LOCAL PRESS

 

Nikolic: Rama is an irresponsible politician (RTS)

“Serbia has been trying for two-and-a-half years for the Balkans to become a secure and prosperous region in Europe, but as long as there are irresponsible politicians like Edi Rama, it is clear that this will be a difficult job full of challenges,” reads the statement by the Office for Media Relations of Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic. On the occasion of the provocations made by Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama during the visit to Serbia, the Office for Media Relations of the Serbian President points out that such behavior had been expected from him and that this was the key reason why Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic refused to meet with him. “Albania will hardly be able to join the family of modern European states as long as it doesn’t give up the dreams of a hydra called ‘Great Albania’,” reads the statement.

 

Djuric: Provocation and abuse of hospitality (RTS)

Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama abused Serbian hospitality by the presumptuous provocation in Belgrade on Monday in the wish to humiliate Serbia, but he failed, the Head of the Office for Kosovo and Metohija Marko Djuric said. The invitation voiced by Rama at the news conference following the talks with Serbian Prime Minsiter Aleksandar Vucic, when Rama said that Serbia should recognize Kosovo’s independence, is beyond doubt aimed at the Albanian public and its goal was to create a provocation and potentially cause trouble, Djuric said. Serbia will not fall for such provocations, just like it did not fall for the provocation at the recently held match between Serbia and Albania, because Serbia wants cooperation, peace and stability in the region, Djuric said. Serbia will continue the path of cooperation and stability regardless of the provocations, he said. Djuric added that he attended the plenary session of the delegations of Serbia and Albania on Monday and that Kosovo was never mentioned. Not a single word was said by the Albanian Prime Minister concerning Kosovo, nor did he refer to it in the tete-a-tete talks with the Serbian Prime Minister, Djuric said. He noted that the Serbian Prime Minister reacted with clarity and determination to the gross insults voiced by the Albanian Prime Minister and asked a simple question as to what the Kosovo issue has to do with the improvement of Serbia-Albania relations, to which he received no answer.

 

Drecun: Rama’s rhetoric premeditated (TVB92)

Commenting on Rama’s visit, the Chairman of the Serbian parliamentary Committee for Kosovo and Metohija Milovan Drecun told TVB92 that it was expected it would go as the prime minister of Albania said, to set the road to the future, hand in hand, and for our children not to suffer because of it. “However, after this kind of incident it is evident that our roads are different,” Drecun observed, and added that Rama’s decision to speak about Kosovo as an independent state was an example of Greater Albania pretensions. “Rama was not here to establish a new kind of cooperation but to encourage the Albanian corpus with another type of idea. Albania’s policy and its Prime Minister are stepping outside the framework of the region’s efforts to move towards the EU, they are clearly putting the brakes on the region’s road towards the EU,” he stressed. According to Drecun, Rama’s rhetoric was “premeditated, as was the drone incident”: “He spoke about the inevitability and reality of Kosovo’s independence, while the inevitability is that Serbia is a member of the United Nations and that biggest UN member states have not recognized Kosovo.” Still, Drecun saw a step forward being made in the relations between the two countries, by means of establishing direct dialogue. For that reason he believes the visit was very important. “It seems to me Albania is entrenched in the position that Serbia should give up on Kosovo and Metohija to stabilize the region. Unilateral acts of secession are not the road toward stabilizing the region. We should now see the second part of his visit, in Presevo, and see reactions of Albania in the coming period,” concluded Drecun.

 

Stefanovic: Vucic’s statesmanlike response to Rama’s provocation (RTS)

Serbian Interior Minister Nebojsa Stefanovic assessed that Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic responded in a statesmanlike manner to the provocation made by Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama in regard to Kosovo’s status. “I was surprised with the absolutely non-diplomatic tone and brutal provocation from Rama, but this speaks more about the Albanian Prime Minister than about us as hosts, because we have done everything for this visit to pass in a civilized and decent manner,” Stefanovic told Radio and Television of Serbia (RTS).  The Minister said that the incident with the drone and flag of so-called “Great Albania” at the match between Serbia and Albania was well-planned and that the investigation showed that an Albanian citizen from Italy brought the drone to Serbia. Assessing that at issue was a conscious intention to humiliate Serbia, Stefanovic voiced assurance that the investigation would show that such provocations still go against those who organize them.

