Belgrade DMH 081013

LOCAL PRESS

Mihajlovic: Brussels can and must intervene (RTS)

The Head of the government Office for Media Relations Milivoje Mihajlovic has stated that Monday’s agreement in Brussels represents the end of a mini-crisis in the process of the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue. It was proved that Brussels can and must intervene when it comes to the obstacles set by Pristina in the negotiating process and the elections in Kosovo and Metohija, Mihajlovic told the morning news of Radio and Television of Serbia (RTS). He says the local elections are the main agreement from Brussels and that all things happening over the past days had been unnecessary. “The Prime Minister reacted reflexively when he said that Pristina was obstructing the Brussels agreement and that his participation in the further dialogue was brought into question. However, this yielded results,” said Mihajlovic. He says that the meeting in Brussels proved that Brussels has the strength to resolve problems between Belgrade and Pristina very efficiently, and that, over the past years, there had been no reactions from Brussels to similar Pristina’s decision. Mihajlovic comments the statements by Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaqi that “freedom of movement” had been agreed as statements for the Kosovo public. “They agreed that officials from Serbia may visit Kosovo and Metohija and take part in the electoral process. Thaqi is giving such statements because of his public,” says Mihajlovic.

Speaking about harmonizing electoral lists, Mihajlovic stresses there is hard work to be done regarding this and that Pristina is trying to register Albanians from the southern part of Kosovska Mitrovica who have never lived in the northern part and thus influence the election results. Mihajlovic pointed out that a big problem is that there are no Serb representatives in the Central Electoral Commission, but that this was also agreed in Brussels so we need to see today and tomorrow whether Pristina will respect this agreement. Mihajlovic thinks this is one of the severest crises, but fears there will be more regarding the preparations for the elections and electoral lists.

Pantic: Elections – sort of referendum (Tanjug)

Candidate for the Kosovska Mitrovica mayor Krstimir Pantic has stated that the citizens will decide at the 3 November elections whether they wish to remain part of Serbia or whether they will allow, by boycotting them, the establishment of institutions headed by people who do not wish well to Serbia and the Serb people. He assesses that the upcoming elections in Kosovo are not local, as presented by Pristina, nor are they elections where the Serbs will recognize the so-called independence of Kosovo by participating in them. “The Serbs will decide at these elections whether they wish to remain part of Serbia or whether they will accept, by not turning out for them, without any resistance, for the Albanians to occupy north Kosovo and to establish their institutions and to bring people close to them at their helm, people who do not wish well to either the Serb people or to Serbia,” he said. “Following elections, we will form institutions that will be recognized by everyone in the world. For me and the people who form the Serbian (Srpska) list, the institutions that had existed until now were also legal and legitimate, but they were not legal for the representatives of the international community, while Pristina didn’t respect them. Our municipalities have so far worked with reduced capacity and weren’t able to protect fully the interests of the Serbs who live in Kosovo and Metohija,” said Pantic at a press conference in Kosovska Mitrovica, where the Serbian list candidates have been presented. After the elections, nobody, not even the Albanians, Brussels and Washington, will be able to say for elected representatives that they are illegal and illegitimate, said Pantic. “None of you have the right to recognize Kosovo as an independent state because this has not been done by our Government, this has not been done by the UN Security Council and accusations that we will recognize independence of Kosovo by taking part in the elections, do not stand,” said Pantic. He said that the Union of Serb Municipalities will have certain powers that will be assigned to it by Belgrade and not by Pristina, adding that the Serbian parliament will pass a constitutional law whereby part of the powers of the republican authorities will be transferred to the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija and part to the Union of Serb Municipalities. “If parties close to Pristina come to power, dispersal of residents and students from Kosovska Mitrovica will soon occur, and then there is no point in fighting for territory where you don’t have the people,” warned Pantic. “That is why our goal is to take part in the elections regardless of the difficult conditions, regardless of the fact that they weren’t slated by the Serbian parliament speaker, but by someone who we don’t recognize,” said Pantic.

Linkevicius: Kosovo is crucial (Novosti)

“The Kosovo issue will be at the core of the negotiating framework with Serbia,” the President of the EU Council of Ministers, Lithuanian Foreign Minister Linas Linkevicius confirmed for Novosti. However, he draws attention that this will not be the only condition during the European integration process and stresses that all demands from Brussels during the accession talks must be fulfilled, promising help from official Wilnius.

Can the negotiations with Serbia commence officially on 20 December or in January, as envisaged earlier?

