LOCAL PRESS

 

Vucic: Difficult decisions for hard times (RTS/Tanjug/Politika)

At the annual press conference, in summarizing the accomplishments of his cabinet, Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic has assessed that the current government has been working honestly and responsibly since the beginning of the turn, while having to make difficult decisions, suiting the hard times we live in. Vucic has said that the government had inherited a lot of problems, in addition to the disastrous floods, for which he said it was the greatest elementary catastrophe in the last 100 years. According to the Prime Minister, the government had set some difficult goals that the previous government did not want to address. He has sent a message to the citizens that if they are diligent and hardworking, Serbia will become a decent country. He has also underlined that Serbia has become a fully opened country with the strongest foreign policy activity in the region. “We have been exercising the firm policy of preserving the sovereignty of Serbia, showing respect for ourselves but also being a reliable partner. In its recent history, Serbia is now held in most respect in Europe and around the world,” Vucic noted, adding that different message was not heard anywhere. He has emphasized that Serbia has become a reliable partner due to the fact that no promises were made that could not be made. It was attained through the firm, stable, clear and well defined policy, and the political stability is the prerequisite for economic progress. The Prime Minister has said that the next year will be the time of challenges, in which the face of Serbia will be changed. In 2014 the unemployment rate has been decreased by a bit less than 7%, Vucic said, and added that despite the difficult measures the unemployment must not be over 20% in the next year. He has underlined that the government received support for its work from the global institutions in both the East and the West. According to him, only with political support Serbia will be able to ensure the economic growth over half a percent, which would be contrary to the forecast of the IMF. Vucic has confirmed that the dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina will resume in Brussels on 9 February. He has specified that in the next round of the talks he would be joined by Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic, while the other side will be represented by Kosovo Prime Minister Isa Mustafa and their Foreign Minister Hashim Thaqi. Vucic has added that he discussed that subject with EU High Representative Federica Mogherini. Dacic and I will go for the first meeting, and in the rounds to follow I will be accompanied by someone else, depending on the topics, Vucic explained.

 

Nikolic: Referendum for Kosovo (TV Pink/Tanjug/Novosti/Beta/Politika)

Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic stated Sunday evening that it is time that we say what Serbia thinks is the lowest it can go in terms of a solution for Kosovo and Metohija, and the final decision needs to be made by the people at a referendum. “There are different situations in Kosovo and Metohija - in one part of it, there are no Serbs, in another, Albanians are the majority while Serbs live in enclaves that are also under the authority of the Pristina administration, and there is also a third part, in which Serbs are the majority and there are no Albanians, and the Pristina administration has absolutely no authority over it,” Nikolic told a TV Pink talk show. “The Union of Serb Municipalities needs to be established, and the demands that Pristina has come up with should be rejected,” said Nikolic, who believes that Brussels’ suggestions regarding the abolishment of parallel institutions in northern Kosovo should not be accepted because that would mean that Serbia is giving up on its principles. “Many things will become clearer after Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic’s meeting in Brussels in early February, and the parliament should then take a position that would ultimately be supported by all,” Nikolic said. Asked whether there are two policies on Kosovo and Metohija, Nikolic responded: “We have only one policy, and it is the policy that has been ordered by the Serbian parliament to the government and the president of the Republic, as well as to any other Serbian representative who is making decisions in any segment about life in Kosovo and Metohija. The Serbian parliament has issued an order to all of them, and will definitely do so at least one more time,” Nikolic said. He said that the new European Commission has brought up something that is a slight reason for concern and had never been mentioned by Catherine Ashton and Stefan Fule - the idea that there will be a demand to recognize Kosovo. “The people need to decide at a referendum whether they will accept all of the EU conditions, and the decision of the Serbian citizens, whatever it may be, will have to be implemented. Should the Serbian citizens tell me to sign independence of Kosovo and Metohija, I would leave the post I am holding,” Nikolic said.

