Belgrade DMH 071013

LOCAL PRESS

Nikolic: United for survival, we won’t renounce on inalienable (Politika)

Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic has stated at the commemoration in the Jajinci memorial park that Serbia, united on the goal of survival, will not allow it’s inalienable part to be forcefully taken away, and that goal will be easier to achieve if the Kosovo Serbs turn out for the local elections, thus providing the legitimacy in the eyes of the international community. He has added that Serbia will reconsider the participation in the local elections, unless all the Serbs who have the right to vote are enabled to approach the voting freely. Nikolic has reminded that tens of thousands of innocent victims were executed in Jajinici, mostly Serbs, Jews and Romas, as part of the strategy that entailed the extinction of one nation and creating space for settling another. The biggest death camp in the Balkans, after Jasenovac, as Nikolic pointed, is the right place to ask how it was possible, only few decades ago, that anybody could think they would achieve a noble goal or personal happiness through a crime of any kind.

Odalovic: To resolve disputable issues as soon as possible (RTS)

On the occasion of the trilateral meeting in Brussels, the Secretary-General in the Serbian Government Veljko Odalovic told the morning broadcast of Radio and Television of Serbia (RTS) that it is necessary to resolve as soon as possible issues that presently influence a great deal the regularity of the local elections in Kosovo. He says that the deadlines are expiring and that 3 November is approaching but Pristina has not done many of things it had undertaken as its obligations. Pristina’s ban for Prime Minister Dacic to visit Kosovo is scandalous as he is one of the signatories of the Brussels agreement and an advocator for the integration of the Serbs into the Kosovo society, through local institutions, and supports the Serbs to turn out for the elections, says Odalovic. He expects the issue of the Central Electoral Commission (CIK) to be resolved, since it is Pristina’s obligation for a Serb representative to be in this commission, which now holds everything in its hands, most directly creates the future elections and may significantly have impact on their regularity, i.e. irregularity. “Self-will and arrogant behavior of the Kosovo institutions and their decision to ban the Prime Minister to visit Strpce is the most direct obstruction of the implementation of elections. Serbia, by wanting to be present in the personification of the prime minister, wished to send the clearest message that it supports elections,” says Odalovic. He says that elections are the key point of the Brussels agreement and if they are implemented as it had been agreed, the Serbs will elect their legal and legitimate representatives and create the Union of Serb Municipalities. “All of the obligations of the Brussels agreement, undertaken by Serbia, have been realized,” stressed Odalovic. 

Elections give legitimacy to Serb municipalities (RTS)

Following elections, the key thing for the Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija is the formation of the Union of Serb Municipalities. The Serbian Management Team is preparing the statute of the Union, which should encompass all jurisdictions necessary for ensuring political stability, safety, long-term interests and presence of Serbia and the Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija. The Union will have executive power in education, healthcare, spatial planning, and economic development. The power will provide it with independent decision-making on key aspects of the lives of Serbs in the province, states the Management Team, which is in charge of drafting the statute of the Union. “We will form bodies that will not be ministries and secretariats, but they will be departments, services for every area of social life,” says Dragan Jablanovic from the Management team. One department will take care of healthcare, another will take care of education, culture, sports, says Jablanovic, adding that they will not have statehood attributes, currency, army and will not conduct state policy. With the Union, the Serbs will have a way of surviving and preserving their identity, state experts. “It is important that they realize that rules of the game have changed and that they should learn how to use these rules,” opines political analyst Predrag Simic. Extremist Albanians wish as less as possible Serbs to turn out for the elections so they could more easily control the municipalities where the Serbs make up the majority, says Serbian President’s Advisor Marko Djuric. He says it is time the Serbs to start building their own future through the political institutions that are recognized by the international community. “Pristina doesn’t have the right, nor will it have the right according to the Brussels agreement, nor the valid legislature, to disband the Union of Serb Municipalities, to annul its decisions, to influence the manner in which municipalities will join their jurisdictions and powers under one united umbrella of the Union of Serb Municipalities,” says Djuric, noting that this is why the elections are a referendum for Serbia in Kosovo and Metohija. The state will continue to finance and support new Serb institutions. The problem of a large number of employees who have worked in some other institutions will be resolved by employing them in the administration and services of the Union of Serb Municipalities, which will have their departments and sectors, so they will not be left without jobs and financial support of Serbia. “For us, the institutions in Pristina are nothing more than provincial institutions and this will be clearly seen in relation to new municipalities that will be formed according to this Pristina authority. The only difference is that nobody will be able to annul the legitimacy and legality of these municipalities,” says Djuric. It is still unknown how many municipalities will make up the Union, whether the Union will include municipalities where the Albanians make up the majority but where there are some mostly Serb villages and vice versa.

