LOCAL PRESS

Vucic: Dialogue doesn’t mean Kosovo recognition (Tanjug/Beta/B92)

“My call to dialogue does not mean the recognition of Kosovo,” says Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic. “This is just a call to dialogue, solutions are not ready-made. Stop making things up on all sides. I will not come out with solutions before I hear the views of the whole society,” Vucic said on Monday, while touring a hospital in Kragujevac. He was responding to journalists, who wanted to have his comment on Russian historian Elena Guskova’s statement that the opening of a dialogue leads to the recognition of Kosovo. “Serbian politics is run by Serbian leadership in accordance with Serbian national and national interests,” Vucic said. “It’s good that there is participation in the dialogue. We welcome this. It is good that we hear every opinion, from those we heard from Mr. (Vojislav) Seselj, with (Tsar) Lazar’s curses, to (former President) Tadic, with a chair in the United Nations (for Kosovo, without formal recognition) – you heard at least three different proposals from (members of) the government, and it’s good that people have opened up to talk about what they think. Then we will sit down with the citizens and talk about what is possible, and what we must not lose,” Vucic said. In addition, Vucic stated today that Serbia does not want to be a member of any military alliance: “We’re not even discussing NATO, at all. Serbia does not want to be a part of any military alliance. Serbia has its own army. The question, do you want to join NATO? No. Do you want to join CSTO? No, we don’t want to enter CSTO. We have the Serbian army and it will be strengthening. Stop conducting Serbia’s policy from all sides. We will not enter NATO, thank you. We will not enter CSTO, thank you.” Everyone expects Serbia to be take sides. Serbia is not sitting on two chairs, as some claim. Serbia has its own, Serbian chair and nobody else’s. We are choosing our own path to the future,” Vucic underlined. According to him, Serbia is more than ever exposed to various pressures from different sides. “Nobody is satisfied with the position of Serbia, because it is an independent state and takes care of its interests, under conditions of a growing conflict between great powers, when more than 750 persons are being expelled from diplomatic missions, so the sharp rhetoric is understandable,” Vucic said.

Оdalovic: Broadening internal dialogue on Kosovo and Metohija (RTS)

Secretary General of the Serbian Foreign Ministry Veljko Odalovic welcomed the invitation of President Aleksandar Vucic for an internal dialogue on Kosovo and Metohija, stressing it is good to discuss any topic with as many as possible public figures, without any prejudices and pressures. “It is good that this initiative has been launched, it is good that this topic is discussed courageously and I believe that Serbia will come out of all this stronger, with specific proposals and solutions,” Odalovic told Radio and Television of Serbia (RTS). “It is important to broaden the internal dialogue, to conduct it with as many as possible participants, to have as many as possible free proposals, initiatives and suggestions, and to define from all this a form, strategy and for the state leadership to have a harmonized internal dialogue and specific solutions,” says Odalovic. He says Belgrade could present this to Pristina that, as he says, we need to see as a partner in this dialogue, but also to the international community, because it is obvious that the interests of the big powers were decisive for everything that occurred through history and during the 1990s. “Kosovo’s independence has been supported by a large number of countries that took part in the NATO campaign, and for that very reason we have to talk to them too because unilaterally declared independence will certainly not be our starting platform,” said Odalovic. He says that one part of Albanian intellectuals open these topics from time to time, and assesses that the quality of the dialogue depends from the work of the Special Prosecution for crimes committed in Kosovo and Metohija and possible indictments. “If the dialogue is conducted by people who had committed, according to our general assurance and evidence,   numerous crimes and are responsible for everything that happened there, the quality of this dialogue will be very low since we cannot accept for the existing state, created with unprecedented violence, abduction, crimes, to be legalized,” stresses Odalovic. He reminds that 1,663 people are still missing, and more than 11,000 are dead, pointing that this must not pass without an answer of the Kosovo society, whereby those who committed those crimes must be removed from the political scene so that the dialogue is of high quality.

