Belgrade DMH 051113

LOCAL PRESS

Dacic-Brammertz: Cooperation between Serbia and ICTY Prosecutor’s Office at a high level (RTS)

Serbian Prime Minister Ivica Dacic and the ICTY Chief Prosecutor Serge Brammertz assessed today that cooperation between Serbia and the ICTY Prosecution is being carried out on a very high level. Document submission and access to archives of government bodies and witnesses is being carried out smoothly on a very high level and there are no open issues. Brammertz advocates continued regional cooperation in the sphere of investigating war crimes committed on the territory of the former Yugoslavia. Dacic reiterated Serbia’s initiative for individuals convicted before the ICTY to serve their prison sentences in the countries in the region, and voiced Serbia’s willingness to close such an agreement with the ICTY, reads the statement.

Vucic-Brammertz: No open issues between Serbia and ICTY (Radio Serbia)

Cooperation between Serbia and the ICTY Prosecution is carried out on a very high level and there are no open issues, it was concluded in talks between Serbian First Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic and the ICTY Chief Prosecutor Serge Brammertz. The government states that Brammertz had announced that his report on Serbia’s cooperation that he is to present to the UN Security Council in December will be positive.

Report on Serbia’s cooperation with ICTY positive (Tanjug)

The ICTY Chief Prosecutor Serge Brammertz said on Monday, during the talks with President of Serbia’s National Council for Cooperation with the ICTY Rasim Ljajic that the report on Serbia’s cooperation with the ICTY, due to be presented to the UN Security Council in December, would be positive. Ljajic and Brammertz agreed that the cooperation between Serbia and the ICTY Prosecutor’s Office in document submission and access to archives of government bodies and witnesses is being carried out on a very high level and there are no open issues, Ljajic’s cabinet released. Ljajic once more launched the issue of Serbia’s initiative to make it possible for individuals convicted before the ICTY to serve their prison sentences in the countries in the region, and underscored the willingness of Serbia to close such an agreement with the ICTY. Serbia’s National Council for Cooperation with the ICTY will continue conducting all necessary measures so as to ensure cooperation in all areas remains uninterrupted, the release states.

Djuric: Brussels meeting to give answers regarding elections (Radio Belgrade)

Serbian President’s advisor Marko Djuric told a Radio Belgrade 1 broadcast that the state presented its stand on the Kosovo elections on Sunday via its Minister without Portfolio in charge of Kosovo and Metohija Aleksandar Vulin. “The government reacted through Vulin and we welcomed the election results and voiced satisfaction with the fact that the Serbian (Srpska) Civil Initiative leads in the Serb majority areas in Kosovo and Metohija,” said Djuric. Asked why the President, Prime Minister and First Deputy Prime Minister didn’t react, Djuric said “the situation regarding the events in Kosovska Mitrovica needs to be crystallized, i.e. it is necessary to clarify in the dialogue with the EU and Pristina what will be with the elections in northern Kosovska Mitrovica.” He says that consultations are already underway but that the talks in Brussels tomorrow will be crucial for the issue of elections in Kosovo. He opines that due to all irregularities, elections in northern Kosovska Mitrovica must be repeated, while he doesn’t expect the same in Leposavic, Zubin Potok and Zvecan.

Ruzic: Implementation of Brussels agreement continues (Danas)

“The implementation of the Brussels agreement runs its course. The degree of fulfillment of the regularity of the election process, primarily in Kosovska Mitrovica and Zvecan, and the government decision regarding this must be in accordance with democratic principles. I don’t see any reason for that to influence the holding of the first inter-government conference on Serbia’s accession to the EU,” Serbian Minister without Portfolio in charge of EU integration Branko Ruzic tells Danas. He most severely condemned the incidents in Mitrovica, along with the assessment that they don’t threaten the implementation of the Brussels agreement that continue, nor do they represent “a big step backwards.” However, the Director of the Konrad-Adenauer Foundation in Serbia Henry Bonnet warns that the manner in which the events in northern Kosovo will be treated will play an important role in the assessment of whether both sides had achieved progress since the signing of the Brussels agreement, which will be contained in the conclusions of the European Council in December. “The events that occurred during the election night once again prove that the process of normalization of relations continues to obstruct the “top-down” process implemented by Belgrade and Pristina, but also by Brussels. In order for normalization of relations to succeed, “field work” lacks. It is not enough for those who make decisions in Belgrade and Pristian to visit this region only several times and tell the voters to turn out and vote,” Bonnet tells Danas. “Two things are clear: most of the people in northern Kosovo do not see benefit from the normalization process, and now, after the violence, they are even more uncertain. Secondly, those responsible for the violence and their instigators must be found. Those two things and the manner in which they will be treated will largely determine in what direction the normalization process and Serbia are moving,” said Bonnet.