Vulin: Clear strategy against attempts to rename Serb heritage (Beta)

Serbian Minister without portfoli in charge of Kosovo and Metohija Aleksandar Vulin has warned about the attempts to rename the Serb cultural heritage in the province into “Kosovar”, and stressed that a clear strategy needs to be presented to the world public in order to prevent it. At the gathering dedicated to the Serb cultural heritage in Kosovo and Metohija, Vulin has announced that one of the following rounds of the dialogue in Brussels will be focused on the property and cultural heritage. The attempts to rename the Serb heritage into “Kosovar” are aiming to lose the Serbian reference in most important institutions, Vulin underlined, and repeated that Serbia must have a ready plan to present before UNESCO, so it would be prevented.

Stojanovic: More voters registered. We want to control entire process (Novosti)

“There is real danger of the Albanians stealing the local elections in Kosovo and Metohija. If the list ‘Civic Initiative Srpska’ doesn’t receive a CIK member soon and if we are not enabled to have a certain number of members in the centre where votes are counted, there is real danger of the electoral material being forged and votes being stolen,” the candidate of the Serbian (Srpska) list for Gracanica mayor and the head of the bureau of the Office for Kosovo and Metohija Branimir Stojanovic tells Novosti. He recalls that the Belgrade and Pristina delegations had agreed in Brussels for the Serbian list to receive a CIK member: “This didn’t happen, so Pristina is most harshly stultifying the Brussels agreement. I hope that agreement on this will be reached after today’s meeting between Dacic and Thaqi, and that we will be able to appoint our own member tomorrow. Otherwise, we won’t be able to control the electoral process. We are afraid of the saying: it doesn’t matter who votes but who counts the votes!”

CIK has officially announced that more than 1.7 million voters have been registered, which is unrealistic, since this is the total number of inhabitants according to the 2011 census…

“That number is not realistic at all and opens a large space for manipulations. That is why we are afraid that all election results will be forged if we don’t have our members at the key points in the implementation process.”

What is the possibility for Serbs boycotting elections over Pristina’s machinations?

“Today’s round of the negotiations in Brussels is crucial for this decision. In any case, the Serbs in the province must listen to the decision of their state without which there is no survival here…I hope the Serbs in Kosovo will realize that the upcoming elections are actually a referendum where the Serbs are answering whether they are for Serbia or not. If Pristina doesn’t fulfill the things agreed in Brussels, there is danger of us withdrawing from the electoral process, whereby the entire Brussels agreement would be brought into question.”

What kind of turnout do you expect and how will the ban for state officials to enter Kosovo influence voters?

“Even though electoral lists are imprecise, and there are many people who should not be on them and vice versa, I believe, if dangers from election theft are removed and we remain with the stand that we should take part in the elections, the turnout of the Serbs south of the Ibar will be greater than 70 percent. The ban for Serbian officials is a panic reaction from Pristina. It turns out that our leadership was right when it stated that the greatest opponent of massive turnout of Serbs at elections will be precisely Pristina.”