“There is no decision on that yet. In any case, this should be the realistic scenario. Preparations are unfolding in a normal rhythm where the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue plays a very important role. Both sides in this process are giving their contribution. I personally witnessed that, when I visited Serbia and Kosovo and met with the leaders there. I have had numerous contacts with the prime ministers of both sides. I would like to point out that they are really constructive and heading forward.”

How important is success in the dialogue in relation to the other conditions that need to be fulfilled in the European integration process?

“Kosovo really occupies a central place in the negotiating framework. Thus, this issue is definitely of great importance. The European Council will also deal with this issue.”

Should Kosovo be in the centre of the negotiating framework considering the fact that other countries-candidates didn’t have additional conditions other those known in advance and equal for all?

“I stressed that Kosovo has a very important role in the negotiating framework. That is the exact truth. But, relations with Kosovo are not, of course, the only condition for Serbia in the European integration process, even though they represent a large part of it. Nobody should neglect and underestimate that.”

How will that be influenced by the working document submitted to member states by very influential members Germany and Great Britain, where it is requested, among other things, that relations with Kosovo be treated as one of the three most important issues?

“I would not comment documents that are not official. That is still being discussed in the Council.”

Can Lithuania help this process flowing in the expected direction?

“As the present presiding of the European Council, we will do the best and most we can, with the goal of contributing to this process and facilitating dialogue. The success of the entire European integration process depends directly from that.”

 

REGIONAL PRESS

Cooperation of B&H with the ICTY at a high level (Srna)

Members of the B&H Presidency and the ICTY Chief Prosecutor Serge Brammertz have assessed in Sarajevo that cooperation between B&H and the ICTY is at a high level. They discussed the work of the Liaison Office in The Hague, assessing it as successful, reads the B&H Presidency statement. Brammertz said one of the goals of his visit to B&H was to offer support to the War Crimes Department of the B&H Prosecution in processing war crimes cases, stressing support to the work of the local authorities. He noted that the focus was on the victims, with a special stress on finding the bodies of the victims, adding he would see that the international community remains active on this issue. In that context, Brammertz announced he would meet with the representatives of victims from both entities. He informed members of the B&H Presidency about the dynamics of the current trials before the ICTY. The ICTY Chief Prosecutor is visiting B&H within preparations for drafting the regular report to be submitted this year to the UN Security Council.

Cohen: RS stands coincide with Israeli (Politika’s correspondent in Banja Luka)

The non-resident Ambassador of Israel to B&H David Cohen assesses that cooperation and relations between Israel and the Republika Srpska (RS) are very good, positive and versatile, while relations with the B&H Federation lack any type of substance, electronic media report in RS. “Israel has many problems in international relations, and this comes to the fore during voting in international organizations. The RS stand coincides with Israel’s stand, while the B&H Federation has an opposite stand and in such situations B&H is abstained during the voting on issues that refer to our country,” Cohen explains in an interview to Srna, stressing there are big potentials for cooperation between the RS and Israel in all spheres. “Even if we do little, this will not have a weak effect on the economy of both sides.”

New amnesty in B&H (Dnevni Avaz)

B&H citizens who possess different arms, including mortars, cold have another chance to get rid of them without penalties in the next two years, if the draft law that should regulate this sphere receives the necessary parliamentary support. The B&H Federation government has drafted a draft law on a two-year amnesty for owners of illegal arms, provided that they voluntarily surrender them.

 

INTERNATIONAL PRESS

Kosovo and Serbia reach deal on local elections (European Voice, by Toby Vogel, 8 October 2013)

EU-brokered talks pave way for crucial elections in November

The prime ministers of Serbia and Kosovo have reached a deal to let Serbian politicians campaign in north Kosovo ahead of local elections there.

The deal was brokered by Catherine Ashton, the European Union's foreign policy chief, in talks with the two leaders in Brussels last night (7 October).

The local elections, scheduled for 3 November, are part of a broader, EU-mediated deal on normalising relations between Serbia and its breakaway former province. The north is controlled by ethnic Serbs, and its reintegration into mainly ethnic-Albanian Kosovo is a cornerstone of the normalisation deal.   Ivica Daèiæ, Serbia's prime minister, had threatened to walk out of the Kosovo talks after he was barred from campaigning in the north.   Daèiæ said last night that his “credibility” had been called into question by the ban but that the issue had now been resolved.