 

Rama visits Presevo (RTS)

Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama met in Presevo with Albanian political representatives in southern Serbia. Rama was welcomed by citizens with ovations, and Presevo Mayor Ragmi Mustafa welcomed him in front of the municipal building. Presevo inhabitants welcomed Rama with Albanian flags, loud music, and billboards saying ‘Welcome Prime Minister’. The inhabitants also carried banners with messages: ‘Presevo, Bujanovac and Medvedja are Albania’, ‘Albania, the Presevo Valley needs You’, ‘United for a Nationwide Government’, RTS reports. Rama said that the Albanians in the southern Serbian municipalities have fewer rights than the Serbs in Kosovo. “Albania will support the resolution of problems in the Presevo Valley to be key on Serbia’s EU accession path and it will not allow assimilation of the Albanians in this region,” said Rama. According to him, the future of the entire region is in the EU, while Albania and Kosovo represent guarantee of its stability and democracy. Rama noted that he discussed with Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic the real problems faced by the Albanians in Presevo and Bujanovac, adding that Albania “supports and forces” the dialogue of the Albanians from this region with the Serbian government on resolving life problems, primarily in the sphere of infrastructure and education. Previously, Rama received the title of the honorary citizen of Presevo.

 

Kocijancic: Rama’s visit a turning point (Tanjug)

The visit of Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama to Serbia represents a turning point in relations of the two countries and new contribution to the dialogue of the Western Balkan countries, said Maja Kocijancic, the spokeswoman of the EU High Representative Federica Mogherini. We expect the two leaders to demonstrate political courage to turn towards the future and re-establish, after many years, stable relations between Belgrade and Tirana, said Kocijancic.

 

REGIONAL PRESS

 

Izetbegovic to Covic: An offer he can’t refuse (Oslobodjenje)

Bakir Izetbegovic, vice president of the Party for Democratic Action (SDA), before a meeting of that party’s presidency in Sarajevo told reporters he had not heard from Dragan Covic, president of the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ B&H). “All morning I was busy, preparing for the meeting we had, I wasn’t in touch and wouldn’t say I will be in touch today,” said Izetbegovic.

“At the entity level the SNSD won, and at the state level Mladen Ivanic won. We have a balance here, when the number of delegates in question is 7:7, now when you take the two blocs plus Ivanic. According to that it’s 8:7, and we are following the will and the people and the voters from the Republika Srpska (RS) entity,” said Izetbegovic. He added that he will speak with Dragan Covic about this. “What I said is the cornerstone of any future coalition, the relationship between the SDA and HDZ,” said Izetbegovic. To a reporter’s question whether before forming a state government they would wait for the majority to form the RS National Assembly, Izetbegovic responded that he thinks these matters can be done in parallel. “It would be good to have a uniform government in the RS, from top to bottom in the state, but it isn’t impossible to make one that is asymmetrical if it will function and if it brings something new compared to what we had for the past eight years,” said Izetbegovic. Yesterday, he added, you heard from people from the Alliance for Change “that they really finally are ready to make a step forward to stabilize the state of B&H”.

Asked whether he expects Dragan Covic to accept cooperation with the parties which signed the agreement, Izetbegovic said that this is "an offer that can't be refused, because everything is in line with what we discussed earlier with Covic."

 

Covic: Given word is worth more than the agreement (Oslobodjenje)