Tadic denies advocating UN chair for Pristina (Beta)

Opposition SDS leader Boris Tadic has denied that he is advocating for Kosovo to get a chair in the UN. “It is a lie that I am in favor of Kosovo getting a chair in the UN,” the former Serbian president said in a statement on Tuesday, carried by Beta, and added: “And the truth is I said – responding to a suggestion made by a journalist in her question – that in the circumstances when Kosovo is sliding towards independence, after the signed Brussels Agreement, if I were in Vucic’s place I would consider even that, as well as some other solutions, in order to avoid the act of formal recognition.” Tadic further stated that unfortunately this act is ever more certain. “In the wake the Kosovo policy of these authorities, we need to save what can still be saved. Therefore, that even such a solution should perhaps be considered today is the consequence of Vucic’s Kosovo policy – so it is extremely hypocritical of Vucic to wonder why I mentioned it today, instead of during my presidential term,” Tadic said. He added that he would never bring Serbia into this situation – because he knows exactly where the red lines of the Kosovo policy are. “Vucic should take the responsibility for pursuing a Kosovo policy in the direction of reducing the options for preserving the Serb interests, instead of lecturing others about courage,” Tadic, said, noting it was especially hypocritical of Vucic to speak about his courage in doing something that his former party cursed and made death threats over. Tadic also pointed out that Vucic came to power promising to annul everything that the former government had agreed with Pristina. “I did not think at the time about UN chair as a solution, because I did not conduct a policy that narrows the maneuvering space for the Serbian side, but one which extended it without endangering the process of EU integration,” he said. Tadic recalled that his “four-point plan” outlined in 2011, when negotiations with Pristina began, envisaged judicial, legislative and executive power for the north of Kosovo, and personal autonomy for Serbs living south of the Ibar, rather than accepting the legal system of an independent Kosovo – which is the basis of Vucic’s and Dacic’s Brussels Agreement. “My plan also established the legal authority of the Serbian Orthodox Church over our monasteries and protection of the property of Serbia. But since, after the Brussels Agreement, most UN members recognized Kosovo’s independence, and since the Constitution and laws of Serbia have not been applied even in the north of Kosovo after the SNS came to power in 2012, we have found ourselves in a new political reality today,” Tadic said.  He assessed that those who created it are responsible for this reality, not those who state it. “Even if he wanted to, Vucic is no longer able to speak the elementary truth. Not only does he publish a misinterpretation of my statement, but he also calls it ‘participation’ in his dialogue,” Tadic said.

REGIONAL PRESS

Zvizdic: B&H CoM is fully functional (TV1)

After a session of B&H Council of Ministers (CoM) held in Sarajevo on Monday, Chairman of B&H CoM Denis Zvizdic addressed a press conference. He underlined that the B&H CoM will continue to function in its full capacity. Zvizdic emphasized that those who voted against adoption of the B&H CoM’s Work Report had no arguments to make such move. He went on by saying that he expected a discussion in B&H HoR on the Work Report that includes arguments and added that the discussion included every other topic, but the work of the B&H CoM. In his opinion, the HoR failed to adopt the Work Report due to politicizing and the fact that the pre-election campaign has already started. “It is a fact that an unprincipled coalition between SNSD and SBB (B&H) was established that day (five days ago) at the level of the state of B&H and we will see whether things will remain in this way in the future. The coalition aimed to ensure non-adoption of the Work Report of the CoM and to undermine progress of the state of B&H on the EU path. On one hand, the coalition acted in a functional and coordinated way on non-adoption of the Work Report of the CoM and on the other hand, trying to protect Spiric, as a Chairman of (B&H Joint Commission for Supervision of B&H Intelligence-Security Agency)”. Zvizdic also underlined that talks with representatives of the RS about the Transport Community Treaty and other topics are ongoing and denied the allegations that the coordination mechanism is dysfunctional. He stated: “The coordination mechanism is fully functional. 33, out of 36 working groups held their meetings and they are actively working”. Speaking about the EU integration, Zvizdic said that 2016 was the most successful year ever and added that when it comes to international cooperation and the rule of the law, the situation is the same. He explained that answers to the EC’s Questionnaire would have been delivered by now, if representatives of the RS submitted their responses on time. Zvizdic announced that B&H will fulfill all of its obligations related to the EC’ Questionnaire early in autumn, September or October, in the case that there are no political obstructions like the ones over the past four months. Zvizdic also stressed that excise duties will remain one of the priorities and suggested to the entity governments that will use the loans obtained on the basis of the excise duties, to offer a different solution, if they have one.