Ashton: Elections according to plan for the most part (RTS)

The EU High Representative Catherine Ashton assessed that the local elections in Kosovo and Metohija had been held according to plan in most of the territory. She assessed them as essential for the future of Kosovo and condemned the incidents in the north, demanding that they should be investigated immediately and the perpetrators brought to justice.

Zbogar: Possible repetition of elections at three polling stations in northern Kosovo (Tanjug)

The EU Special Representative in Kosovo Samuel Zbogar has announced the possibility that the local elections might be repeated at three polling stations in the northern Kosovska Mitrovica, where he said vandals destroyed the electoral materials. Zbogar said that the Sunday vote was successful even in the Serb-majority municipalities in northern Kosovo, where elections were held for the first time since Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence in 2008. Zbogar told Radio Television Slovenia that the voter turnout in the local elections in northern Kosovo was good. Zbogar said he expects no appreciable deterioration in the security situation in Kosovo in the period ahead of the second round of voting on 1 December, adding, however, that escalation of tensions is possible and increased presence of EULEX and KFOR is therefore necessary.

Chitaku on a private visit to Presevo (B92)

Vlora Chitaku has been on a private visit to Presevo where she had talks with the mayor of this municipality Ragmi Mustafa. She also had talks with NGO representatives but didn’t give statements to the media. Chitaku visited an elementary school where she gave textbooks to pupils. She is the first official of the Kosovo government to visit Presevo since the declaration of Kosovo’s independence. She was escorted by EU officials from Belgrade, in a vehicle with EU license plates, and with the approval of the Serbian Government. The visit was announced last week, at the same time when the visit of the Kosovo Education Minister Rama Buya was also announced. His visit was not approved.

Farewell ceremony for soldiers joining peacekeeping mission in Lebanon (Novosti)

A farewell ceremony was organized for 130 members of the Serbian Army who departed from the Nis airport to join the UN peace mission in Lebanon. The ceremony was attended by Serbian Defense Minister Nebojsa Rodic, who handed over to Commander, Major Srdjan Radivojevic a Serbian flag under which Serbian peacekeepers will handle their duties. Radivojevic said that the unit will do its best to perform responsibly, professionally and honorably. Serbian soldiers departing for Lebanon are the first company in Serbia’s history to join a UN peace mission. Members of the Serbian Armed Forces currently participate in 8 multinational UN missions.

REGIONAL PRESS

House of Peoples of B&H Parliamentary Assembly: SDS members dismissed (Srna)

At today’s session, the delegates of the House of Peoples of the B&H Parliamentary Assembly dismissed B&H Minister of Foreign Trade and Economic Relations Mirko Sarovic, B&H Deputy Defense Minister Mirko Okolic and B&H Deputy Minister of Human Rights and Refugees Radmila Mitrovic, all of them SDS members. This SNSD initiative was supported by eight delegates, two were against and three abstained from voting. Previously, the House of Representatives of the B&H Parliament passed the decision on the dismissal of the SDS members. Delegate Halid Genjac of the SDA recalled, prior to the voting, this party’s stand that it will insist on the legality of the dismissal of the SDS members in the B&H Council of Ministers. “The presiding of the Council of Ministers and the Council of Ministers can be dismissed at the initiative of the Presidency and the Parliamentary Assembly because the Presidency nominates the presiding of the Council of Ministers. The dismissal of ministers individually and deputies can occur only if there is a proposal of the presiding of the Council of Minister on dismissal, which is logical since he/she nominates them, and the Parliamentary Assembly confirms,” said Genjac. According to him, if there is no proposal of the presiding of the Council of Ministers on the dismissal of ministers and deputies, the SDA delegates will consider this item illegitimate and will behave as if it didn’t exist.

INTERNATIONAL PRESS

North Kosovo Polls to Be Discussed in Brussels (BIRN, 5 November 2013)

After violence disrupted weekend voting in Serb-run northern Kosovo, the leaders of Kosovo and Serbia are to try to resolve election issues related to the north in Brussels.

Kosovo's Central Election Commission said mayors for ten municipalities were elected in the first round of last weekend's local elections.

