the meeting with Izetbegovic, Radoncic said he hopes that the two parties will sign on to a coalition next week. “It was concretely agreed that a coalition alliance at all levels will go forward. I think that these discussions are not in a known phase of negotiations, but rather have a very quality phase to unblock the process and get an efficient government and start to concern ourselves with economic and other reforms, NATO integration, and European integration. I expect that after today’s meeting, delegations will sit down in the first half of next week and create a coalition agreement,” said Radoncic. “I think at the moment it is most important that we consolidate the situation in the Federation. Say, we very quickly adopted some ten laws, ten to fifteen days later we adopted another ten or so important laws. We are going to stabilize the cantons and of course after that it will come to the state level,” added Radoncic. To a question of whether the SBB would take over all four ministries in the Federation, Radoncic said that today they did not discuss these details, but in politics there are things that in principle are understood. “We have a greater coalition capacity than the DF, we are the second strongest party in the Federation, and the DF is third, according to which this is an expected epilogue around which we won’t argue.”
This was the third meeting between the SDA and SBB leadership.

SB&H and A-SDA left without ministerial posts (Patria)

The meeting between the SDA leader Bakir Izetbegovic and SB&H leader Amer Jerlagic and A-SDA leader Nermin Ogresevic ended in the B&H Presidency building, Patria reports. It was already clear yesterday that these two parties, which helped the SDA to adopt the new Labor Law, remained without ministerial posts, when the SBB leader Fahrudin Radoncic said that all four DF ministerial posts in the FB&H belong to them. It was confirmed today that SB&H and A-SDA remain without ministerial posts and Izetbegovic said that they were offered posts of assistant directors in companies and board of directors. Ogresevic will continue negotiations, but Jerlagic is certainly not happy with this outcome, because he hoped for the Ministry for Energy and Mining, so they announced a session of the SB&H collegium in order to decide whether they will continue negotiations with the SDA.

Flag resembling ISIL appears outside B&H Presidency (Srna) 

Members of the Directorate for Coordination of Police Bodies arrested a person who was waving a flag resembling ISIL’s in front of the Presidency Building in Sarajevo on Wednesday. The Directorate for Coordination of Police Bodies confirmed that the person who was sitting in a passenger vehicle that was parked in front of the B&H Presidency Building and showing off a flag resembling ISIL’s was noticed on Wednesday. The State Investigation and Protection Agency (SIPA) informed Srna that the SIPA police officers apprehended the person on Wednesday afternoon who the officers of the Directorate for Coordination of Police Bodies kept in custody. The person will be investigated in coordination with the B&H Prosecutor’s Office in the SIPA official premises.

Conference on Dayton Peace Agreement (Srna)

Conference on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the Dayton Peace Agreement began on Wednesday in Washington in the organization of the famous American magazine Foreign Policy, which the Republika Srpska Prime Minister Zeljka Cvijanovic attends, although the organizers were faced with pressures from Bosniak associations in the US not to hold the conference, the RS government announced. Cvijanovic stated in Washington that 20 years after the signing of the Dayton Peace Agreement, it is important not only to mark the peace which this agreement brought to B&H, but also to re-commit to a consistent application of the political system that was wisely established by this agreement, because therein lies the key to the survival and future of B&H.

INTERNATIONAL PRESS

Serbia cries foul over Kosovo, Germany says complaints unfounded (Reuters, by Ivana Sekularac and Aleksandar Vasovic, 14 October 2015)

BELGRADE Serbia accused Germany on Wednesday of trying to amend the terms of Belgrade’s European Union membership negotiations that would mean effective recognition of its former Kosovo province as independent, a claim Berlin’s envoy dismissed as “unfounded”.

Ministers took to Serbian airwaves to denounce the alleged German maneuvers as an attempt to “humiliate” the Balkan country, feeding an atmosphere of political crisis with conservative Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic already eyeing a snap election to cement his hold on power.

Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008, almost a decade after NATO went to war to halt the killing and expulsion of ethnic Albanian civilians by Serbian forces trying to crush a guerrilla insurgency. Serbia does not recognize Kosovo as sovereign, but signed up to a landmark accord in 2013 designed to settle relations between the two as a condition of Belgrade’s further progress towards membership of the EU. Implementation has been slow and often politically unpalatable. This week, with Vucic considering whether to call a snap election that looks likely to hand him a stronger mandate, his government rounded on Germany, accusing it of introducing new elements to the platform for Serbia’s EU membership negotiations, which Berlin says should begin with Chapter 35 on ties with Kosovo. “We don’t dispute the fact that Chapter 35 should be opened first, but we dispute the content of the draft negotiating platform,” Marko Djuric, the government’s pointman for Kosovo, told Reuters. He earlier told Serbian media that Belgrade was being asked to effectively recognize its former province as sovereign, something it has said it will never do. Djuric said the platform contained elements that had not been discussed during EU-mediated dialogue between Serbia and Kosovo, citing among things the abolition of Serbian institutions within ethnic Serb areas of Kosovo and the jurisdiction of Kosovo courts. Germany’s ambassador to Serbia, Axel Dittmann, told Serbian B92 television the accusations were “unfounded”. Diplomats pointed to the text of the accord Serbia signed in 2013. “Everything on the agenda is in line with what Serbia knows and what Serbia accepted,” an EU diplomat told Reuters. Vucic scheduled a meeting with the Serbian Orthodox patriarch for Thursday, with reports saying Kosovo and the EU would be on the agenda. “This is undoubtedly a great challenge for the Republic of Serbia,” Interior Minister Nebojsa Stefanovic told reporters.