Serbia Drafts Budget Measures as Cabinet Scraps to Stay Afloat (Bloomberg, by Gordana Filipovic and Misha Savic, 8 October 2013)

Serbia’s government is drafting a salvo of measures to bring the budget deficit back under control after the head of the largest coalition party warned that the country was on the brink of insolvency.

Prime Minister Ivica Dacic will lead an open government meeting to discuss the measures starting at 10 a.m. in Belgrade, the cabinet’s press office said yesterday. Serbia plans to save 1.6 billion euros ($2.2 billion) over three years to rein in public debt, Finance Minister Lazar Krstic said Oct. 2.

Serbia’s bond yields surged, its currency and stocks weakened yesterday after Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic, who leads the poll-leading Progressive Party, said the country is “virtually on the verge of bankruptcy.” The comment was aimed at laying the groundwork for today’s announcements, according to Abbas Ameli-Renani, a strategist at Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc in London.

“We suspect that the Deputy PM’s comments were targeted towards the domestic audience,” Ameli-Renani wrote in an e-mail yesterday. “The government is in fact not on the verge of bankruptcy, given its considerable fiscal reserves. However, reserves are not sufficient to finance the government into year-end.”

With cash reserves of $1.3 billion as of Sept. 30, “Serbia will comfortably meet its forthcoming obligations,” Krstic said in a phone interview yesterday. The cabinet is considering borrowing options to keep financing costs under control including a $1 billion Eurobond, domestic borrowing or a loan from the United Arab Emirates, he said last week.

Yields Surge

The yield on Serbia’s benchmark 2021 dollar bond fell three basis points to 6.817 percent by 9:21 a.m. in Belgrade, after rising 22 basis points yesterday, the highest in more than two weeks, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The Belex15 stock index fell 0.2 percent to 516.95 yesterday, its lowest close in more than a month, while the dinar weakened 0.14 percent against the euro to 114.3410.

Today’s government meeting may approve cuts in public jobs and wages as part of a large-scale overhaul of Serbia’s state-owned companies, according to Otilia Dhand, an economist at Teneo Intelligence, a London-based political risk evaluator. Vucic’s statement is designed to mitigate opposition to measures, she said.

“Widespread protests and systemic resistance present a risk to the implementation of the intended reform,” Dhand wrote in an e-mail yesterday. “Serbia’s financial situation is getting increasingly precarious, but the current resources seem sufficient to carry the country over into 2014.”

IMF Proposals

The International Monetary Fund, whose mission to Serbia yesterday completed a week-long review of fiscal policies, will probably publish the findings of its review today, the Washington-based lender’s Belgrade office said. Vucic on Oct. 3 said the IMF wanted Serbia to save 800 million euros over two years.

Vucic on Oct. 6 said the cabinet will reject some of the measures proposed by the IMF. He also said Serbia’s credit rating could be downgraded in the near term.

The comments about the country being on the verge of bankruptcy were “meant to stress the challenges that Serbia would have in the medium term in the event it didn’t implement a set of measures designed to ensure fiscal stability and stimulate growth,” Krstic said yesterday.

Cash reserves were sufficient to service fourth-quarter debt payments of about $1.1 billion, mainly through rollover of maturing domestically issued bonds, he said.

Even if Serbia is able to raise debt internationally, it will have to pay a premium because of Vucic’s comments, according to Ameli-Renani at RBS. The arrival of the UAE loan would help calm markets and help the government make it through the year, he said.

There’s reason to believe that credit line “will eventually materialize” as the Gulf country has been seeking land-lease deals in Europe to secure its food supply, according to Dhand at Teneo.

“There is a material underpinning to this bilateral relationship,” she said.

Montenegro Refugees ‘Suffering Without ID Papers’ (BIRN, by Milena Milosevic, 8 October 2013)

The Council of Europe has expressed concern that some refugees in Montenegro have not yet been given identity documents to enable them to get work, healthcare and education.

“Our major concern is that part of Montenegro’s RAE [Roma, Ashkali and Egyptian] population still do not have proper papers,” Eva Smith, president of the European Commission Against Racism and Intolerance, a Council of Europe human rights body, told BIRN.Although the Montenegrin authorities have tried to resolve refugees’ legal status by allowing them to become ‘foreigners with permanent residence’, those who have no documents cannot apply for this.

“Foreigner status thus does not help, if they cannot get papers,” Smith said.

She said that the authorities should consider issuing new papers to Roma who fled from Kosovo without identity documents during the late 1990s conflict there.

The European Commission Against Racism and Intolerance, which held a round-table discussion in Podgorica on Monday, said that although Montenegro has good anti-discrimination legislation, some of the issues it raised in its 2011 report on the country had still not been solved.