 

Dacic confirms: Serbia takes over OSCE presidency as of 15 January (Tanjug)

Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic confirmed that the first conference of the OSCE Permanent Council was due on 15 January, whereby Serbia will officially start presiding the OSCE. He told a regular monthly press conference that, on that occasion, he, in his capacity of the chair, was to have many bilateral talks. The year 2015 will also be important as it will mark the 40^th anniversary of the Helsinki Final Act. Dacic stressed that OSCE missions were present in various forms in 14 countries.

 

Serbia has done much in implementing the Brussels agreement (RTS)

The Head of the Office for Kosovo and Metohija Marko Djuric told the morning news of Radio and Television of Serbia (RTS) that Serbia “has done enormously much” in implementing the Brussels agreement, and that other problems of telecommunications and energy remain as there was no adequate partner. “We are fighting to protect our property and to protect the possibility for the Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija to manage their part of the power system and for people who have phones within Telekom Serbia to be able to use them and for Telekom to be able to perform its job on the territory of Kosovo and Metohija, in line with the agreement,” said Djuric.

Asked what the Office for Kosovo and Metohija has done in the past period, Djuric notes that he visited the province more than 50 times, that the Office constructed 25 houses, four residential buildings, 20 projects of sanitation and construction of local roads, and that the state provided legal assistance for 4,082 people. He says that the state also assisted the agriculture, and that five churches have been reconstructed and built since the election of the new government. As regards the adoption of the statute of the Union of Serb Municipalities, Djuric says that Belgrade is ready and that Pristina needs to fulfill its part of the agreement. “We are viewing with hope and great expectation the resumption of the dialogue in Brussels on 9 February, where we expect the first item to be the implementation of this part of the Brussels agreement,” said Djuric. Commenting the statement by Edita Tahiri that the Union of Serb Municipalities will not have executive power, and that Serbia will have to recognize Kosovo in order to join the EU, Djuric says that the government in Pristina is completely different after the signing of the agreement, where Tahiri has colleagues who think in a completely different way, including the deputy prime minister from the ranks of the Serbs who thinks in a completely different way. “The fact is that the first item of the coalition agreement of the government is the formation of the Union of Serb Municipalities,” said Djuric. He says that in this part there is no room for “reducing” the Brussels agreement and that the statute will be established within the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue, with the participation of the Management Team. He says that it is not clear to him what good neighborly relations imply, since they can only be established between states, and that Kosovo is not a state but a province. “I know there are officials of different countries who would like to view matters in this way, but we are viewing them somewhat differently… We want to discuss normalization of relations,” said Djuric. Speaking about the platform for Kosovo and Metohija to be proposed by President Nikolic, Djuric says that the behavior of the state is bound by the Constitution and will of the people.

 

REGIONAL PRESS

 

Osmancevic: No longer a place for SDA in Homeland coalition (Oslobodjenje)

Dzevad Osmancevic, vice president of the Party for B&H (SB&H), believes that there is no longer a place for the SDA in the Homeland coalition, because the party has broken the agreement by which issues with the selection and proposed representatives of the coalition in the Republika Srpska (RS) House of Peoples (VNRS) are regulated in a completely different way.

‘The SDA did this, forming a Bosniak caucus in the VNRS and selecting Kemo Camdzija from the SDA as vice president of the VNRS, although this place belongs to another party entirely,” Osmancevic told reporters in Banja Luka. Osmancevic said that such an approach by the SDA represents a ‘strong attack” on the Homeland coalition, noting he was confident that citizens who gave their confidence to the coalition will know to punish such behavior by the SDA and such a “betrayal” of their expectations. Zeljko Stipic, the HSP B&H delegate in the VNRS, told reporters that the possibility was not excluded that the HSP B&H would make a decision on withdrawal from the coalition, because the SDA “turned its back” on the program itself, and not on the construction of the other political parties in the coalition – the SB&H, SBB, and HSP B&H. “I think that this will have great damage for the returnees of Croat and Bosniak nationality in the RS,” said Stipic. He said that the HSP B&H will most likely make a decision on withdrawing its delegate Ivana Lovric from the Homeland coalition, in order for her to stand independently in the RS parliament in the future. Mujo Hadziomerovic, chair of the Bosniak caucus in the VNRS, told reporters that the caucus had constituted and he was elected its leader. He said that there are five SDA delegates in the Bosniak caucus, along with one each from the SB&H and SDP B&H. Hadziomerovic said that they were behaving in the caucus as delegates in accordance with the regulations, and not in accordance with the earlier signed agreements in the Homeland coalition. “With six votes in the caucus, we proposed Kemo Camdzija for vice president of the VNRS, whom all eight Bosniak delegates in the VNRS supported,” explained Hadziomerovic.