But some analysts were skeptical. “This is about raising political tensions for things that have to be done,” said Jelena Milic of the Centre for Euro-Atlantic Studies in Belgrade.

(Writing by Matt Robinson; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

EU Acts to Redirect Bosnian Serb Referendum Drama (BIRN, by Denis Dzidic, 14 October 2015)

The EU and other international officials have warned Bosnia’s Serb-led entity not to hold a controversial referendum questioning the authority of the state-level judiciary, but their pleas could be ignored, experts said.

Bosnian political and legal experts said that that the proposed referendum challenging the authority of the state-level judiciary – put forward by the leading Bosnian Serb party, the Union of Independent Social Democrats, SNSD – has become a “political drama” that is being used to unite Serbs in Republika Srpska, so warnings against it by international officials might not succeed. Banja Luka-based political analyst Srdjan Puhalo told BIRN that the idea of the referendum is here to stay because the SNSD and its president, Milorad Dodik, are using it to divert attention from the economic hardships that people in Republika Srpska are facing. “This is a process that is almost certain to last for the next year, or year and a half, and it is hard to say what will happen in the end,” Puhalo said. “This prolonged state of talking about the referendum is good for the SNSD, because they are the ones dictating the subjects, which are being used to mask other problems in the economy and corruption and unemployment. It is being used to homogenise the Serb voters, to mobilise them against all others; it is being used by the SNSD to show they are the only ones caring for the interests of Republika Srpska,” he added. The EU Foreign Affairs Council expressed “serious concern” on Monday about preparations for holding the referendum in the Serb-dominated entity, Republika Srpska. “The holding of such a referendum would challenge the cohesion, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Bosnia and Herzegovina,” the Foreign Affairs Council said in a statement. The initiative to hold the referendum was launched by Dodik in July this year, because of alleged bias against Serb victims in war crimes cases. Voters will be asked whether they support the “anti-constitutional and unauthorised laws imposed by the High Representative of the international community, especially the laws imposed relating to the [state] court and the prosecutor’s office of Bosnia and Herzegovina”. The referendum is strongly opposed by Bosniak politicians, who have warned that it could upset the country’s fragile post-war stability. It was scheduled to take place on November 15, but Bosniak delegates in the Republika Srpska parliament have caused a potential delay by asking the entity’s constitutional court to rule on whether their rights are being violated by the fact that no non-Serbs were included in the parliamentary working group on the referendum. Bosnian legal expert Vehid Sehic said that it was not yet clear whether the EU’s intervention would derail the planned vote. “It is very difficult to say whether the EU pressure will succeed, since the referendum has become a political drama. What we must hope for is that in the near future the Bosnian Serb leadership will back out of it,” Sehic told BIRN. “We have heard already from international community officials within the country and some experts from here that it could destabilise the country. Most notably, we have heard from Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic, who criticised the idea, and I hope the SNSD will use these voices, and the recent pressure from Brussels, to back out of the idea,” he said. Sehic said the proposed referendum is not only a potential threat to the sovereignty and political stability of the country, but is also unconstitutional. “If it were allowed, then parts of the country, entities or cantons or municipalities, would be allowed to hold referendums on state-level issues, which cannot be allowed. So I think it will be stopped at some point,” he said. Sehic added however that although the referendum is a dangerous idea, there are clear issues within the state-level judiciary which should be addressed, but that should be done within the EU-backed ‘structured dialogue’ talks on reforming the country’s justice system. “What must be done, at the very least, is to clarify the jurisdiction of the state-level authority over the entities, which is now unclear and causes so much tension and turmoil,” he said.

Finding an exit strategy

The Bosnian state judiciary has jurisdiction over all criminal acts covered in the state-level criminal code, adopted in 2003. According to section 7 of the code, the court can also demand that cases relating to criminal acts covered by the laws of the country’s two entities, Republika Srpska and the Bosniak-Croat Federation, be sent to state level if they undermine the sovereignty, territorial integrity or national security of the country. This ability to take over cases from the entity-level judiciaries has been strongly criticised by the Bosnian Serb leadership.

Both Sehic and Puhalo said they believe that the referendum is likely to face delays and that the story will continue to dominate headlines in the upcoming months. Puhalo said that if Dodik or the SNSD backs down now, it would affect their perceived standing as leaders in the Bosnian Serb entity, because they have been so vocal in announcing the plan. But because the story has to end with either a vote, which would create major problems, or with a climbdown by Dodik, Puhalo suggested that it is likely that the SNSD will eventually declare that it has won the argument without actually holding the referendum. “At some point the SNSD will try to find an elegant exit strategy. The only way out for them is to declare victory against the state-level judiciary,” Puhalo explained. “Now the question is whether what they declare as victory will be recognised by the people in Republika Srpska as an actual victory. That is what the SNSD will hope will happen,” he 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.