Belgrade DMH 041013

LOCAL PRESS

 

Dacic: I am not blackmailing the EU (RTS)

Serbian Prime Minister Ivica Dacic has stated that Pristina’s decision to ban him from entering Kosovo represent a direct obstruction of the Brussels agreement. Dacic said that he was told that Pristina would make the decision to ban Serbian officials from entering the province and that he informed the head of the EU delegation and representatives of the Quint countries (the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Italy) about it. “A number of EU representatives told me that I cannot blackmail the EU. People, get real! Nobody is blackmailed here. You should lead a dialogue with someone who can go to Kosovo,” Dacic said at a joint press conference with Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag in Belgrade. Dacic pointed out that Serbia is committed to peace and dialogue, but nobody should be humiliating it. It is, however, in Serbia’s best interest to continue the negotiating process, he added. “The European Commission has not yet commented upon this. This is a direct obstruction of the Brussels agreement.” Dacic said that he has accepted the invitation by the EU High Representative Catherine Ashton to come and discuss all the problems in Brussels on Monday. Dacic said that the purpose of his visit to Kosovo, which was to take place in Strpce on Friday afternoon, was to call on local Serbs to participate in the elections called by Pristina. He said one cannot talk about trust in the dialogue process if he, as a signatory of the Brussels agreement, is not allowed to go to Kosovo. “The issue has brought Brussels’ credibility, not just mine, into question,” Dacic said.

 

Management team demands international community to react (Tanjug)

The management team of the Union of Serb Municipalities has demanded international representatives in Kosovo and Metohija to react urgently in order that Pristina revoke its decision on banning Serbian officials from entering the province. In a letter addressed to the EU Special Representative Samuel Zbogar, UNMIK Head Farid Zarif, OSCE Head Jean Claude Schlumberger, EULEX Head Berndt Borhart and KFOR Commander Salvatore Farina, the team asked that EULEX should enable safe movement of all the Serbian officials and citizens in Kosovo and Metohija, emphasizing that Pristina keeps breaching the Brussels agreement. It is emphasized that, after the decision on ban on entry was made, it has become clear to all that Pristina does not want Serbs or other non-Albanians to take part in the elections in the province.

 

The Kosovo denouement in Brussels (Politika)

Serbian Prime Minister’s warning that he will cease participation in the negotiations with Pristina if Serbian officials are banned to visit the southern Serbian enclaves in Kosovo, has opened a new diplomatic crisis that could be resolved with the invitation of the EU High Representative Catherine Ashton for a new meeting between Ivica Dacic and the Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaqi next Monday in Brussels. At the same time, within a few hours, contradictory statements of Kosovo officials were published, so it is still unknown whether and to whom of the Serbian officials the ban to enter the Serbian province applies. An additional note of seriousness to the warning from Belgrade was given yesterday by Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic in the CoE in Strasbourg. It was simultaneously published that the Serbian delegation had not appeared at the meeting with the Pristina team that was supposed to be held yesterday in Brussels. Pristina accused the Serbian side of “boycott,” prompting some foreign observers to state for Politika that Belgrade, with Dacic’s warning, “put across” that the talks on disputable issues, such as the registration of “internally displaced” Serbian voters, on which no progress had been achieved for two weeks in Brussels, should be continued at the level of prime ministers, and not expert groups. Politika’s source close to Prime Minister Dacic says that “the authorities in Pristina and the international community have known for the past 15 days that Prime Minister Ivica Dacic will visit Kosovo and Metohija. There had been no hints either through official or non-official channels that someone from Pristina or the international community has anything against this visit. At issue is a symbolic visit by the Prime Minister, aimed at motivating the Serbs to turn out for the elections and explain why these elections are important for the survival of the Serb community. Some representatives of the Independent Liberal Party have asked that Prime Minister Dacic visits them.” Politika’s source claims that the Brussels meeting with Thaqi on Monday will touch upon electoral lists and the intention for internally displaced Serbs to vote at the elections. One of the topics will also be as to whether voting will be possible not only in Kosovo and Metohija, but also in other parts of Serbia. “If Dacic is on the voter list, he will certainly vote,” says Politika’s unnamed source, recalling that Pristina had on several occasions obstructed the election campaigns of the Serbs, denying them the right to vote and membership in the Central Electoral Commission. Dissonant tones from Pristina on whether and who of the Serbian officials are banned to take part in the election campaign for the local elections are a consequence of an unstable political situation in Kosovo. The leader of the Democratic Party of Kosovo Hashim Thaqi was abandoned by his closest associates Fatmir Limaj, Kosovo Assembly speaker, and Jakup Krasniqi, a MP that will form a new party. They consider that Thaqi is too compliant towards Serbia in the negotiations and that serious talks with Belgrade should have been conducted only after Serbia recognizes Kosovo’s independence. They see as “danger” for the Albanian side, posed by the formation of the Union of Serb Municipalities if this would create a legal basis for a Serb autonomy in Kosovo, i.e. some new Republika Srpska. That scenario scares most the Kosovo Albanians, who fear that the local Serbs might receive a “state within a state” after the elections. A big problem for the Albanians is that it is not defined, even now, what jurisdictions and authorizations the Union of Serb Municipalities would have. It is clear from their media that they are particularly concerned by the election statements by Serbian Minister without portfolio in charge of Kosovo and Metohija Aleksandar Vulin, who told the Serbs in the southern Serbian province that they should vote on 3 November for the Serbian (Srpska) list and that on 4 November “Srpska will be built.” That reminds Pristina of the Republika Srpska.