 

REGIONAL PRESS

 

Media reports on census analyzed: No serious incidents (Oslobodjenje)

The B&H Statistical Agency sent the entity agencies for statistics a request that, in accordance with the law and the municipal census commissions, they analyze all media reports that reported irregularities in the work of this year’s census in B&H. This was confirmed by Mirsada Adembegovic, public relations adviser, at a press conference of the B&H Statistical Agency in Sarajevo. “The recommendation is that if it is confirmed that the reports are in fact true and accurate and that there were irregularities, such census takers will be excluded from the census process,” said Adembegovic. On cases where homes were recorded as having 20 to 30 members of the household, she stressed that the Central Census Bureau had concluded “that entity agencies compose the information on these statements and see in which municipalities such census taking occurred.” After the report by the Central Census Bureau, they will consider the information and make adequate opinions, conclusions, and recommendations. The B&H census is rolling out on its seventh day according to plan and without major problems in the field thus far, she says: “The B&H Statistical Agency has not received official complaints or accusations.
Sporadic incidents are resolved ‘on the fly’ at the local level by the relevant municipal census commissions,” says Adembegovic. Commenting on whether, due to certain irregularities, the validity of the census would be called into question, she said, “Thus far, the B&H Statistical Agency has not noted major irregularities that violate the law or methodology. Only some minor rules in the instructions for the work of enumerators were violated, which were immediately resolved at the municipal level and at the entity level. So there is no serious violation that would endanger the census” Adembegovic said. Given that the B&H Statistical Agency is responsible for implementing the census in Brcko District, she says that on the webpage otisak.ba they have announced information that one of the instructors offered census enumerators money to declare according to ethnic affiliation. “We learned from the editor that this was disinformation,” says Adembegovic.

SDA condemns Dodik-Lagumdzija agreement (Fena)

The SDA condemns and rejects the Dodik-Lagumdzija agreement. “As the most responsible of the six ruling parties, instead of finally proposing a solution for the Sejdic-Finci ruling and the coordination mechanism, they are dealing with anti-constitutional division of state property and illegal division of funds of Elektroprenos (Transmission),” reads the SDA statement. The SDA calls the SDP and SBB not to withdraw from parliamentary procedure the Law on immovable military property that they proposed themselves, and which is line with the Constitution. They state that by withdrawing this law Dodik is being abolished and the process of registering perspective military property is being prevented. They point out that the SDA will not allow for state property to be divided contrary to the decision of the B&H Constitutional Court and for anyone, including the SDP, to keep state property, which is used illegally. They also state that the agreement on dividing accumulated income of Elektroprenos is a path for degradation of this company. “Lagumdzija justifies all these damaging and dangerous concessions with the fact that the state is taking part in the agreement on the hydropower plants on the Drina River, even though it is clear that without the decision of the B&H state it is not possible to realize this project.”

 

INTERNATIONAL PRESS

 

Serbian PM claims Kosovo breaches Brussels agreement: media (Xinhua, 5 October 2013)

Serbian Prime Minister Ivica Dacic on Friday claimed the decision of Kosovo authorities to prohibit his visit to Strpce municipality is in direct breach of the Brussels agreement, local media reported.

Dacic said the controversial decision taken by the Pristina government on Thursday was an adequate reason to suspend the European Union-supervised talks between Serbia and Kosovo, which resulted in an agreement signed in Brussels in June this year.

"If we are prevented from going to Kosovo, then I propose that dialogue be continued with someone who can travel there," Dacic told a press conference, adding dialogue with Kosovo was in Serbia's best interest.

Dacic's planned visit was to support the representatives of United Serbian List which will run at the local elections in Kosovo on Nov. 3.

As a result of Brussels agreement, the Serbian government agreed to encourage the Serbian population in Kosovo and political parties to participate in the local elections process.

Catherine Ashton, EU high representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy invited Serbian and Kosovo prime ministers to Brussels on Oct. 7 in order to prevent the deadlock, and continue dialogue -- a crucial precondition for starting Serbia's accession negotiations with EU.

"This is a finger in the eye, and a rough provocation, firstly to PM Dacic as his signature is on Brussels agreement, but also to the EU," Predrag Simic, professor at Belgrade University and former Ambassador of Yugoslavia, told Xinhua.

"It is also a blunt show of force by Kosovo, and I think that Catherine Ashton has to find the way to defuse this situation, as it could otherwise make further negotiations much more complicated. She holds all the keys at this moment," Simic said.

In his opinion, EU will insist on the implementation of the Brussels agreement between Serbia and Kosovo.