The president of the HDZ B&H, Dragan Covic said today that the HDZ B&H and SNSD talked about forming the government as the winning parties from the Croat and Serb people and that given word and offered hand is worth more than any agreement. “There is no bilateral agreement that was signed between HDZ B&H and SNSD, but remember that there is something worth more than that, and it is a given word and an offered hand,” said Covic at a news conference in Mostar. He said that for him the offered hand is stronger than any agreement that someone will sign and that’s why, he doesn’t need a written document. “If we have agreed that we will go into power by a certain model, I consider it an obligation just the same like if it was verified by the notary,” said Covic. He said he wants to be the legitimate representative of the Croat authorities, and that he advocates the same for Serbs and Bosniaks. Covic said that Dodik and his coalition partners have convinced him that they will create the majority in the RS. “If he does so, as I expect us to do so, in five cantons in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, then there is no need for anyone to call the HDZ B&H in to the government, because the HDZ B&H belongs in the government, as no one needs to call the SNSD in to the government, because they too belong in the government,” said Covic. “Vice President Bakir Izetbegovic (SDA) and I have agreed that the government is to be of the same party structure at all levels in order to start the things we want for B&H,” said Covic. He reiterated that the government should be constituted from the bottom-up and only by the legitimate representatives who got the trust from the citizens of B&H. Covic has announced that on Friday, 14 November, a meeting of the Presidency of the HDZ B&H is to be held, and on Saturday, 15 November a new meeting of the HDZ B&H and SDA.

 

Dodik going into opposition? (Novosti, Sarajevo corenspondent)

The strongest Serb party, the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD) and its leader Milorad Dodik, could after eight years of participating in the government of Bosnia and Herzegovina (B&H), be thrown out of the ruling coalition in parliament and the Council of Ministers of B&H, if the agreement between the SDA, DF and the opposition Alliance for Change in Republika Srpska (RS), led by the SDS is to be achieved in practice! That, experts claim, would be a serious political blow to Dodik, whose party held the power in the RS over last two terms and, in collaboration with the strongest Croat party HDZ B&H, was an important decision-making factor in shared institutions in Sarajevo. The agreement between the deputy president of SDA, Bakir Izetbegovic, the President of the Democratic Front Zeljko Kosmic and the parties from the Federation of B&H, with the leaders of parties from the RS - Mladen Bosic, President of SDS, Mladen Ivanic, President of PDP and Dragan Cavic, who is the head of the NDP, to form the government at the B&H level without the SNSD shook the plan of HDZ B&H and SNSD to form a majority with the SDA in the B&H Parliament. The SDA, DF and the Alliance for Change from the RS have 21 out of 42 seats that the Parliament of B&H has. Now they only need one more seat to form a majority and elect a new Council of Ministers, and there are a lot of those who are interested in entering the government. The new political bloc has called on the leaders of the HDZ B&H, Dragan Covic, who is along with Izetbegovic and Ivanic elected to the Presidency of B&H, to join them in the process of forming the government. The SNSD leadership claims that the deal between the SDA and the Alliance for Change confirms the “pro-Bosnian politics of the SDS and PDP”. The opposition responded with the statement that the SNSD has hypocritical politicians, because when they wanted to form the government with the SDA then everything was fine, but when the opposition bloc is doing it, then it is a case of “betrayal”, which is “a cry of desperation for the lost power”. When it comes to government forming in the RS: the SNSD, DNS and SP, which provided a slim majority of 42 out of 83 MPs in the RS parliament, they are assuring that the new RS parliament should get the new assembly on 26 November, and a new government by the end of year.

 

US Embassy about the SDA, DF and the Alliance for Change agreement (Oslobodjenje/Fena)

“It is impressive to see clear program objectives guided by issues that are involving a wide range of political parties, especially if one considers that it was announced so soon after the elections”.

Fena was told this by the U.S. Embassy Office of Public Affairs, commenting on the signing of an agreement between the SDA, DF and parties within the Alliance for Change (SDS, PDP and NDP). “We hope that more of the parties will accept the challenge to place the country's needs above their own needs, above conflicts between the parties that marked the political scene in the last eight years” – was said in the statement. The SDA, DF and parties within the Alliance for Change (SDS, PDP and NDP) signed on 9^th of November in Sarajevo the document entitle “Program principles for legislative and executive operations of authorities in B&H for the period: 2014-2018.”.