 

Pantic: Irregularities in polls (RTS/Tanjug)

Deputy Head of the Office for Kosovo and Metohija Krstimir Pantic has stated that there are numerous irregularities in the polls for the local elections in Kosovska Mitrovica that may directly influence the election result if they are not removed. He says that six thousand Albanians, who have never lived in the northern part of Kosovska Mitrovica, are on the polls for voting in the northern part of the town. “This way the Albanians are trying to change the ethnic structure of the population, to influence directly the election results and to bring unfairly to power Albanian political parties and those parties close to them,” warns Pantic. He says that the problem with polls in Kosovska Mitrovica is perhaps much bigger than in other municipalities in Kosovo, claiming that a large number of Serb residents of the northern part of Mitrovica are on polls, but with the right to vote in the southern part of Mitrovica. “I expect that the Serbian Government, i.e. the working group that has been formed in talks with the OSCE representatives, will be able to prove that these Albanians have never lived in the northern part of Kosovska Mitrovica, that they have no right to vote and that this irregularity will be removed as soon as possible,” says Pantic. He stresses that the upcoming elections in Kosovo and Metohija are not elections where the state of Serbia, and the Serbs who take part in them, will recognize the so-called independence of Kosovo, but that these elections are elections at which the citizens will be deciding whether they wish to continue to be part of the Republic of Serbia. He says that by participating in the upcoming elections on 3 November, the Serbs will strengthen Serbian institutions that will receive, after elections, full legitimacy and legality from the international community. Pantic points out that it has become obvious that massive turnout of Serbs on 3 November doesn’t suit the authorities in Pristina and that it is evident that, if they turn out massively for the elections, Serbs will have authority in some ten municipalities in Kosovo and Metohija, which is almost one-third of the territory. “The Union of Serb Municipalities will have clear jurisdictions, tasks, it will be aimed at gathering all Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija and keeping them in Kosovo and Metohija through the institutions of the Union, keeping Serbs in those municipalities from which they had not been expelled, while they will have direct communication with Belgrade,” concluded Pantic.

 

Deniau: Visits to Kosovo important for Serb voters (B92)

The French Ambassador to Serbia Francois-Xavier Deniau has stressed that the holding of elections in Kosovo and Metohija was an essential part of the Brussels agreement. “Good unfolding of elections on 3 November in Kosovo is an essential element of the agreement between Belgrade and Pristina. For Serbs from Kosovo it is important to vote in large numbers: it is also a condition for their interests to be represented,” the French Ambassador told B92 in Belgrade. “That’s why I’m happy to have learned that prime ministers of Serbia and Kosovo will meet next week in Brussels to agree on the issue of visits to Kosovo of Serbian officials before the elections: these visits, if they have the goal to call on the Serbs to vote - I have the Serbs in the north in mind above all - are useful for everyone,” said Deniau.