 

Formation of Republika Srpska legislative authorities finalized (Srna)

Formation of the RS legislative authorities was finalized on Saturday with the constitution of the Council of Peoples, with Nada Tesanovic appointed as its chair from the ranks of Croats. The appointed deputy chairmen are Zivko Marjanac from the ranks of Serbs, Kemo Camdzija from the ranks of Bosniaks, and Radenko Rikic from the ranks of “others”. Following the meeting, Tesanovic told reporters in Banja Luka there had been no problems during the formation of the legislative body and that everything had gone as planned. She stated that the clubs of peoples might take a stand towards the new prime minister and cabinet of RS on Saturday. Deputy Chairman Camdzija has noted that the next session of the RS Council of Peoples can be expected to take place very soon.

 

Inzko commends RS institutions (Srna)

The High Representative (HR) Valentin Inzko commended the RS institutions for finalizing the process of forming the RS government on Saturday, and pointed out that it is of utmost importance that the RS budget and the economic policy for 2015 are adopted in a timely manner. Inzko also commended the National Assembly and Council of Peoples for forming the new government, the Office of the High Representative (OHR) stated in a press release. Stressing that B&H is going through very difficult social and economic times, Inzko noted that it was of crucial importance that no time was lost in the formation of institutions. „I therefore appreciate that the National RS Assembly, which was convened within the legal deadline, was the first legislature in B&H to vote on a new government,” said Inzko. The HR also expressed hope that the new government would make progress soon on its program. “The RS citizens expect their government to start working as soon as possible and to tackle the difficult social and economic situation,” added Inzko.

 

INTERNATIONAL PRESS

 

Kosovo nabs Serb suspected of planning attack (Reuters, 27 December 2014)  

PRISTINA: Kosovo police have arrested a Serbian national suspected of planning a terrorist attack, the interior minister told a news conference on Friday.

The suspect, from Belgrade, was arrested on Thursday evening with 12.2 kilogrammes of explosives in his car in a street in the Kosovan capital Pristina where many Western embassies are located, Skender Hyseni said.

“We suspect the clear aim of this person was to commit a terrorist attack,” he told journalists.

Kosovo media speculated that possible targets were the embassies of western countries or the Catholic cathedral. Hyseni said he could not reveal details of potential targets because the investigation was still under way.

Security is fragile in Kosovo, which declared its independence from Serbia in 2008 following a 1998-99 war in which Nato warplanes bombed Serbia.

Some 5,000 Nato troops remain stationed in the new country.

“Police had information in recent days that there could be attempts to destabilise the country during end-of-year festivities,” Hyseni said.

“These worries have turned out to be 100 per cent true.”

More than 90 per cent of Kosovo’s 1.8 million people are Muslim but the end-of-year holidays are the biggest celebrations for the secular republic.

The prosecution identified the Serbian suspect in detention only as S.G., born in 1968.

President Atifete Jahjaga’s office said she had asked neighbouring countries to co-operate with the Kosovo authorities to investigate the case. This could prove difficult because Serbia does not recognise Kosovo’s statehood.

 

Croatia: Josipovic’s bid for second term will go to a run-off (Euronews, 29 December 2014)

Croatia’s incumbent president Ivo Josipovic took a slight lead in the first round of elections for head of state on Sunday.

But having failed to secure a majority of votes, a run-off will take place on January 11th.

Josipovic who’s supported by the ruling Social Democrats is hoping for a second five year term and is running against conservative candidate Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic.

She’s a former foreign minister, ambassador to Washington and senior NATO official.