 

INTERNATIONAL PRESS

 

Serbia: Visit by Albania’s Premier Fails to Reduce Tensions (AP, 10 November 2014)

The prime ministers of Serbia and Albania pledged Monday to put their differences aside and focus on their mutual desire to join the European Union — but the good feelings did not last until the end of their joint news conference. Relations between the nations have been tense for decades mainly over Kosovo, a former Serbian province dominated by ethnic Albanians that declared independence in 2008. Serbia has never accepted Kosovo’s independence, although more than 100 other nations have. Prime Minister Edi Rama of Albania, the first Albanian prime minister to visit Serbia in 68 years, said Serbia had to change its attitude, and he called Kosovo’s independence “a reality.” Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic of Serbia reacted angrily, saying: “I did not expect this provocation. What does Albania have to do with Kosovo? Kosovo is not part of Albania and it will never be. The reality is that Kosovo is part of Serbia.” Last month, a European Championship soccer qualifying match between the two national teams was suspended in Belgrade, Serbia, after a drone carrying an Albanian nationalist flag set off clashes between players and fans.

 

Albanian leader's Serbia visit signals progress and challenges (Reuters, by Fatos Bytyci, 11 November 2014)

PRESEVO Serbia - Albania's prime minister paid an unprecedented visit on Tuesday to ethnic kin in part of Serbia that was the site of a 2001 insurgency, a trip symbolic of how far the region has come since the wars of the 1990s.

A heavy police presence highlighted how sensitive the visit was for Serbia, which is striving to join the European Union but continues to struggle with the integration of ethnic minorities that complain of discrimination.

Tirana's Prime Minister Edi Rama arrived in Serbia on Monday, becoming the first Albanian leader to visit the former Yugoslav republic since communist dictator Enver Hoxha in 1946.

But what had been billed as marking a new chapter in Balkan history descended into a public spat between Rama and his Serbian counterpart, Aleksandar Vucic, over the independence of Kosovo, a former Serbian province populated mainly by ethnic Albanians.

While Rama's visit reflected the progress made over the past 15 years, the row demonstrated the depth of differences that remain between the two nations as they each seek to join the EU.

"All Serbs should know that my prime minister is Edi Rama, not Vucic," said Zija Saqipi, a 51-year-old ethnic Albanian who works as a driver in Switzerland but said he had returned to Serbia just for Rama's visit to the southern town of Presevo.

He and the mayor of Presevo, Ragmi Mustafa, both complained that police had removed Albanian flags hung out to welcome Rama. Police also closed a nearby highway, but crowds of people still turned out to greet Rama, chanting his name.

Kosovo broke away in war in 1998-99, with the help of NATO air strikes to halt a wave of Serbian ethnic cleansing. The next two years saw ethnic Albanian insurgencies in neighboring Macedonia and the Presevo Valley in southern Serbia.

Western diplomacy ended the fighting, but the effort to integrate tens of thousands of ethnic Albanians in the Presevo Valley has been slow. Many have sought work in Western Europe.

Kosovo declared independence in 2008 and is recognized by over 100 countries, including Albania and most Western powers, but not Serbia or its big-power backer Russia.

(Writing by Matt Robinson; Editing by Tom Heneghan)

 

Western Balkans: Nationalism is not the answer (Euobserver, by Jeton Zulfaj, 10 November 2014)

LUND, SWEDEN - After a century of bloodshed and hatred, the independence of Kosovo in 2008 seemed like a sign that peace and stability is possible in the Western Balkans.

Relations between Albanians and Serbs in the recent years in particular entered a period of normalisation, spurred on by the international community.

One landmark moment was the EU-brokered Kosovo-Serb agreement of 19 April 2013.

Despite its flaws - its critics say the power it gives to Serb municipalities in the north is a challenge for Kosovo’s territorial integrity in the long run - the deal contributed to a more positive climate.

It led to the first Kosovo-wide elections, to the dismantling of Serb parallel structures, and to smaller, but no less important things, such as freedom of movement: Kosovars can now use their ID documents to pass through Serbia to other countries.

In August, German chancellor Angela Merkel brokered an invitation from Serb PM Aleksander Vucic for Albanian leader Edi Rama to visit Belgrade - the first such visit for decades.

Meanwhile, Kosovo foreign minister Enver Hoxhaj attended a multilateral meeting in Belgrade: it was informal, there were no country badges, but it’s another step in the right direction.

The president of Kosovo, Atifete Jahjaga, has also been reportedly invited to Belgrade.

But if you want to look at the bigger picture, go to the town of Mitrovice in north Kosovo. You will see that a roadblock on the bridge over the Ibar River - separating the Kosovar Serb and Kosovar Albanian communities - is still in place in a symbol of ongoing ethnic division.

Last month’s football fiasco in Belgrade sows equally that nationalism still has the power to undo all the good work.

It took no more than a nationalist Albanian flag flown into the sports event to unleash a torrent of Serb hate chants and Serbian fans’ violent attacks on Albanian soccer players.

The flag was an unpleasant provocation. But the Serb reaction shows that politicians and civil society in Serbia still have a lot of work to do to de-radicalise anti-Albanian feeling in society.

Serbia has a border with Albanians, so unless one of them goes somewhere else, they will have to learn to live with each other and, even, to tolerate each other’s symbols and silly stunts.

The media on both sides - which fed the football furore - also has a role to play.

Everybody who lives in the Western Balkans must take responsibility for making it a shared home worth living in.

But zooming in on Serbia - a key nation in the region, which started three wars in the name of nationalist pride - the time has come to choose: do we take the European path of toleration and slow reform, or the Russian path of aggression and quick, but hollow victories?

Putin welcomed

The bombastic military welcome which Russia’s Vladimir Putin - stigmatised by sanctions in the civilized world - recently received in Belgrade sent out a strange message.

If Serbia really has embraced the European path, its commitment should be profound and unequivocal.

It is true that people in the Western Balkans share a very dark past.

Yet, we all share a common hope for a better future, which is why we must make sure that history can no longer be used to enflame ethnic differences

We cannot turn back.

The EU has a role to play in helping local politicians implement de-radicalisation.

First, it should condemn any incidents of violence and racism with strong, direct language.

Second, it should enhance its political presence. The downgrading of the enlargement portfolio in the new European Commission was a bad sign. EU foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, has also shown little interest in the region, even as Russian diplomacy in the Western Balkans, not least bound to the building of the South Stream gas pipeline, has increased drastically.

Mogherini should consider appointing a special representative for the Western Balkans who would closely follow the Balkan agenda and keep up EU pressure for our leaders to stay on the road to Europe.

Jeton Sulfaj is a graduate from Lund University in Sweden, with a masters in European Affairs

 

Macedonia Starts Revoking Opposition MPs' Seats (BIRN, by Sinisa Jakov Marusic, 11 November 2014)

Macedonia's crisis stepped up a notch as parliament started the process of revoking the mandates of absentee opposition MPs.

Macedonia's political crisis looked set to deepen as parliament on Monday launched a procedure to revoke the mandates of 31 opposition MPs.

The plenary session is expected to start next week, once a parliamentary commission for appointments has discussed the issue.

Speaker of Parliament Trajko Veljanoski on Monday tasked the secretary general of parliament, Zarko Denkovski, with submitting a list of absentees and has asked the commission to issue its recommendations.

“The proposals of the commission will be put to a plenary session in parliament, which will most probably be held next week,” Rafiz Aliti, coordinator of the legislators of the junior ruling party, the Democratic Union for Integration, DUI, said.

The start of the procedure for revoking the mandates comes exactly six months since the opposition MPs refused to take up their seats, maintaining that the ruling parties had won the April general and presidential elections by fraud.

Under the parliamentary rulebook, MPs forfeit their mandates if they are absent from duty for over six months.

The opposition parties, led by the Social Democratic Party, SDSM, submitted written resignations to parliament in May.

Speaker Veljanoski, did not verify the resignations and called on the opposition to return, however.

The Prime Minister and leader of the main ruling VMRO DPMNE party, Nikola Gruevski, meanwhile rejected opposition demands to hand over the reins to a caretaker government pending new elections.

The SDSM said it would not be cowed by the latest threats. Party spokesperson Petre Silegov said: “We are leaving the games of ultimatums and deadlines to Veljanoski, to VMRO DPMNE and to the ruling coalition.

“In the past six months, the opposition has been the object of much speculation over whether we will return or not. However, we maintain our stand,” he added.

Although the boycott has not directly affected the work of parliament, the dispute is damaging Macedonia's already stalled prospects of European and Atlantic integration.

If the parliament revokes the opposition MPs' mandates, legal experts said the vacant seats may first be offered to the next opposition MP candidates that were on the party lists in the last election. If none of the candidates accepts the seats, parliament may call another early election.

Conflicting statements about early elections have come from VMRO DPMNE lately.

In September, the coordinator of the party's legislators, Ilija Dimovski, said the party was considering fresh elections in November.

Time would tell whether they would only be held for the vacant 31 seats, or for all 123 seats in parliament, he added.

But, Prime Minister Gruevski immediately denied that he was even considering another nationwide general election.

 

Alexander the Great claimed by both sides in battle over name of Macedonia (The Guardian, 10 November 2014)

Alexander waxwork given pride of place in Macedonian museum in latest example of symbolic point-scoring by Skopje

Nikola Gruevski’s love affair with statues began with Alexander the Great. In 2011, much to the consternation of Greece, the Macedonian prime minister had the world’s largest sculpture of the warrior king installed in Skopje’s central square. Now, after peppering the capital with grandiose bridges, a gargantuan triumphal arch, concert halls, theatres, new government buildings and artworks great and small, the premier has gone a step further.

Upping the ante in what has become one of the west’s more unlikely disputes, Gruevski instructed that waxworks of Alexander, his father, Philip II of Macedon, and his mother, Olympias, be given pride of place in a new archaeological museum. “All these exhibits … are of priceless value for our country and represent a part of our cultural heritage,” Gruevski pronounced as he opened the museum last month.

Built in Greek-revival style, the monumental edifice is the latest in an array of controversial works that have transformed the face of a city that even by the standards of communist-era former Yugoslavia was famously drab. Gruevski claims that the makeover – among the most ambitious in Europe, costing as much as €500m (£390m) – will help lift the spirits of his countrymen. With nearly 30% of the nation out of work and more than a third living beneath the poverty line, Macedonians are among the poorest people in Europe.

But officials do not deny that the building project has another purpose: to score points in the long-running battle over the name of Macedonia. The Greeks have long argued that their neighbour’s desire to lay claim to the nomenclature – and use of symbols associated with it – implies territorial ambitions over their own adjacent province of Macedonia. True to Balkan form, the row has its roots in ancient history.

In the 23 years since the landlocked state proclaimed independence, Alexander the Great has dominated the dispute. Athens says the Greek-born general is irrefutable proof of Macedonia’s Hellenic credentials; Skopje says he is an inherent part of local identity as the leader of an empire that incorporated the region and extended as far as India.

As the row has intensified, Greece has blocked its neighbour’s bids to join Nato and the EU. Greek officials insist that the country be referred to internationally as the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, the provisional name with which it was admitted to the UN, even if it is formally recognised as the Republic of Macedonia, its constitutional name, by more than 130 states.

Gruevski’s decision to move the goalposts – just as Greek archaeologists are excavating a burial mound in northern Amphipolis in Macedonia province that some believe could contain the tomb of one of Alexander’s relatives – has inflamed passions on both sides of the border. And Macedonians themselves are at odds over a scheme that many say not only smacks of megalomania but has turned Skopje into a mini Las Vegas.

“I don’t see why the Greeks should be offended. We are offended,” said Sasho Ordanoski, a political analyst and outspoken critic of Gruevski’s overtly nationalist policies. “Skopje has become the capital of kitsch in Europe in architectural and political style. The whole thing reeks of bad taste and has been a huge financial disaster. We both share the same territory of the historic empire of Alexander the Great and we have built the highest monument to Alexander in the world. If anything, Athens should be pleased.”

The Greeks are no less prone to politicking on the issue. A statue of Alexander on a steed – carved almost two decades before Macedonia’s own mounted warrior came to grace Skopje’s central square – has been hauled back to a warehouse because officials are undecided about which public space the sculpture should be erected in.

In Athens, politicians privately say the time is ripe to settle the dispute. A compromise solution of “Upper Macedonia” is among those thought to have been proposed by Greek officials. The UN has announced that envoys from the two states will meet in New York on Wednesday for a new round of negotiations.

But the omens do not look good. Skopje’s foreign minister, Nikola Poposki, declared before the talks: “We are further away from a solution than we were a few years ago.”