 

Metohija Abolished, Kosovo surrendered (Novosti)

The name of Petar Stambolic, a Yugoslav Communist-era politician, is linked with the secession of a part of the Raska District and its merging with the “autonomous region of Kosovo-Metohija.” Territorial changes in the region of north Kosovo were conducted in 1959 by attaching the Leposavic and Lesak precincts, where Serbs were a majority, to Kosovska Mitrovica. The official explanation was that this part gravitates towards Mitrovica due its mineral resources. The real reason was to ensure sufficient numbers of votes for the election of Petar Stambolic among the delegates of the Yugoslav federal parliament. Later, Stambolic denied that he had increased the territory of Kosovo-Metohija in the north, claiming that this was done by Slobodan Penezic Krcun, also a Yugoslav Communist-era politician, “in order to increase the number of Serbs in the province,” although, at the time, it was not yet a province. To this day, there is nowhere to be found written state decisions whereby the territory of Kosovo-Metohija was increased by 197 square kilometers. “When the decision to attach Leposavic to Kosovo-Metohija was passed in 1959, this was done by detaching the Leposavic and Lesak precincts from the Raska District and attaching them to the Kosovska Mitrovica District, thus indirectly forcing the area into the province. That means that Kosovo didn’t have ‘territorial integrity’ nor were changes of the territory that it covered conducted through a decision on ‘changing boundaries’,” says Momcilo Pavlovic, the Director of the Institute for Modern History. Regardless of the explanations, Stambolic’s electoral changing of boundaries has cost Serbia dearly. Namely, only after the enlargement, did the region of Kosovo-Metohija rise to the level of an autonomous province in 1963. “Two years after the Brioni plenum, the name of this Serbian province was halved. Metohija was deleted from its name only because it is reminiscent of its origin – Serbian church land. The Serbian political leadership, headed by the president of the Serbian central committee Petar Stambolic, left the decision on the name of the Autonomous Province of Kosovo-Metohija to be made in the province. During those days, the Kosovo Albanians decided not to call themselves Shchiptars, but to be called Albanians in the future,” says writer Pero Simic. The current issue is whether the administrative boundary line between Serbia proper and the province of Kosovo, in the north, passes over the peak of Mt. Kopaonik, above the ski center and the mausoleum of Josif Pancic, or over the hardly accessible valley several meters beneath this point. Namely, both administrative lines appear in documents, for unknown reasons. It is suspected that perhaps at issue is a “phenomenon of markers” that appeared during the drawing of maps in Dayton, Ohio, USA. Namely, after the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina (B&H), the problem of this no man’s land, and everyone’s land, appeared on the ground, which were either claimed or disowned by both sides. They appeared on maps with dividing lines that were parallel, but as far from each other by as much as several kilometers. Their secret was revealed to the public 11 years after the suicide of Nikola Koljevic, former vice president of the Republika Srpska and pre-war B&H Presidency member. He was an eyewitness to the dividing lines being drawn with thick markers on small-scale maps. When the map would be enlarged for implementing it into practice, these lines would become wide corridors.

Albanians can’t abuse the “boundary” on Mt.Kopaonik

“A long time ago, someone attempted and managed to ‘draw’ the boundary of north Kosovo with Serbia on Pancic’s peak. Later, although prior to the conflict in Kosovo, this was corrected, and the municipalities of Raska and Leposavic have jointly established their boundary, which was verified by the authorized state bodies and which was entered into the cadastre and other official documents. KFOR knows and respects this, and there have been no requests from the interim provincial institutions in Pristina to change anything,” claims Dragan Jablanovic, former Leposavic mayor, and presently the Chair of the Provisional Municipal Council. He opines that even if the boundary “on paper” were still on Mount Kopaonik’s peak, there would be no problems, since nobody can build anything on the Kosovo (Leposavic) part of the mountain without a permit from the Leposavic Municipality. “The future Union of Serbian Municipalities in Kosovo will have all jurisdictions in the field of spatial planning and construction and it will be a barrier against any attempt by the separatist provincial government in Pristina to abuse this part of Mt.Kopaonik for ill-intentioned goals,” says Jablanovic. He recalls that Mt. Kopaonik has never been part of the province of Kosovo until Petar Stambolic attached this part of the mountain, together with Lesak, Vracevo and a big part of the Leposavic Municipality, to Kosovo. All subsequent attempts to return this region to Serbia proper were unsuccessful, because there was no political will in Belgrade, despite the repeated requests from Leposavic and Lesak.