Kitarovic scored 37 percent on Sunday against Josipovics’ 38.5 percent.

After six years of recession, many Croatians are desperate for change.

With unemployment at 19 percent, Kitarovic’s centre-right HDZ party is expected to beat the Social Democrats in next year’s parliamentary elections.

 

Montenegro parliament adopts 2015 budget, raising deficit (Reuters, 28 December 2014)

PODGORICA - Montenegro's parliament passed a 2015 budget late on Saturday setting the deficit at 6.6 percent of national output, up from 2 percent in 2014.

Forty-four of 71 deputies in the 81-seat parliament of the European Union candidate country voted for the budget, which assumes 3.5 percent growth in gross domestic product (GDP).

The higher deficit in 2015 arises from an 800 million euro deal to finance a stretch of highway linking the port of Bar with Serbia, a project the International Monetary Fund warned could threaten fiscal stability.

The government of the ex-Yugoslav republic sealed an agreement with China Road and Bridge Corp (CRBC), part of China Communications Construction Co, in February to build the 40-km (25-mile) section of the 120-km motorway.

The World Bank then withdrew a $50 million budget support loan to Montenegro, saying the highway deal would add to an already high debt level of 58 percent of national output.

 

Pilot errors confirmed Macedonian president’s death in plane crash death (AFP, 28 December 2014)

SKOPJE – A series of pilot errors caused the plane crash that killed Macedonian President Boris Trajkovski and eight other people in Bosnia in 2004, the results of an international probe showed Saturday.

The outcome confirmed the findings of an initial investigation by Bosnian authorities immediately after the accident.

“Several systematic pilot errors were key to the fall of the plane,” said Omer Kulic, head of an international commission that has been conducting the probe for the past two years.

The crash on Feb. 26, 2004, occurred when the U.S.-made Beechcraft King Air 200 tried to land at the airport of Mostar, in southern Bosnia, in bad weather.

Trajkovski, 47, six of his closest advisors and the two pilots died instantly. Their charred bodies were found in the wreckage the next day after an intense search by local authorities and NATO-led peacekeepers.

There was speculation just after the crash that the presidential plane might have been the subject of a deliberate attack.

In 2012, a family lawyer for a presidential advisor who was killed in the crash, Ignjat Pancevski, told local media that the plane was shot down by a military aircraft and that Trajkovski, his aides and the crew were killed on the ground.

As a result, the Macedonian government ordered local prosecutors to open a new investigation and asked Bosnian authorities to do the same.

Kulic said on Saturday that the Mostar airport — where a French contingent of NATO-led peacekeepers assured air control at the time — did not have a working radar and that the pilots should not have tried to land there.

“The pilots should have simply directed the plane toward Dubrovnik (on the southern Adriatic coast) or Sarajevo,” he told reporters.

Another official added that Macedonia’s agency for civilian air transport had authorized the flight, although the plane had not undergone regular technical maintenance.

The plane crashed some 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) from Mostar in a mountainous region littered with mines left over from Bosnia’s 1992-1995 war.

 

Macedonia: 2014 Marred by Ethnic Unrest (BIRN, by Sinisa Jakov Marusic, 29 December 2014)

The murder of a teenager and a terrorism case verdict sparked violent ethnic protests this year in a country with a recent history of conflict between ethnic Macedonians and Albanians

Macedonia started the year already burdened by an ethnically-charged incident from December 2013, when prominent members of the junior party in the ruling coalition, the Democratic Union for Integration, DUI, were seen taking part in a night-time attempt to demolish a statue of the medieval Serbian Tsar Dusan in central Skopje.

Some said this was a publicity stunt by the DUI, aimed at boosting its ethnic appeal among the country’s Albanians ahead of the March-April early general and presidential elections. The DUI however said that the newly erected statue, funded by the government, symbolised Serbian oppression and was deeply insulting to the country’s Albanians.

But worse was to come in May, when rights groups accused the police of using excessive force to restore order in Skopje’s suburb of Gjorce Petrov after two days of ethnic rioting sparked by the killing of a young Macedonian.