Cvijanovic: Zvizdic accuses others of his own failures (Srna)

Republika Srpska Prime Minister Zeljka Cvijanovic told Srna that the indicator of “successful” work of the B&H Council of Ministers is that none of the reform laws forwarded to the B&H parliament has passed, and that the CoM Chairman Denis Zvizdic has no right to accuse the RS and blame the SNSD just because he was betrayed by coalition partners. “The SNSD is an opposition at B&H level and is not in charge of preserving the ruling structure and majority at that level of government,” Cvijanovic has stressed anent Zvizdic’s statement that the overturn of the Report on work performance of the Council of Ministers in the B&H parliament is the result of an unprincipled coalition between the SBB and the SNSD aimed at destroying B&H’s path to the EU and overturning the report which was established that day. According to her, just because Zvizdic has been betrayed by coalition partners – the SDS, including a part of the deputies from his own party, in the Reform Agenda implementation, and the SBB by not supporting the report on work performance of the CoM, it does not give him the right to accuse RS of his own failures, and put a blame on the SNSD. “Even if the RS sent the answers to the European Commission’s Questionnaire six months ago, this and such Council of Ministers has failed to make assumptions even for the process of translating this material, not to mention that they have been obstructing for months and are still obstructing the coordination mechanism,” said Cvijanovic. According to her, this incessant complaining of the B&H CoM is ridiculous, since it persistently accuses others of its failures in the parliament. “I must remind him that both the government and the RS Assembly have fulfilled all of their obligations from the Reform Agenda seven months ago, and that none of the laws that came out of it was supported by the parties pretendedly being Zvizdic’s coalition European force,” Cvijanovic stressed. “Everything else – photographing and posing before cameras, giving fictitious promises in foreign destinations, and looking for a culprit in the Srpska institutions for their own mistakes and lack of work, is nothing more than selling the Brooklyn Bridge (selling a fog). The difference is that there is no more bridge /the fog/ to buy,” said Cvijanovic. After all, she has added, Zvizdic is expected, as the European officials wrote to him, to provide internal coordination concerning the Law on excise duties and the Transport Community Treaty, because it is clear to them that the CoM is circumventing the coordination mechanism. “Asking the entity prime ministers to reconsider the excise duties or some other model once again, after doing it so many times, and being fully defined by the Reform Agenda and the Letter of Intent with the IMF, is irresponsible and unserious,” the RS Prime Minister says.

SDA: We will not give up on our motion before B&H CC in order to protect Bosniaks in RS (Glas Srpkse)

SDA issued a press statement on Monday saying it will insist on implementation of the conclusions of SDA Main Board adopted in Doboj with goal to improve position of Bosniaks living in the RS. According to the statement, SDA will file a motion before the Constitutional Court of B&H in order to ensure protection of right of Bosniaks to Bosnian language and proportional representation in public institutions in the RS – the rights guaranteed by the RS Constitution.

Moore pays farewell visit to Cvijanovic (Srna)

Head of the OSCE Mission to B&H Jonathan Moore paid a farewell visit to Banja Luka, on which occasion he met RS Prime Minister Zeljka Cvijanovic. On this occasion, Cvijanovic stressed that reform processes remain to be priority for the RS Government, adding that institutions are carrying out measures, defined by the RS Action Plan for implementation of Reform Agenda. RS PM expressed hope that other authority levels will demonstrate same amount of dedication and understanding for honoring of agreed programs. The officials discussed current political developments and economic issues in the RS and B&H, with accent on implementation of socioeconomic reforms. Cvijanovic thanked Moore for fair and good cooperation, as well as positive initiative and projects that OSCE Mission carried out in cooperation with the RS government and institutions.