 

REGIONAL PRESS

 

Daviddi: Decision-making responsibility not in our office (Oslobodjenje)

Deputy Head of the EU delegation in B&H Renzo Daviddi said in Sarajevo that negotiations by B&H leaders with EU officials in Brussels were a very significant event, and that it was an attempt to return B&H to the European path. Noting the statement by the EU Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fule, Daviddi said that “time was stopped” and that now they should await next Thursday, when B&H political leaders should return to Brussels with answers to two important questions: implementation of the Sejdic-Finci ruling, and the issue of establishing a coordination mechanism for European integrations. “We have until Thursday, and, on our side, we will not spare any effort to encourage this process, but it is clear that the responsibility for decision making is not in our office, but somewhere else,” he said.

 

Sejdic, Finci: RS part of the solution, key problem in B&H Federation (Srna)

The appellants in the Sejdic-Finci case before the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, Dervo Sejdic and Jakob Finci, are unanimous in their assessment that the Republika Srpska (RS) has fulfilled a long time ago its part of the obligations in implementing this decision, but that it is still unclear how the B&H Federation will respond to this task. The President of the Jewish Community in B&H Jakob Finci has told Srna that it is obvious that the conclusions of the latest Brussels meeting of the B&H political leaders with the EU Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fule state in their first stand that the leaders had agreed that the ruling of the Court in Strasbourg needs to be implemented, though he personally thinks that everybody agreed with this as early as in 2009. “However, now we are starting from the beginning, because we can’t really see in the points of that agreement how the decision will be implemented, so everything remains to be worked out by 10 October. It seems that we might resolve within four and a half days something that we haven’t resolved in 45 months. There is nothing else but to wait and see what will happen next,” says Finci. He reiterates that it turns out, without any doubt, that the Brussels agreement is “far more concerned how an authentic representative of the Croat people will be elected in the B&H Presidency, than how will the Sejdic-Finci ruling be implemented.” “Whenever representatives of others, i.e. minority representatives, have tried to suggest or recommend something in this process to the constitutional-legal commission, they were told they weren’t authorized for this and only authorized institutions in B&H may give proposals for amending the Constitution, but not the B&H Minority Council or we who are directly interested in resolving this issue,” says Finci. Asked whether domestic politicians had invited Sejdic and him to take part in some of the preparatory meetings for the next Brussels session by 10 October, he says that only British parliamentarians, who are presently visiting B&H, have invited them for a meeting in Sarajevo to hear their stands and opinions. “That has absolutely not interested our parliamentarians and political leaders, except for the RS President Milorad Dodik who had both time and interest to receive us and hear and accept our stands,” stresses Finci. The President of the Roma Community in B&H Dervo Sejdic has told Srna that “the ball is really in the field of the B&H Federation” after the Brussels meeting and the agreement regarding the final implementation of the ruling in the Sejdic-Finci case. “At this moment, I can’t distinguish or define what all the options are on the table, but the ball is really in the Federation’s field. What I said a long time ago, has been confirmed – the RS policy has done what the ruling of the Court of Strasbourg had requested, the national mark was eliminated in front of the position for which we may run, and this is, in fact, what the Court requested,” said Sejdic. He, too, confirmed that none of the politicians from the B&H Federation had called him in regard to the preparations for the Brussels meetings, except for once, a long time ago, when they invited him to present conclusions from one of the meetings between domestic leaders and European officials.