Kosovo unilaterally proclaimed independence from Serbia in 2008. Serbia refuses to accept Kosovo's independence.

Serbia Seeks New IMF Embrace as Bond Unloved: East Europe Credit (Bloomberg, by Radoslav Tomek and Gordana Filipovic, 4 October 2013)

Seven months after Serbia sidestepped International Monetary Fund support by selling foreign-currency bonds, the looming reduction in U.S. stimulus is driving sentiment lower and the nation back into IMF talks.

Investors demanded 433 basis points, or 4.33 percentage points, of extra yield to hold Serbia’s dollar bonds instead of Treasuries yesterday, compared with 345 for Nigeria, which has the same BB- junk rating from Standard & Poor’s, according to JPMorgan Chase & Co. indexes. The spread for Hungarian dollar notes, ranked one level higher at S&P, stood at 330 basis points, the data show.

Serbia is taking steps to curb its fiscal deficit, forecast by the IMF to reach 8.3 percent of gross domestic product this year, by as much as 1.6 billion euros ($2.2 billion) by 2016 to assuage investors and reach a stand-by loan agreement with the Washington-based lender. The Balkan nation’s budget and current-account shortfalls leave it vulnerable to foreign sentiment as the Federal Reserve weighs when to start paring stimulus.

“There is a credibility issue that needs to be addressed and an IMF program would help with that,” Agata Urbanska-Giner, a London-based economist at HSBC Holdings Plc, said by e-mail yesterday. “The noise seems positive now but the bottom line is that Serbia is not signing any IMF deal today.”

Talks Restart

The Fund refused to start talks on a possible aid deal with Belgrade in May after the nation missed fiscal commitments. The negotiations restarted this week “in a positive manner,” Serbia’s Finance Minister Lazar Krstic, a former McKinsey & Co. associate principal who assumed his post last month, said in an interview two days ago.

Serbia’s economy still bears the scars from wars, sanctions, hyperinflation and currency devaluations that occurred in the 1990s under former President Slobodan Milosevic, whose Socialist Party is now led by Prime Minister Ivica Dacic. The government will start accession talks with the European Union in January, while its former Yugoslav peers Slovenia and Croatia are already in.

The country, whose budget gap will be wider than any of the 28 EU countries in 2013 if no measures are taken, needs to borrow about 4 billion euros by June to refinance maturing debt and cover the deficit, Krstic said. Of that amount, 2.6 billion euros represent maturing debt securities, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

‘Strongly Dependent’

“Cooperation with the IMF would be desirable,” Juraj Kotian, co-chief east European economist at Erste Group Bank AG in Vienna, said in an e-mail Oct. 2. “Serbia is the only country from the region where the current account deficit has not narrowed sufficiently, so the country still remains strongly dependent on foreign capital inflows.”

The Balkan nation’s economy is reviving after two recessions in three years, buoyed by rising exports and farm output. The central bank forecasts gross domestic product will accelerate from 2 percent in 2013 to 2.5 percent next year.

Economic growth, combined with rising remittances from abroad, will help narrow the current-account deficit by three percentage points to about 7.5 percent of GDP, Erste estimates. The IMF in a July Article IV report forecast the shortfall at 8.7 percent of GDP, compared with a projected surplus in Hungary.

Fed Lifeline

The yield on Serbia’s 2021 dollar bond reached a 15-month high of 7.46 percent on Sept. 10, almost 300 basis points above its level when U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said the central bank may gradually withdraw from bond purchases which have been used to stimulate the economy. It has since fallen 86 basis points after the Fed surprised investors by delaying tapering, underscoring Serbia’s vulnerability to shifts in global risk appetite.

“I believe the Fed gave Serbia a lifeline by delaying tapering,” said Abbas Ameli-Renani, a strategist at Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc in London, who has an “overweight” recommendation for Serbian 2021 dollar bonds over Hungarian debt of the same maturity. “Serbia now has three-month window to issue dollar debt”

While the country could raise funds without an IMF accord, such sales would come at a “hefty” cost because above-market yields would be needed to lure investors, according to Ameli-Renani. Restarting talks with the IMF “will likely build a bridge toward final rapprochement” and government concessions such as a cut in public wages may lead to an agreement in the first quarter, he said.