Moore: Bosnian language exists for centuries and there must be no discrimination in RS (Fena)

Moore stated today in Banja Luka that the RS must not discriminate against Bosniak children, with regards to use of Bosnian language. “For decades the practice was to call the language of Bosniak people, the Bosnian. Franciscan Monastery in Fojnica has dictionary of Bosnian language from 18th century. Bosnian language is not “some invention” after the war, that is something that exists for centuries”, said Moore. He argues that practice of the former RS government was that in certain regions, Bosnian language was included into report cards, adding that because of unknown reasons this ruling coalition in the RS and RS Pedagogical Institute, two years ago, decided to change that and name the language as “language of Bosniak people”. “That is the formulation in RS Constitution, but the problem is in discrimination, because the report cards do not read the language of Serb people and of Croat people, but only Serb and Croat language, while for the Bosniaks it reads – language of Bosniak people. That is discrimination”, warned Moore. Moore gave this statement to the media, following the meeting with PDP leader Branislav Borenovic. Head of OSCE Mission stressed that international principle say that the people has right to name their language as they please. “Bosniaks say that their language is Bosnian. That is international principle and that is the principle that we defend”, said Moore. He stressed that OSCE Mission wants to see good education in B&H. Borenovic expressed fear that this issue is overly politicized and stressed that the RS Constitution clearly stated that there can be no mention of Bosnian language in the RS. “I fear that issue of language entered the sphere of heavy politics”, said Borenovic.

Zaev and Borisov sign friendship agreement (MIA)

The agreement signed in Skopje on Tuesday by Macedonian Prime Minister Zoran Zaev and his visiting Bulgarian counterpart, Boyko Borissov, envisages Bulgarian support for Macedonia’s bid to join the NATO and EU, the improvement of trade and transport infrastructure and the easing of customs and border formalities. Bulgaria and Macedonia have together made a historic step forward, Macedonian Prime Minister Zoran Zaev said after signing the bilateral friendship agreement. The signing of the agreement shows that when there is a political will and an idea for progress, the issues will be resolved, he said. The agreement also shows to the EU and NATO that Balkan states have political leaderships which build bridges, Zaev said, adding that the states deserve the European perspective. “We left history as a basis for the future and we opened a way of stability and development for the two countries and the Balkan region. We closed issues, clearing the way for cooperation between our countries,” the Prime Minister stated. He declared that the government of Macedonia has decided to make a policy of solutions instead of one of problems.

INTERNATIONAL PRESS

Might Vucic Become Serbia’s de Gaulle on Kosovo? (BIRN, by Marcus Tanner, 1 August 2017)

The Serbian President’s recent words on Kosovo invite intriguing comparisons with those of another nationalist in another time.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic’s comment article on Kosovo in the newspaper Blic some days ago has set Balkan watchers talking. In a signed article, the most powerful man in Belgrade said it was high time the people “stopped putting their heads in the sand” on Kosovo and “got real”. Serbs and Albanians both needed to acknowledge the hurt they had caused each other, he added, going on to pay homage to the memory of Israel’s would-be peacemaker with Palestinians, Simon Peres. In another country, calls to “get real” on the topic of a province that was lost almost two decades ago would not be front-page news. But in the context of Serbian nationalism, this was sit-up-and-take-notice stuff. What was remarkable about Vucic’s article also was not what he said but what he did not say. Where were the obligatory references to Kosovo and Metohija as Serbia’s “cradle”– and the ritual pledge never to recognise Kosovo as a state, under any circumstances? Bona fide “Kosovo-is-Serbia” nationalists should be worried. They should also be hoping that Vucic hasn’t been thumbing though biographies of Charles De Gaulle – as well as books about Peres. Why? Because De Gaulle was the archetypal right-wing nationalist who took on all the other right-wing nationalists – and in a way that no liberal or socialist would ever have dared to. Of course, the parallels between Vucic and Kosovo today and De Gaulle and Algeria back then are not identical; no one in France thought of Algeria – conquered in 1830 – as the national cradle. Still, it’s worth remembering also that, up to the late 1950s, mentioning even the possibility of Algerian independence was political heresy. Algeria was “the heart of France”, was part of the French state [unlike the colonies] and – more to the point – was home to about a million Frenchmen and women who in Algiers, Oran and Constantine had created smaller versions of Paris and Marseilles. Moreover, it was the believers in French Algeria, Algérie Française, who brought De Gaulle out of retirement in the spring of 1958 and back to power – mistakenly believing that the granite-like wartime hero would bring Algeria’s pro-independence rebels to heel. Only a few days after seizing power, De Gaulle seemed to live up to those hopes, flying to Algiers and, on June 4 1958, addressing a vast crowd in the Algiers Forum with the famous words: “Je vous ai compris!” “I have understood you!” In hindsight, it turned out that what De Gaulle had “understood” was not the anger of the French Algerians but hopelessness of the France’s position in Algeria – and the fact that nothing less than independence would extricate France from a conflict without end. It is worth remembering also that when De Gaulle decided to cut the Gordian knot over Algeria, he was not motivated by a scintilla of liberal sympathy with Arab nationalism. Cold calculation of France’s national interest dictated everything. Above all, he had decided that France could never achieve its goal of becoming the dominant force within what would become the European Union if a prolonged war in North Africa consumed all its energy. Another motive was a crude understanding of demographic trends. The fast pace of the increase in the population of Algeria had impressed him deeply, given that France’s own population was virtually stagnant. If the two remained united, he reportedly remarked in 1959, the European character of France would be unsustainable. If Vucic has reached his own De Gaulle moment and has concluded that, in the end, it is going to be either Kosovo or Europe – not both/and – he can draw comfort from the fact that he will probably not have to pay anything like the same price that De Gaulle did. The destruction of Algérie Francaise traumatised France and split the French right – the consequences of which live on today. De Gaulle himself was the subject of several assassination attempts by enraged far rightists, including a very dramatic one on August 22 1962, when 12 gunmen sprayed his motorcade in the Avenue de la Liberation in Paris with 140 bullets. That he survived was incredible, given that the gunmen knocked out all four of his tires, despite which his state-of-the-art Citroen kept going!