 

INTERNATIONAL PRESS

 

Serbian Prime Minister: We will be next to join European Union (CNN, byOliver Joy, 3 October 2013)

As the European Union continues its expansion into Eastern Europe and the Balkans, Serbia's Prime Minister says he is "certain" his country will be the bloc's next member.

Ivica Dacic told CNN: "We would like Serbia to become a member of the European Union as quickly as possible."

Serbia is aiming to become the third country from former Yugoslavia to join Europe's political and economic union, following in the footsteps of Slovenia and neighbor Croatia, who joined earlier this year.

But Dacic believes Serbia does not have "a lot of time to wait" as its economy has suffered "great consequences" following the breakup of former Yugoslavia in the 1990s.

"The rate of unemployment is the biggest problem," Dacic said, referring to Serbia's 25% unemployment rate, which sits below only Spain and Greece in the EU.

He added that "discussing economic reforms in Serbia is futile" until industrial productivity increases. Dacic also highlighted the importance of foreign investment to country's economic prospects.

"These foreign investments will not happen if Serbia is not a part of the modern world," Dacic said. Serbia's economy contracted 1.7% in 2012, according to Eurostat estimates, due to its close ties with embattled eurozone nations.

Serbia, which has a lower minimum wage than China, is also struggling to cope with an exodus of skilled workers, as the country's young leave in search of work abroad. The phenomenon has left the country heavily reliant on remittance income.

EU membership is a chance for Serbia to join the world's largest trading bloc and will offer access to funding for infrastructure projects and the country's poorer regions.

But Dacic said: "We don't see the European Union accession as a straightforward financial aid package, or that it would enable our citizens to work in other countries across Europe."

Despite Serbia's ambitions, accession can be a slow process. Croatia only joined the EU as its 28th member in July after talks to join officially opened in 2005.

Although the EU never gives specific time frames on accession, Dacic is confident Serbia will join Europe's exclusive club within the next 10 years.

Peter Stano, a spokesman for European Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fule, told CNN that the speed of accession depends "solely" on Serbia.

He said: "Serbia has already met the political and economic criteria needed to become candidate status and to start the negotiations."

James Ker-Lindsay, a Balkans expert and author of 'Kosovo: The Path to Contested Statehood in the Balkans' estimates that the process will take eight to ten years.

He told CNN: "It might well be the case that Montenegro, which has already started EU accession talks, is going to be the next one to join... getting Montenegro ready for membership is likely to be easier."

Serbia also faces questions over Kosovo, after it declared independence in 2008. Serbia does not recognize the declaration, and the European Union is trying to encourage talks between the two sides.

Dacic said: "We have always made it clear that we cannot and will not try to bring our problems to the EU with us. This is another reason why we are conducting this open dialogue in order to normalize the relationship and solve our problems before accession."

Kosovo was plunged into war in the late 1990s, pitting Kosovo Albanian insurgents against Serb security forces and Belgrade-backed Kosovo Serb paramilitaries.

William Bartlett, author of 'Europe's Troubled Region,' believes EU membership for Serbia will help ease some of the political tensions with Kosovo.

He said: "By reducing political tensions, you are reducing country risk for investors and that will have a positive knock on effect for the economy."

 

The new Bosnia (Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso, by Andrea Rossini, 3 October 2013)

The first Bosnian census since the fall of Yugoslavia has begun in a pre election climate. The survey will show, 20 years after the war and ethnic cleansing, what the new Bosnia is

Between now and October 15 a general census of the population of Bosnia Herzegovina will take place. The last census was carried out in 1991, when Yugoslavia was still alive, and, since then, it has not been possible to conduct another one because of conflicting positions in the Bosnian political forces. After 1991 ethnic cleansing and genocide took place in Bosnia Herzegovina. For different reasons, no-one wished to see certified on paper the victory of the nationalists who, during the war of 1992-1995 and the years following, were able to subvert the country's ethnic composition. Now, within the framework of the European integration process, the Bosnian government is required to submit the data on the population. The European Commission wants to know how many Bosnians there are, their level of education, average age, geographical and gender distribution, and all the other information which in the rest of Europe is generally registered every 10 years. In Bosnia Herzegovina, however, these are not the data at the centre of the debate on the census, as are three questions: numbers 24, 25 and 26. The first asks people to indicate their nationality, the second their religion and the third their mother tongue.