Concerns remain about the large Konik refugee camp on the outskirts of Podgorica, where 1,500 Roma, Ashkali and Egyptian refugees live in effective segregation from the rest of society.

“Living conditions there are inhuman and hazardous,” the 2011 report said.

The Montenegrin government and the EU agreed in 2012 to spend three million euro in order to find a long-term solution building 90 apartments and a community centre for families living in the camp.

The construction, initially planned for this year, is due to start in 2014, but Smith says that housing all the refugees together would mean that they remain segregated rather than integrated into Montenegrin society.

She said that a better solution, as proposed in the 2011 report, would be standard accommodation for refugee families across the city or the country.

The other option would be for half of the planned apartments to be filled by non-Roma families who had been properly prepared for life with Roma refugee neighbours, she said.

Montenegro currently hosts around 13,000 refugees who have been given the temporary status of ‘internally displaced’ and ‘displaced’ people, over 8,000 of whom came from Kosovo.

In the period between 2009 and 2012, over 5,000 refugees were given permanent residence in the country.

As of December 2012, fewer than 1,000 of them had obtained Montenegrin citizenship.

Bosnia Federation's New Constitution Before Parliament (BIRN, by Elvira M. Jukic, 7 October 2013)

The draft of a new constitution for the Bosniak-Croat Federation is to be discussed in a parliamentary commission, aiming to make the entity more functional and cheaper to run.

A draft proposal of the new Federation entity constitution is to be discussed on October 7 by an entity's parliament commission after an expert group suggested a more functional and less costly form of government.

One member of the expert group, initiated by the US embassy, Vahid Sehic, told Nezavisne daily that the draft had now been finalized and sent to the constitutional commission of the Federation parliament.

Sehic said that, following the parliamentary procedures, the goal was for the entity to get its new constitution by the end of the year.

“A new constitution is necessary because it would be impossible to amend the existing one,” Sehic said, adding that strong political support to this document was needed to change the entity's organization.

Contrary to media reports that the number of cantons would be cut from ten to less, the draft does not determine the number of cantons, "even though we believe a reduction should be considered”, Sehic said.

“We did not say in the constitution how many cantons there should be, as politics will decide that,” he added.

At the same time, the Federation parliament has to consider two other proposals, submitted by two parties, at Monday's committee session.

“As the draft of the new constitution goes before parliamentary procedure, other parties will have a chance to act if they want,” said Mahmut Alagic, of the constitutional committee.

Some parties have said they would support cutting the number of cantons, whose large administration is costly, but others oppose the idea, saying that the Federation should be abolished and the cantons left alone.

The expert group presented its recommendations for the Federation back in June and the entity's parliament initially accepted them, vowing to use them as basis for the reforms.

Most recommendations are designed to make the entity more functional and economically sustainable.

Among some 180 recommendations were that the entity's presidency should be abolished and the position of the speaker of parliament and the prime minister strengthened while the number of lawmakers in the assembly would be cut.

The Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina was formed in 1994 by Bosniaks [Muslims] and Croats as part of the Washington agreement, which ended an armed conflict between the two groups.

The Federation currently has its own presidency, government, parliament, courts, and ten cantons, which all have their own governments and ministries. There are also around 80 municipalities.

Croatia plans to support significant projects in Bosnia (Balkans Business News Correspondent, 8 October 2013)

Croatian Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic said during a visit to the southern Bosnian town of Tomislavgrad  that his government would support significant projects in Bosnia which would assist the viability of Croats who are emigrating out of the country because of the poor economic situation.

"We cannot prevent migrations. We will help as much as we can financially for the preservation, not of identity, because these people have an identity and no one needs to help them in that because they know who they are and what their values are. We can help finance some facilities and programmes with emphasis that these be specific and that funds are not dispersed over thousands of minor matters but on visible things," Croatia's prime minister said in Tomislavgrad where he met with Mayor Ivan Vukadin.

He added that the incumbent government was not doing this for the sake of elections or to score political points. He said his hosts had informed him of the difficult economic situation and of the high number of the unemployed.

"The impression is that it is worse than it looks. This area and that around Livno indeed look advanced. That is obviously a combination of work here and some savings. But there is a large number of the unemployed, at least official figures say so," Milanovic said.

Earlier he visited the Franciscan museum outside the nearby town of Livno which was built with the assistance of the Croatian government and which contains a wealthy archaeological, ethnographic and sacral treasure, a library and a gallery reports the Government.