Somehow, for all the sound and fury over “the southern province,” it is doubtful Vucic would encounter anything like the same level of anger.

Marcus Tanner is an editor of Balkan Insight and the author of “Albania’s Mountain Queen, Edith Durham and the Balkans” [Tauris].

The opinions expressed in the Comment section are those of the authors only and do not necessarily reflect the views of BIRN.

Macedonia, Bulgaria sign treaty to improve ties (Reuters, by Kole Casule and Angel Krasimirov, 1 August 2017)

SKOPJE/SOFIA – Macedonian Prime Minister Zoran Zaev and his Bulgarian counterpart Boyko Borissov signed a friendship treaty on Tuesday in a move designed to end years of diplomatic wrangling and boost Macedonia’s European integration. Macedonia’s difficult relations with its bigger eastern neighbor, with which it shares close religious, historic and linguistic ties, have hampered Skopje’s efforts to join NATO and the European Union. Bulgaria belongs to both organizations. Bulgaria still does not recognize the Macedonian language, which it views as a dialect of Bulgarian. The two Balkan nations have also clashed over minority rights and the nationality of 19th century guerrillas who fought to free the region from Ottoman Turkish rule.

Both Skopje and Sofia hope the new treaty will help them set aside such differences.

“(This is a) joint contribution to political stabilization between the two countries and in the region,” Zaev told reporters after the signing. Macedonia, a small ex-Yugoslav republic of about 2 million, gained independence from Belgrade in 1991. It avoided the bloody Balkan wars of the 1990s, but was rocked by an insurgency of its large ethnic Albanian minority in 2001. Skopje wants to join the EU and NATO but its efforts are blocked by its southern neighbor Greece, which says the name ‘Macedonia’ implies a territorial claim to its own northern province of the same name. In the document Bulgaria pledged to support Macedonia’s NATO and EU integration. The two countries said they would also improve economic ties, renounce territorial claims and improve human and minority rights. “For the first time, without mediators or somebody telling us what to do, the two states came to a solution,” said Bulgaria’s prime minister Borissov.

Last week, the Bulgarian parliament unanimously supported the treaty in a rare case of such consensus in the Black Sea country of 7.1 million people. However, parts of the document that address national issues were opposed by Macedonia’s opposition and the former ruling party, the rightist VMRO-DPMNE, which said it would not support it in parliament. The treaty also acknowledges the shared history of the two countries and their right to taking a different view of some topics. “In politics and international law there is no such thing as the recognition of history … Let historians deal with history,” Daniel Smilov, an analyst with Bulgaria’s Center for Liberal Strategies, told Reuters.