“We have been under enormous pressure,” admits Zdenko Milinoviæ, Director of the National Statistics Institute in Bosnia Herzegovina (BHAS), who is responsible for the census organization. “All the criticism we have received referred to questions 24, 25 and 26. We have tried to find a middle way between the different approaches, between open and closed questions. In this way a citizen can indicate whether he/she belongs to one of the three constituent peoples, which are, according to the Dayton Accords, Serbs, Croats and Bosniaks, ticking the appropriate box. Or else he/she can write out his/her nationality on an open line. All answers then go into the database.”

The Civic Option

The paradox, in a country named “Bosnia Herzegovina”, is that there will be no box entitled “Bosnian Herzegovinan”. “We have only three constituent peoples,” explains Milinoviæ. If someone wishes to register as Bosnian Herzegovinan he/she may, but he/she will have to write it on the open line.” Zlatko Dizdareviæ, chief editor of Osloboðenje in the besieged Sarajevo and later Bosnia Herzegovina's ambassador in Croatia and the Middle East, will do this. “How can I define myself as only Serb, Croat or Muslim? I shall write that I am a citizen of Bosnia.” Dizdareviæ is aware though that he is part of the minority. “Today, the prevailing forms of identification are ethnic. With all that's happened over the last 20 years, it's no longer possible to imagine a country which has just citizens; it's too late. For this we would need another 20 years, but with a completely different system of education, different media and a new political system.”

Today, anyone who chooses to identify with the “civic” option, refusing the ethnic one, apart from being in a minority is also a second class citizen. According to the Constitution established with the Dayton Peace Accords, in fact, those belonging to the three constituent groups, Serbs Croats and Bosniaks (Bosniac Muslims), have more rights than the others, in particular as regards access to certain electoral posts. A mechanism for ethnic representation also regulates posts in the public sector, where quotas are based on projections from the 1991 census. This “ethnic” version of democracy is one of the aspects making the present census particularly delicate.

“The fear [of the nationalist parties] is that the new demographic picture of the country might lead to loss of positions,” states Senad Peæanin, a journalist in Sarajevo, formerly editor of the weekly Dani. “If, for instance, it should emerge that in the Republika Srpska there are no longer any Bosniaks, the quota of Bosniaks in the institutions could be called into question. The same goes for the Federation.” This issue, however, as Peæanin sees it, cannot be solved with a simple redistribution of quotas. “The problem is that in Bosnia the ethnic factor is a source of legitimacy, as was established in Dayton. This is the problem. And as long as it's like this, all hope of progress is excluded.”

Equality

Per approfondire

Jednakost (Equality), a coalition of around 25 associations and groups in Bosnian civil society, agrees with the need to de-ethnicize Bosnia. “Our objective is to remove from the constitution and legal system of Bosnia Herzegovina all forms of discrimination based on ethnic origins,” states Darko Brkan, one of their spokespeople. “As regards the census, I don't think questions 24, 25 and 26 should have been asked. Once included, we have tried to ensure that at least the questions were of the open kind, and in this I think we have been partially successful.”

After the census, the issue of Constitutional reform will return to centre stage in Bosnia. Brkan thinks this should be done abolishing or limiting the prerogatives of the three constitutent peoples.“Today the representatives of the three constituent groups use the clause on national interest to intervene on everything, even on subjects which have nothing to do with ethnicity, blocking the institutions. What does the ethnic question have to do with the price of electricity? And yet every norm has to obtain the approval of the House of Peoples, in which sit representatives of the Serbs, Croats and Bosniaks. It makes no sense.”