Consolidation Ready

Serbia is ready for “fiscal consolidation” amounting to about 1.5 percentage points of GDP per year to stabilize its debt by 2016, Finance Minister Krstic said. The savings would be achieved via “structural reforms” in public administration, state-run companies, health, education and financing, and won’t necessarily translate into an equivalent drop in the budget deficit, he said.

In addition to selling a $1 billion Eurobond, the country’s refinancing options include domestic borrowing or a loan from the United Arab Emirates of as much as $3 billion to replace more expensive debt, according to Krstic. Selling a Eurobond, the fourth since September 2012, won’t be cheap, he said.

Serbian dollar bonds yielded 61 basis points more than Hungarian debt on Oct. 3, whereas as recently as June 6 the spread was negative, according to JPMorgan EMBI indexes. The surcharge over dollar debt issued by Poland, the biggest economy among the 11 eastern EU members, widened by 23 basis points over the same period to 274 basis points..

“Serbia falls into the vulnerable category,” HSBC’s Urbanska-Giner said. “The twin-deficits label still applies and for all countries with that label, tapering is a big story.”

Many irregularities registered in Bosnian census (World Bulletin, 7 October 2013)

Numbers of irregularities are registered since the beginning of the first post-war census in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Border police at Skelani – border cross between Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia – stopped on Saturday a person who tried to leave the country carrying numbers of census questionnaires with himself.

“Border police warned this person that it is illegal to have these questioners with him or to take them out of the country. Finally, he left the country without these questionnaires,” border control officer told AA. He was not able to say what did happen with the quesionnaires.

This is just one of the irregularities registered since October 1, when census started in Bosnia and Herzegovina. According to observers from the coalition of non-governmental organisation Popis Monitor, during the first two days of the census, over 100 complaints have been registered online.

Most of the complaints are related to people who are conducting the census, and who are not aware of rules or are giving false information to citizens.

This is the first census held in Bosnia since its independence in 1992. The last census was conducted when Bosnia was part of Yugoslavia, in 1991 when 43.5 percent of people declared themselves as Muslims, 31.2 percent as Serbs and 17.4 percent as Croats. Over five percent said they were Yugoslav.

At that time Bosnia had a population of 4.4 million.

This census will cost 23 million Euros.

The country has a complicated power-sharing system set in place by the 1995 peace agreement, which defines three ethnic groups – Serbs, Croats and Bosnia (Bosnian Muslims) – as a constituent peoples' splitting power between them. People who do not declare as members of one of these groups are excluded from the public sector jobs.

Dozens of bodies discovered in Bosnian mass grave believed to be victims of genocide carried out by Serb forces (Daily Mail Reporter, 4 October 2013)

Dozens of bodies discovered buried in a mass grave in northern Bosnia are believed to be those of Bosniak Muslims and Croats killed by Serb forces in the early days of the civil war.

Forensics experts have already uncovered 94 bodies at the site in the village of Tomasica, near the Bosnian town of Prijedor, 260km north west of Sarajevo, and say they expect to discover many more.

Initial excavations unearthed a seven metre thick layer composed of human remains hidden under artificial embankments.

The victims are believed to be Muslims and Croats from the Prijedor area killed in the summer of 1992, when Bosnian Serb forces had taken control of the region.

They were killed in a brutal campaign to eliminate all non-Serbs from parts of the country they controlled during the 1992-95 Bosnian war.

Paramilitary units and the Bosnian Serb army expelled the non-Serb population, destroyed their homes and separated families while forcing thousands into detention camps where many were tortured and later executed.

Pictures of emaciated inmates at one of the detention camps, Omarska, resembling images from the Holocaust, shocked the world in the summer of 1992.

More than 3,300 people were reported missing from the Prijedor area. So far the remains of more than 2,000 victims have been found and identified, mostly by DNA analysis.

Bosnia’s prosecution office said they expect this to be one of the largest mass graves ever found in this part of the country.

Authorities are still searching for 1,200 Bosniaks and Croats missing from the area of Prijedor.