Mayors for Kosovo's remaining 24 municipalities will be elected in the second round of voting, it confirmed.
The Democratic Party of Kosovo, PDK, won in Glogovac, Kacanik, Srbica and Stimlje, the Democratic League of Kosovo, LDK, won in Kosovo Polje, Istok and Podujevo, the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo, AAK, won in Decani, and the Turkish People's Party of Kosovo won in Mamusa. An independent candidate, Refki Suma, won in Djeneral Jankovic.
The Commission did not publish any results from the election in the four mainly Serbian municipalities of northern Kosovo - North Mitrovica, Zvecan, Zubin Potok and Leposavic.
Many voters in Serb-dominated northern Kosovo boycotted the election and masked men attacked several polling stations on the Serb side of the divided northern town of Mitrovica, causing some to close early.
The violence in the north has drawn widespread international condemnation.
“These incidents are even more harmful because they happened during an electoral process which would have made a step forward on normalising relations between Belgrade and Pristina, contributing to stability and security in the region,” Lamberto Zannier, general secretary of the OSCE, which helped to administer the vote, said on Monday.
The EU on Monday also condemned “the violent incidents... in Mitrovica north, which disrupted the otherwise orderly run electoral process in the rest of Kosovo”.
Valdete Daka, head of the CEC, said ballot boxes from polling stations in the north were in the counting centre and the Commission would soon analyse the election material.
According to her, there are three possible scenarios: the elections in the north would be declared regular; the vote would be repeated in those polling stations where violent incidents occured; new polls would be organized throughout northern Mitrovica.
Meanwhile, the Kosovo and Serbian prime ministers, Hashim Thaci and Ivica Dacic, are due to meet in Brussels on Wednesday with EU Foreign Policy Chief Catherine Ashton, to resolve election issues around the north of Kosovo.
The official results of the local election are due out on Wednesday.

Serbia plans to borrow 5.8 bln euros next year, trim subsidies (Reuters, by Ivana Sekularac, 4 November 2013)

Serbia will need to borrow 662.5 billion dinars (5.8 billion euros) in 2014 to service debt and finance a budget deficit set at 4.6 percent of output, under a draft budget published on Monday.

The Balkan country, whose rising public debt has unnerved investors, plans to borrow 330 billion dinars domestically, by issuing bonds and T-bills in local currency.

It will seek another 264.1 billion dinars through loans from commercial institutions and other governments, and up to 68.5 billion dinars by issuing dinar- or foreign currency-denominated Eurobonds.

Twenty-nine-year-old Finance Minister Lazar Krstic, who has said Serbia must overhaul its spending or risk default, described the budget as "realistic".

The draft budget assumes gross domestic product will grow one percent in 2014 and inflation will average 5.5 percent.

The Socialist-led government is struggling to keep the budget deficit below five percent this year and to stabilise debt seen reaching 65 percent of GDP by year-end.

It pledged last month to cut subsidies and curb public sector salaries as of 2014.

But while the 2014 draft budget sees subsidies for loss-making state firms at 80.8 billion dinars, down from 83.9 billion dinars this year, public sector salaries will rise by 0.5 percent in April next year.

"It is very difficult to make savings and curb the deficit with such high unemployment and low growth," Ivan Nikolic of the Economic Institute think tank told Reuters.

At 24 percent, Serbia's jobless rate is among the highest in the region.

Krstic said the government would try to secure cheaper lending through bilateral arrangements and that he expected Russia and the World Bank to release parts of previously agreed loans that were conditional on reform measures.

"Another source of finances would be through a bilateral arrangement notably with the United Arab Emirates," Krstic told the Serbian daily Politika on Sunday. "I am very optimistic regarding that loan," he said.

Serbia has said it is seeking a loan of between two and three billion euros from the United Arab Emirates as it mulls a number of joint projects in agriculture, aviation and IT.

Krstic has said he expects loan negotiations with the International Monetary Fund in the first quarter of 2014, in a move Serbia hopes will reassure investors that the government is intent on reform.

(Reporting by Ivana Sekularac; Editing by Ruth Pitchford)

An interview with the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Bosnia and Herzegovina (theytypewriter.org, by Amela Vejzovic, 5 November 2013)

Brussels seems to be making it clear that it is only a matter of time until the European puzzle will be solved. ‘We are at a historic moment for the Balkans and for Europe as a whole,’ said Herman Van Rompuy, the president of the European Council, ‘Not only are we welcoming Croatia as a new member state, we have also agreed to open accession negotiations with Serbia and taken a key step in our relations with Kosovo.‘

In May 2013, Valentin Inzko, the High Representative to Bosnia and Herzegovina, reported to the Security Council that over the last six months obstruction of the rule of law and the state’s sovereignty and integrity, alongside chronic political conflicts, had prevented the authorities from effectively dealing with the material difficulties in which Bosnian citizens had found themselves because of the economic crisis.