The number of Bosnians

In the ethno-political debate preceding the census, one of the less considered questions was the size of the population. Whereas the count of the residents could produce some surprising results. In 1991, the Bosnians were about 4,400,000. In the 1992-95 war nearly 100,000 people were killed, while over 2,200,000 were forced to abandon their homes due to the ethnic cleansing, and no-one knows exactly how many returned. According to United Nations estimates, there are 3,800,000 Bosnians resident in the country, that is 600,000 fewer than 20 years ago. However, Zdenko Milinoviæ believes the number of people lost could be even higher. “All our estimates lead us to place the actual number of the population between 3,300,000 and 3,500,000. The fact is that up to now the estimates have been different, with the entities using different methodologies from the National Statistics Institute. This is one of the reasons why the census is so necessary.”

Finally, as far as the geographical distribution is concerned, the census may show the failure of the return process of refugees and displaced persons after the ethnic cleansing of the 90s. International bodies have tried to support the return with a series of programmes which are partly still active. If the census gives a picture of a Bosnia Herzegovina now divided into ethnically homogeneous towns, cantons and regions, this will certify the failure of international efforts. And the victory of the nationalists, twenty years later.

This publication has been produced with the assistance of the European Union. The contents of this publication are the sole responsibility of Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso and its partners and can in no way be taken to reflect the views of the European Union.

 

Macedonia Govt Accused of Stalling Overdue Census (BIRN, by Sinisa Jakov Marusic, 4 October 2013)

After a minister warned that no money was being set aside for a headcount, the main opposition party said the government clearly did not want a census to take place.

Macedonia's opposition Social Democrats, SDSM, have accused the government of deliberately failing to set aside funds for a nationwide census.

The party said the centre-right government of Nikola Gruevski has an interest in concealing fictive or deceased voters on the electoral role, which Social Democrats say are used to tip election results in the government’s favour.
“The government does not want a census because the results will show that the electoral roll is not credible,” the SDSM’s vice president, Radmila Sekerinska, said.
Sekerinska insists an accurate headcount would undermine the legitimacy of several past elections won by the ruling VMRO DPMNE party.
While the government insists it has already cleaned up the electoral roll, ahead of the March 2014 presidential elections, the opposition maintains this has not been the case.
Its concerns have been reflected in the conclusions of several OSCE/ODIHR election monitoring missions that recomended thorough a check-up of the roll.
The latest opposition reaction was prompted by Monday’s announcement from Finance Minister Zoran Stavreski, who said no funds were being set side for the census in the draft budget for 2014.
In October 2011, ethnic disputes, not the state of the electoral roll, were the main reasons why the country scrapped an already started headcount.
Ethnic Albanian parties and NGOs then claimed the Macedonian majority on the census commission had arranged the criteria with a view to lowering the real number of Albanians in the country.
Gruevski’s government then declared the census annulled after the national census commission tendered its collective resignation.
Political analyst Suad Minsini says the number of Albanians in Macedonia is not the main reason for the government's current reluctance to set another headcount.

He also suspects that a census might show up inconsistencies in the electoral roll.
“VMRO DPMNE and [the ethnic Albanian junior ruling party] the Democratic Party for Integration have estimated that the damage by not doing the headcount would be less than if it was done," he said.

"But their interests are narrow, and the need for a census is greater than any narrow party interest,” Misini told the newspaper Utrinski Vesnik.
The country has not had a population census since 2002, one year after the signing of the 2001 Ohrid Peace Accord, which ended a short-lived armed conflict with ethnic Albanian insurgents.
The results of the census showed that 64 per cent of the population was Macedonian and 25 per cent were ethnic Albanian. Roma, Turks, Serbs and other minorities made up the rest.

 

Croatian lawmakers change disputed extradition law to avoid EU sanctions (AP, 4 October 2013)

Lawmakers in Croatia — the European Union’s newest member — have approved changes to a law banning the extradition of suspected criminals in order to avoid possible sanctions from the bloc.

Croatia’s parliament voted 83-28 on Friday to pass the amendments requested by the EU. Eight lawmakers abstained from the vote, which paves the way for the bill’s changes to formally take effect by Jan. 1 the latest.

The law was adopted just a day before Croatia formally became an EU member on July 1 and included a retroactive prohibition on Croatian citizens being extradited, which goes against EU practice.

The EU had threatened sanctions such as suspending funds for Croatia’s border controls over the law and the country promised to amend it as soon as possible.