Dozens of people were arrested and several police officers were injured in the rioting directed at the country’s Albanians, after news spread that the alleged murderer was an ethnic Albanian.

Protesters threw stones at the police, smashed shop windows owned by Albanians or Muslims in general and set on fire garbage containers that they were using as barricades.

Not long after the turmoil in Gjorce Petrov subsided, another ethnically charged storm gathered over Macedonia.

This time violence erupted in early July when several thousand ethnic Albanian protesters clashed with police in Skopje at a rally against the jailing of alleged extremist ethnic Albanian Muslims for the ‘terrorist’ murders of ethnic Macedonians.

Running battles broke out in the city streets after protestors charged the Skopje Criminal Court building and heavy riot police responded using tear gas, stun grenades and water cannons.

Police said 20 officers and several protesters sustained injuries. Dosens were arrested for rioting.

Protestors were there to show their anger at the life sentences handed down to six alleged Muslim radicals for the killing of five ethnic Macedonians at Orthodox Easter in 2012, in a case that raised ethnic tensions in the country.

The court ruled that their aim had been to cause unrest in the country that barely escaped an all-out ethnic war back in 2001.

In October, the DUI demanded that the US Federal Bureau of Investigation should oversee a possible new probe of the terrorism convictions to instill much-needed public trust in the ethnically-charged case. But the DUI’s partner, Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski, said it was a decision for the court, not for politicians.

Mystery attacks remain unsolved

Few people took seriously a gathering in September in Skopje at which a small crowd of ethnic Albanians heard an ex-politician, Nevzat Halili, proclaim the founding of the ‘Republic of Ilirida’, which he said would take up almost half of Macedonia's territory.

But media attention increased after a mysterious movement calling itself the National Liberation Army claimed responsibility for the shelling of the Macedonian government building in Skopje, which injured no one but damaged the façade. Some linked the mysterious attack to the proclamation of the ‘Republic of Ilirida’.

Fears of more violence grew stronger in early December, when two explosions shook police stations in the towns of Tetovo and Kumanovo in western and northern Macedonia. The two towns were at the centre of the 2001 armed conflict between ethnic Albanian insurgents and Macedonian security forces.

Police however have so far given no more details about any possible culprits and their suspected motives.

Green light for lustration

In January, the opposition Social Democrats said they would boycott the election of new members of the Lustration Commission, the state office for rooting out former secret police collaborators, which it has accused of bias.

But at the vote in parliament, the commission got a second five-year term and resumed combing the state archives for suspects.

Macedonia is following in the steps of many former Communist states that have brought in lustration laws as a way to address past injustices stemming from politically-motivated prosecutions.

But ever since the commission started work in 2009, it has been marred by controversy. The opposition argues that it has been misused to target government critics.

In October, the commission ran into more criticism when it named academic Ivan Katardziev, Macedonia’s most prominent historian from Yugoslav-era Macedonia and the country’s early independence years, as a collaborator.

Katardziev was accused of spying on students on behalf of the Communist regime in the 1950s. He denied the claims and insisted he was the one who was actually under police surveillance at the time.

Veterans’ war traumas highlighted

In October and November, a series of murders and suicides by ex-servicemen, veterans of Macedonia’s 2001 armed conflict, shocked the country, highlighting the need for better psychiatric help for people traumatised by war.

Media first reported in October that an ex-serviceman had killed himself in the town of Kumanovo.

In early November, police detained another 40-year-old veteran from the southern town of Kavadarci, a police officer, on suspicion of killing his wife’s sister and both her parents in their family home using a gun that he legally owned. Media reported that he was going through a divorce.

Not two weeks passed when another 40-year-old professional soldier and veteran of the conflict was found dead, presumably after taking his own life, after being suspected of killing his wife’s parents and another person with an automatic rifle earlier that day in the village of Zletovo, near the town of Probistip.

There is a lack of official data on suicides by veterans, but war veterans’ associations have estimated that at least 30 Macedonian ex-soldiers have killed themselves and at least ten more have committed murders since the end of the conflict.