It is my great pleasure to be able to discuss some of these topics with His Excellency, Mr Zlatko Lagumdzija, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Amela  Vejzović: Your Excellency, if 49% of the territory, known as the Republic of Srpska (RS), does not acknowledge Independence Day nor Statehood Day, in addition to frequently questioning the country’s territorial integrity, how is Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), whose governmental, political, constitutional and legal framework is still confused, exercising its sovereignty and to what extent?

Zlatko Lagumdzija: It is indeed quite hard to contradict to what you have just said. We do have all these problems, but at the same time we have no alternative but to continue working in such a perplexed situation in order to bring about the substantial change one day. That is an incremental and delicate endeavour that requires a lot of patience, energy, devotion and understanding.

Why is the situation in BiH is as complex as you described? My answer is FTU – ever-present Fear, lack of Trust and lack of Understanding. We must not ignore the fact that every ethnic group in BiH is wrangling with its own fear: Serbs fear losing the territory of RS or to be one day swallowed by others if they remain within a framework that stipulates more power on the central stage. Croats are afraid of being completely marginalised due to the fact that their numbers have dramatically shrunk in last 20 years. Bosniak-Muslims are getting  increasingly nervous that they will watch BiH melting down before their very eyes, for they have no alternative, no alternative homeland nor object of identification.

Then there are people who refuse to declare themselves along ethnic lines, who are also afraid of how political pragmatism is killing the last chance for their rights to be finally recognised. The right to be just a citizen and not more or less than that. In order to face that challenge we will have to stop pretending as if nothing is happening. There is fear and sometimes some politicians are playing dirty games with that fear for short term political gains. Trust is the only way to get out of some sort of self-imposed inhibition. But not the kind of trust that comes and goes with PR and beating around the bush tactics, but real and sincere outreach.

One would need to be armed with patience, wisdom, enormous courage and leadership. Otherwise we are all losers in the long run, no matter what anyone might think:  if anyone thinks that peaceful partition along ethnic and religious lines in BiH is the best solution simply because it is the only one we did not try yet or because to some people sounds even logical, they are quite detached from reality.

Not acknowledging the Independence Day or the Statehood Day of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Republic of Srpska is not good indeed, but that itself does not deny those holidays the purpose for which they actually exist.

The governmental, political, constitutional and legal framework of BiH is maybe not perfect but it is very clear and should not be confusing. Bosnia and Herzegovina is a sovereign country with its internationally stated borders and despite some individual efforts trying to hurt it by destructive rhetoric and policies the only fact is that this is a sovereign and promising country in its full capacity. Knowing how weak that rhetoric is, we still need to work on people’s awareness that will keep focus on the real problems our country is faced with.

I believe that our focus must be on economic strengthening which will contribute to strengthening of the country in every possible way.

AV: The region is on a path to European Union (EU) integration. Croatia is now a member state and many of our neighbouring countries are candidates. Bosnia and Herzegovina, on the other hand, is only a potential candidate. From your point of view, is there an alternative to EU integration?

ZL: From my point of view there is only one alternative to EU integration and that is stagnation and the decline of Bosnia and Herzegovina into a country that cannot offer to its citizens a life worthy of European citizens. As Bosnia and Herzegovina is a part of Europe but not the European Union, I believe that EU and NATO integrations are the only rational and potential ways we need to follow in order to become a prosperous European country.

AV: Do you see a connection between the difficulty of BiH in pursuing its EU path and resolving the conflicting status of Kosovo independence?

ZL: I believe that the problems we have as a country are only related to internal relations caused by the incomplete Dayton agreement and not existing constitutional capacity. I am not sure if there is anyone who could link the Bosnian path to EU integration to the independence of Kosovo.

Croatian deputy PM: Croatia joins EU for "blueprint" (Xinhua, 5 November 2013)

BEIJING -- Croatian Deputy Prime Minister Vesna Pusic said here on Tuesday that her country joined the European Union for a "blueprint" for state building and long-lasting peaceful development.

Pusic, who is also minister for foreign and European affairs, told a forum that her country will play a bigger role in promoting regional cooperation and EU's external ties as EU's 28th member state.

Croatia is the second of six former Yugoslavian member states to join the European Union this July, after a 12-year negotiation process.

Although the European Union is facing financial and economic problems, it can still provide a "fast, effective and tested" blueprint for Croatia's state building, according to Pusic.

Pusic, who once chaired Croatia's EU enrollment commission, is here for a visit as guest of Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi.