Belgrade DMH 141013

LOCAL PRESS

Dacic: Pristina should fulfill its part of the obligations (RTS)

Serbian Prime Minister Ivica Dacic emphasized in talks with U.S. Ambassador to Serbia Michael Kirby the significance of the implementation of the Brussels agreement. “It is necessary that conditions for fair elections in Kosovo should be created and that the turnout of Serbs should be as high as possible,” stressed Dacic, adding it was therefore important to note that the Pristina authorities have failed to meet their obligations from the Brussels agreement. He informed Kirby that the Serbian government had launched a set of measures for economic and financial stabilization, whereby the process of Serbia’s economic consolidation would start.

Patriarch Irinej: Serbs should participate in Kosovo elections (RTS/Tanjug)

Serbian Patriarch Irinej said that Serbs should turn out for the forthcoming local elections in Kosovo and Metohija and choose the best. “It would be tragic if Serbs were not to form the authorities in the areas where they are in the majority because they had not turned out for the elections,” he said. The Patriarch served a holy bishops’ liturgy in the Pec Patriarchate, on the occasion of the monastery’s patron saint day, the Intercession of the Theotokos.

Vulin: Union of Serb Municipalities - a new beginning or end (Tanjug)

Serbia Minister without portfolio in charge of Kosovo and Metohija Aleksandar Vulin said on Saturday in Klokot that the Union of Serb Municipalities, which should be formed after local elections in the province, would be a new beginning or the end for Serbs residing there. At an election rally staged by the Citizens’ Initiative Srpska, Vulin explained that the Union of Serb Municipalities would be the beginning of another fight for the unity of Serbs, for the right to last and to be remembered. We will either create the Union of Serb Municipalities or we will not deserve to be remembered, Vulin said at the rally, presenting the initiative’s candidates for councilors and mayoral candidate Srecko Spasic. November 3, when the elections will take place, marks the beginning of Kosovo Serbs’ fight for making decisions on spatial planning, education, healthcare, economy, Vulin stressed. He called on the gathered people to help Serbia as the state has been assisting them for all these years. ‘"Only Serbs could preserve Serbia in Kosovo and Metohija, and only Serbs could push Serbia out of Kosovo and Metohija,” Vulin said. As far as we are concerned, these elections were stipulated in the Brussels agreement between Belgrade and Pristina, and will end in the formation of Serb municipalities, Vulin said, underscoring that what was agreed in Brussels could not be changed in Pristina. What lies ahead of us will show how much we lived and participated in historic times, Vulin said, urging citizens to give their vote to the Citizens’ Initiative Srpska in the forthcoming local elections. Together with Vulin, Serbian Minister of Agriculture Dragan Glamocic toured Klokot. They opened the potato harvest season in that village, and attended the opening of a museum in Velika Hoca.

Vulin: Message of peace from Hillandar (Novosti)

The candidates of the Citizens’ Initiative Srpska for mayors of 10 municipalities in Kosovo and Metohija and Serbian Minister without portfolio in charge of Kosovo and Metohija Aleksandar Vulin visited the Hillandar Monastery on Mt. Athos, where they were received by Prior Metodije. “It is great joy for our brothers in Christ when they are coming from all regions inhabited by Serbs, while special joy is when they are coming from Kosovo and Metohija. They are our martyrs, victims who are continuing the deed of King Lazar and those who laid down their lives for faith and fatherland,” said Metodije. “We received a message of unity and peace, a message to be strong and to stay on their land and to be worthy of their ancestors,” said Vulin.

Drecun: Belgrade’s messages yielding result (TV Pink)

The Chair of the Serbian parliament Committee for Kosovo and Metohija Milovan Drecun has stated that messages sent by official Belgrade to the Serb people in Kosovo and Metohija have yielded results. Drecun expects a large number of Serbs to turn out for the elections, though much more of Serbs south of the Ibar River. “It is already obvious that the Serbian (Srpska) list, officially supported by Belgrade, will receive the greatest confidence of the Sersb who will turn out,” Drecun told TV Pink. He stressed that a lot of work remains in northern Kosovo in explaining the significance these elections have for the survival of the Serbs in Kosovo. He says that the Union of Serb Municipalities is a way of creating an integral Serb body in the political-economic sense, which will continue the struggle for survivial and prosperity of the Serbs. According to him, Prisitna doesn’t want the Serbs to turnout massively for the elections and to support the Serbian list, but want a small number to turn out and those who support some other lists on which Pristina has influence. “Pristina’s interest is for the Serbian list to receive as little as possible votes so it could obstruct in such a situation the creation of the Union of Serb Municipalities or, if it is created, to control and destroy it from inside,” said Drecun, noting there are objections that Belgarde is unilaterally supporting one list. “Belgrade must offer guarantees to the Serbs if it wants to encourage them to turn out for the elections, that they will bring intensification of relations with Serbia proper,”said Drecun. Belgrade is not supporting the Serbian list for some partisan or other reasons, but only because it can show, through it, the Serbs that they will not be let to the mercy of Pristina after the elections, but that the Serbian list will be a guarantee of the link between the Union of Serb Municipalities and Belgrade, and “Serbia’s return to Kosovo,” said Drecun.

Race against time for registering voters (RTS)

Internally Displaced Persons from Kosovo and Metohija, whose registration for the local elections on 3 November has been rejected, are sending complaints and applications in order to prove that they used to be residents of Kosovo and Metohija up until 1998. The rulings of the Central Election Commission (CIK) for voting in the Kosovo elections are mostly negative, at least those that have arrived in the Kraljevo Commissioner’s Office for Refugees. The Commissioner for Refugees Slobodan Stanisic says the most frequest reason is lack of documentation that proves presence in Kosovo and Metohija in the period before the massive exodus of the Serb and non-Albanian population.  The application for registration for the Kosovo elections was submitted in Kraljevo by 1,600 Serbs with temporary residence in this town. Branko Uskokovic unregistered his refugee address in order to go back to Vucitrn but he doesn’t have the right to vote. “There is a possibility for Mr. Uskokovic to be on the list because he has a valid document,” says the Commissioner. The deadlines for appeals is short, their will be no extension, so this is why the Commissioner’s Office and the post office are working over the weekend. “Around 740 letters arrived from Kosovo and Metohija,” said postman Nenad Simic. “The CIK has confirmed 6,000 valid applications out of totally 38,000 applications.

The Tetovo model for the “Presevo State University” (Politika, by Bojan Bilbija)

Serbian Prime Minister Ivica Dacic has stated that no one can blackmail Serbia and if someone thinks he/she can play with Serbia – they are wrong, even if this person’s name is Jonuz Musliu (the leader of the Movement of Democratic Progress). “There were no threats in talks with the Albanian representatives from Serbia’s south, except if the threat is not the one stating that everything will be within the Serbian Constitution and laws,” Dacic told journalists in Gadzin Han. “International reprsentatives are welcome, but nobody needs to mediate between the Serbian Government and our citizens. I am the prime minister and I had a meeting with their representatives, because the Government accepted the report of the Coordination Body for the municipalities of Presevo, Bujanovac and Medvedja, headed by Zoran Stankovic, which contains seven points,” Tanjug quotes Dacic as having said. Politika learns, Albanian political representatives from Serbia’s south had agreed with Stankovic, in the presence of the OSCE, to discuss topics they presented in February this year. When the state accepted that and adopted Stankovic’s report in seven points, the Albanians have been trying to introduce three new items. First, to replace the Pcinj District with the toponym Presevo Valley. Second, to consistently impose in talks the parallel – Serbs in north Kosovo, Albanians in Serbia’s south. The last request on establishing a university in Presevo was presented last Wednesday, when the Albanian political leaders had talks with Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaqi, a day earlier before their meeting with Dacic. The Albanian representatives of Serbia’s south pointed out to the necessity to open a university in Presevo, as a branch of the Kosovo university in Pristina. However, the establishing of a university has never been mentioned in official talks with the Serbian Government. The Ministry of Education has an Accreditation Commission that gives permits for universities and there is a clear procedure that needs to be respected. One can see from the past that Albanians always commenced the processes, which lead in the end to decentralization or disintegration of the state, at universities. That is how it was once in Pristina, then in the FYROM. Now there is a request for establishing a Presevo university according to the Tetovo model. The Head of the Coordination Body Zoran Stankovic tells Politika that Albanian political representatives had once proposed topics for talks and they were transfused into seven points adopted by the Government on 4 June through a report. They are: representation of Albanians, integration into state institutions, economic recovery, official use of language, alphabet and national symbols, decentralization in the judiciary, education, culture and media, healthace and social protection, security and measures for establishing trust. “The talks will not expand to other topics, but we will first proceed according to the report adopted by the Government, and resolve these seven points, which need to be resolved first, as agreed by the Albanian leaders. There are no talks on making a parallel between north Kosovo aand south of Serbia,” says Stankovic. Presevo Mayor Ragmi Mustafa, who is also the leader of the Democratic Party of Albanians, tells Politika that their proposal is to open a mini university with several colleges, with a rotational mode: “That is only an elementary way of ensuring higher education for all Albanians in the Presevo Valley. The issue of accreditation is an issue between Pristina and Belgrade and on the other side between Albanian political leaders of the Presevo Valley and the Serbian Government. So far, we have ensured consent of Pristina and Prime Minister Hashim Thaqi, and we expect consent of Belgarde and Prime Minister Dacic.” According to him, they already commenced the accreditation process. “The university would be financed partially by Pristina, through part of their personnel, while personnel from Presevo and Bujanovac would be financed by Belgrade, which would cover material costs of this university, just as any other state university. As far as the name is concerned, one of the solutions could be the model of the State University in Tetovo. Just as the ‘Tetovo State University’ one of the proposals is the ‘Presevo State University’,” explains Mustafa.

Bilingual faculties already exist in Serbia’s south

At present, there is a department of the Subotica Economic Faculty in Bujanovac, attended by some 260 students from the region of south Serbia. Classes are taught bilingually, in Serbian and Albanian, and a school of Serbian language for Albanians is operating in Presevo and Bujanovac. There is also a department of the Nis Economic Faculty in Medvedja.

An international conference on reconciliation in the Balkans (Radio Serbia, by Mladen Bijelic)

In the organization of the European Centre for Peace and Development of the UN University for Peace in Belgrade, a two-day conference on reconciliation, tolerance and human security in the Balkans was held in Belgrade. The conference is aimed at contributing to peace, stability and sustainable development in the Balkans, which has always been the region in which the interests of big powers were mutually confronted and, aided by local differences and disagreements, resulted in numerous conflicts. That is why an objective of this conference is to affirm a constructive approach to issues of strategic significance to the Balkans, with special emphasis on economic development, reconciliation and international and regional connections in the spirit of tolerance and human security.

Participants in the gathering include eminent experts from Europe, U.S., Canada, Japan, India and Australia, as well as Boutros Boutros-Ghali, a former UN secretary general, and Erhard Busek, the coordinator of the South-East European Cooperative Initiative and a former coordinator of the Stability Pact for South-Eastern Europe. On the margins of the conference, Bussek told the press that the British-German non-paper, according to which “normalization” of Belgrade-Pristina relations ought to be integrated into the framework of Serbia’s EU accession talks, represented part of a usual diplomatic game and should be no source of concern. Just a reminder: the most influential EU member-state, Germany, had composed a list of requirements which, with the help of Great Britain, is trying to insert into the framework of Serbia’s EU accession talks. Among other things, Germany proposes that, in addition to Chapters 23 and 24, Chapter 35, on Kosovo, should be opened immediately, and should be the last to close. In that case, the European Commission’s report on Serbia’s progress would be very unfavorable for Serbia, primarily due to Pristina’s permanent obstruction of the implementation of some Brussels agreements, which were signed by Serbian Prime Minister Ivica Dacic and Kosovo premier Hashim Thaqi, with the mediation of the EU High Representative Catherine Ashton. According to Busek, there is still enough time to find a solution to Chapter 35.

 

REGIONAL PRESS

MPs from RS against ratification of border deal with Croatia (Nezavisne Novine)

Political parties from the Serb entity with deputies in the B&H parliament will not agree to the ratification of an agreement on border crossings with Croatia because they demand that some of them be reclassified, Nezavisne Novine reported. The agreement was signed in June, just before Croatia joined the EU, to align the crossing of the border and the transport of goods with EU criteria. The B&H lower house was to have discussed its ratification last week, but the item was taken off the agenda for further discussion at the request of Serb MPs. The agreement puts in a subordinate position all business people, notably those from the Serb entity, because only two border crossings are envisaged for animal products and four for plant products, the latter all in the Federation entity, said Lazar Prodanovic of the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats.
Some municipalities along the Croatian border also complained about the border crossing reclassification, prompting the B&H Presidency to request on 8 August that the agreement be amended. Serb Democratic Party leader Mladen Bosic said European Commission representatives told him they were surprised that Bosnian representatives had not insisted in the negotiations on more adequate locations for the six inspection crossings. Dragan Vrankic of the HDZ B&H party agreed that the agreement should be changed, but only after ratification in the state parliament and then the Presidency. He said the EC would not object to the changes if Bosnia and Croatia agreed on them. Croatia does not need to meet Bosnia’s demands until the existing agreement is ratified, as confirmed by B&H Assistant Foreign Minister Zoran Perkovic.
The B&H Council of Ministers Chairman Vjekoslav Bevanda, Foreign Minister Zlatko Lagumdzija and Security Minister Fahrudin Radoncic are expected to discuss the matter with parliament’s leaders by the end of the month in an attempt to find a way out.

RS Office opens in Washington D.C. (RTRS)

The Republika Srpska (RS) opened a representative office for trade, investment and cooperation with the U.S. in Washington D.C., which will be headed by Obrad Kesic, the Washington-based analyst and consultant. The RS Prime Minister Zeljka Cvijanovic and Finance Minister Zoran Tegeltija attended the opening of the representative office. Besides many distinguished figures, the opening ceremony also brought together Serbian Ambassador in Washington D.C. Vladimir Petrovic, former Serbian president Boris Tadic who is on a private visit to the U.S. In her address, the RS Prime Minister said this is RS’ eighth representative office in the world. “The objective of this representative office is to explain that B&H and RS as its part are not just part of the political story, but also an investment destination which has much to offer to the world,” Cvijanovic said.

 

INTERNATIONAL PRESS

Kosovo Drops Fees for South Serbia Albanians (BIRN, 13 October 2013)

The Kosovo government said it will no longer ask ethnic Albanians from Serbia’s southern Presevo Valley to pay insurance fees to take their cars across the border.

Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci on Friday approved the decision, which will come into force on October 21, as the Kosovo government continues to woo ethnic Albanians from southern Serbia.

Drivers who can prove they are ethnic Albanians from the Presevo Valley will no longer have to pay the car insurance fees, which ranged from 20 to 120 euro depending on how long they stayed in Kosovo.

“The compensation [for the loss of revenue] will be made by the Kosovo government, while the ministry of finance will be engaged in implementing this decision,” Thaci said.

The move follows a meeting held by Thaci with Albanian political representatives from the Serbian towns of Presevo, Bujanovac and Medvedja on Wednesday.

Albanian leaders in southern Serbia have often called on Pristina to help them win more rights.

“There is no reason for us, as a minority in the Presevo Valley, to have less rights than the Serbs who live in Kosovo,” Riza Halimi, the only ethnic Albanian MP in the Serbian parliament, said earlier this year.

Kosovo Serbs and other communities have some special rights to representation in state institutions. These are expected to increase with the establishment of the Association of Serbian Municipalities under the Pristina-Belgrade deal to normalise relations.

Thaci encouraged the Serbian Albanians to seek progress by “continuing  dialogue with the government in Belgrade”.

South Serbia is home to 50,000 or so Albanians. In 2001, the region saw an armed conflict between the security forces and Albanian rebels, which ended with the help of the international community and NATO.

Serbian-Albanian Leader Claims PM Threatened Him (BIRN, 11 October 2013)

The head of the ethnic Albanian Movement for Democratic Progress party, Jonuz Musliu,  accused Serbian premier Ivica Dacic of threatening him during a meeting in Belgrade.

Musliu said that Prime Minister Dacic had threatened him when he asked for ethnic Albanians in southern Serbia to be included in the EU-led talks on normalising relations with Kosovo.

"Dacic lost control and started behaving like [former Serbian strongman Slobodan] Milosevic," Musliu told Pristina-based Albanian-language daily Epoka e Re on Friday.
Musliu accused Dacic of speaking in the same way as Milosevic's allies did in the 1990s.
"I told him that although I was in a Serbian government building in Belgrade, he could arrest me, but not scare me," he said.
The ethnic Albanian politician is a former representative of the now-disbanded Liberation Army of Presevo, Bujanovac and Medvedja, a force which was involved in the conflict between Serbs and ethnic Albanians in south Serbia in 2001.

He said that meetings between Dacic and Serbia's ethnic Albanian leaders would fail "in the absence of international mediation", and called for international oversight of the next round of talks.

Musliu accused Dacic of not being interested in solving problems in the South Serbia region.

South Serbia, also known as the Presevo Valley, is home to around 50,000 Albanians.

Decision To Disqualify Seselj Judge Upheld (Institute for War and Peace Reporting, by Rachel Irwin, 11 October 2013)

Appeal followed August decision by panel of judges following controversial letter Judge Fredrik Harhoff.

A panel of judges at the Hague tribunal has upheld a decision to disqualify a Danish judge from the long running case against Serbian nationalist politician Vojislav Seselj.

Judge Fredrik Harhoff was disqualified in late August after the majority of a specially-appointed panel of his peers found that an email he sent in June to numerous personal contacts “demonstrated bias”.

In the email, Judge Harhoff criticises the controversial acquittals of Croatian general Ante Gotovina and his co-accused Mladen Markac, former Yugoslav army chief Momcilo Perisic, and Serbian intelligence officials Jovica Stanisic and Franko Simatovic.

The letter, sent to 56 contacts, also alleges that the Hague tribunal’s president, American judge Theodor Meron, applied “tenacious pressure” to colleagues in a way that “makes you think he was determined to achieve an acquittal” for Gotovina and Perisic.

“The latest judgements here have brought me before a deep professional and moral dilemma not previously faced,” the email said. “The worst of it is the suspicion that some of my colleagues have been behind a short-sighted political pressure that completely changes the premises of my work in my service to wisdom and the law.”

In September, Judge Harhoff asked the panel to reconsider their decision because it had failed to take into consideration his own memorandum on the matter and also a report written by Judge Jean-Claude Antonetti, the presiding judge in the Seselj case.

In his memorandum, Judge Harhoff claimed that he does “not have, or have ever had, any personal interest whatsoever in the trial against the accused [Seselj] and I have not had any association with him or anyone else that might affect my impartiality in the case.

“I therefore do not believe that my email contains any element that might cast doubts about my impartiality in this trial,” he wrote. The prosecution, too, had asked the panel to reconsider the disqualification, arguing that the majority of the panel “failed to apply the correct standard for impartiality”.

In their October 7 decision, a majority of the three-judge panel found that Judge Harhoff and the two other Seselj judges did not have “standing to seek clarification of the decision”.

Responding to the argument that Judge Harhoff’s memorandum and Judge Antonetti’s report should have been considered, the majority said that the rules of the tribunal “only provide” that the president – or in this case, Vice-President Carmel Agius – “receive and consider a report prepared by the presiding judge of a chamber prior to deciding whether or not to appoint a panel to consider the merits of a motion for disqualification”.

Furthermore, the majority of the panel said that there is not any “established practice of taking into consideration the report of a presiding judge, or the comments of the judge who is the subject of a motion for disqualification” when deliberating on that issue.

Therefore, the panel “considers that it was not bound to consider the report”.

In response to the prosecution motion, the majority said it “did not, as contended by the prosecution, presume partiality on the part of Judge Harhoff. Rather, it applied the presumption of impartiality and concluded that the contents of the letter were both reliable and sufficient to rebut that presumption.”

As he did with the original decision to disqualify, Judge Liu Daqun attached a separate dissenting opinion.

“I find that the cursory approach undertaken by the majority in its analysis and discussion of the letter warrant reconsideration of the impugned decision in order to avoid injustice,” Judge Liu wrote.

It is now up to Vice-President Judge Agius to decide how to proceed. He had initially stated on September 3 that he would not assign a new judge to the Seselj chamber until the remaining judges conferred with the accused on whether to “rehear the case or continue the proceedings”.

However, a day later, Judge Agius put everything on hold in light of the submissions by Judge Harhoff, Judge Antonetti, and the motion by the prosecution to reconsider the disqualification.

The date for the Seselj judgement, originally scheduled for October 30, was cancelled on September 17.

Rachel Irwin is IWPR’s Senior Reporter in The Hague.

Karadzic Interview Request Denied (Institute for War and Peace Reporting, by Rachel Irwin, 11 October 2013)

Former Bosnian Serb leader wanted to give interview to German reporter.

The president of the Hague tribunal has denied former Bosnian Serb president Radovan Karadzic’s request to be interviewed by a German journalist inside the Hague detention unit.Karadzic’s request was initially made in August to the tribunal registrar, who turned it down.

The tribunal has never allowed detainees to give media interviews face to face, although they can answer written questions approved by the tribunal. Karadzic based his argument on the fact that the BBC was given access to the detention unit for a recent television report.

On this point, the registrar replied that the BBC was not granted permission to communicate with any of the detainees, nor was it given access to any area while it was being used by them.

Karadzic asked tribunal president Judge Theodor Meron to review the registrar’s decision on the grounds that he had “failed to consider the possibility of a face-to-face interview in the tribunal’s main building”. A meeting there, he argued, would not violate rules forbidding interviews within the detention unit.

Judge Meron found that the registrar “acted in accordance with the rationale of… the rules of detention, which aims to protect confidential information, when he concluded that its application covers communications between journalists and detainees both inside the tribunal’s main building, as well as at the UNDU [detention unit]”.

The judge further found that the fact that Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazin was not interested in a written interview did not amount to “a denial of Karadzic’s freedom of speech”.

Judge Meron determined that the registrar “observed basic rules of natural justice and procedural fairness”, and that Karadzic had failed to provide grounds for quashing the decision.

Rachel Irwin is IWPR’s Senior Reporter in The Hague.

Will Serbia be the Next to Join the EU? (New Europe, by Frank Maxwell, 12 October 2013)

Serbia's Prime Minister Ivica Dacic is unequivocal, stating he is "certain" the country will be the European Union’s next Member State. In an interview with CNN, Dacic said, "We would like Serbia to become a member of the European Union as quickly as is possible." Serbia received candidate status in March of 2012 and is due to start accession negotiations with the EU next year. If the ambitious Prime Minister is successful, Serbia would become the third of the former Yugoslav countries to join, following Slovenia and Croatia, the latter joining in July of this year.

In Serbia, membership is coveted not just for the economic perks, but also for the symbolic redemptive value it holds in a country trying to move past its dark history. Dacic has been anxious to dispel concerns about his coalition government, which took power last July, and has very publicly affirmed his support for EU membership. The new coalition government put the reformers who ousted Milosevic back in opposition after over a decade in power, prompting some to worry about progress towards accession.

The country has one of the highest unemployment rates in Europe at more than 25%. The fragile Serbian economy fell back into recession last year with output contracting by 1.7%. Public debt has ballooned from 40% of GDP to over 60% in just four years. The government, however, seems ready to take the necessary steps to address the country’s financial woes. In an unusually blunt statement on national television Sunday, Deputy Premier Aleksandar Vucic said, "We [Serbia] are almost bankrupt, in the true sense of the word," adding, "measures for economic recovery will be difficult, not populist."

According to a source quoted by the Financial Times, "Serbia isn’t imminently close to bankruptcy... This is all aimed at managing domestic political expectations.” The budget deficit was 7.5% last year and the government is planning on trimming it to 5% this year. In his address, Vucic outlined a plan to significantly reduce the level of salaries in the public sector, measures that would affect between 300,000 and 500,000 public sector workers in the country of 7.2 million inhabitants.

To boost the country’s economic recovery and reverse negative trends in FDI flows, Serbia has been busy wooing foreign investors. The current coalition government is in the process of negotiating a $1 billion loan from the United Arab Emirates. The loan, with a low interest rates and favourable repayment conditions will help the country to repay its more expensive existing debt and lower the interest burden on the budget. A large part, though, will be pumped into the economy, notably the agriculture and the food industries.

The country has also been actively engaging with other international financial institutions. Top Serbian economic officials held talks with the IMF last week on a possible new standby facility. These talks come just one year after the IMF froze a €1 billion programme last year following the previous government’s failure to abide by spending commitments. The new government says its ready to play ball. In an op-ed in the Financial Times, Dacic said, "The state must be the guarantor of a functioning market system, not the instrument of distorted social policies or the main player on the market."

The other major obstacle standing in the way of Serbia is the Kosovo issue. Serbia does not currently recognize Kosovo’s independence, declared in 2008, but Dacic has said that the government’s goal is to normalise relations and reach a final solution. He has said that he is confidant Pristina, the capital of Kosovo, will accept. Historically, Dacic has shown flexibility in tripartite negotiations with Brussels and Pristina. Having served as Interior Minister during the last government, he facilitated the handing over of three Serb leaders accused of war crimes to the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia.

To a certain extent, the lingering stigma of this conflict has put the country at a disadvantage compared with its neighbours. Many think that Croatia, a country with unemployment flirting with 18% and persisting corruption problems, was accorded membership so quickly because the country had strong allies in Berlin and Vienna. Brussels, however, has been receptive of the Serbian government’s signals. While Mr. Dacic’s bet may not be far-fetched, he does have one serious competitor for the title he’s seeking. Montenegro took the first step towards membership in October 2007 following the dissolution of the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro and in June 2012 accession negotiations were formally started.

Bosnia Asks Croatia to Bring Fugitive to Justice (BIRN, 14 October 2013)

Sarajevo has asked the Zagreb authorities to ensure justice is served on fugitive Bosnian Croat war criminal Dominik Ilijasevic, who fled from jail in Bosnia to a Croatian island.

Justice Report

Bosnian justice ministry spokesperson Marina Bakic said that a request had been sent to the Croatian authorities to enforce the verdict against Ilijasevic, alias ‘Como’, who was serving a 15-year sentence for war crimes before he absconded last month.

Ilijasevic has Croatian citizenship and Zagreb does not extradite its citizens, but Bakic said that Croatia had to ratify the verdict under a mutual agreement between the neighbouring states.

“Mostly, courts will render similar verdicts,” she said.

However Ilijasevic has already served two-thirds of his sentence, which means that under Croatian law, he could be eligible for early release.

He fled Bosnia after being given temporary leave from Mostar prison, where he had been serving his sentence.

He then resurfaced in Croatia where he told local media that he was on the island of Vir and was willing to give himself up to local police.

A former member of the Croatian Defence Council, he was jailed for war crimes in the Vares and Kiseljak municipalities, including the murders of civilians in an attack on the village of Stupni Do.

Bosnian Croat forces took control of Stupni Do in central Bosnia in October 1993 and massacred most of the Bosniaks that they captured

Bayley, Leko advocate further NATO enlargement (Hina, 12 October 2013)

Croatia's membership of the European Union and NATO is a good foundation for helping all those that want to join the two organisations, NATO Parliamentary Assembly President Hugh Bayley said in Dubrovnik on Saturday after meeting with Croatian Parliament Speaker Josip Leko, host of the Assembly's 59th annual session.

Bayley once again highlighted Croatia as a successful example for the other countries in the region, a NATO member since 2009 and of the EU since July 1 this year.

Croatia's EU and NATO membership is a good foundation for helping all those that want to join those organisations, he said, referring to Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia and Montenegro.

Leko said it was in the interest of Croatia and security and peace in Europe that NATO continued with the "open door" policy, notably towards Montenegro and Macedonia. "Unfortunately, the processes in Bosnia and Herzegovina aren't encouraging when it comes to NATO integration."

Bayley said Bosnia would join NATO if it removed the practical and political obstacles which have been blocking its transatlantic and European integration for a number of years. There are practical obstacles and political issues, but I believe Bosnia will succeed. I know it's a long road, but I know it will eventually get to Croatia's point, he said.

Because of democratic shortcomings in the functioning of the complex government system and problems with the division of military assets, NATO has halted a Membership Action Plan for Bosnia.

Bayley and Leko highlighted the importance of NATO's Parliamentary Assembly and the cooperation of member countries' parliaments for NATO's policy and for winning citizen support for investing in security, notably in times of economic crisis.

"In Croatia, we are constantly highlighting the importance of the Parliamentary Assembly, because citizens' representatives must have influence over NATO's policy," said Leko.

Bayley said it was imperative that NATO explained to the public why it was necessary to invest in the alliance's security. Citizens no longer take politicians' decisions for granted, they ask questions and we have the duty to communicate with them and their representatives, he said.

He said Croatia's role was special in that because a Croatian politician, Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic, was the NATO secretary-general's assistant for public diplomacy.

BiH Long-awaited census faces problems (Press TV, by Ivana Setic, 11 October 2013)

The first post-war census is underway in Bosnia and Herzegovina. However, experts say there are many irregularities and the authorities cannot handle all the obstacles.

Long -awaited census in Bosnia and Herzegovina, first one after 22 years; the purpose is to establish statistical data, primarily for planning economic policies in the country. However, the process of the census has proved to be poorly prepared and recorded a large number of irregularities.

One reported problem concerns the enumerators taking completed forms back to their own homes, since storage place for census forms has not been allocated in all municipalities. This puts the credibility and legality of the process in question. Also there have been reported cases of enumerators caught interviewing citizens in restaurants, instead of their homes.
Following reports of irregularities, the Coalition Equality, composed of around 20 non-governmental organizations, has urged citizens to stop giving their personal data until the Statistics Agency removes all deficiencies for which they have no explanations.
Observers say the Statistics Agency of Bosnia and Herzegovina is aware of all these problems and the fact that this could surely affect the validity of the census. They say after 22 years the country had time to prepare for the statistics and it looks like all those instructions from European observers who monitored the trial census last year, did not help.
If the census process moves forward, the results are due in mid-January. Bosnia and Herzegovina is the country of several constituent groups. Due to the huge number of people who were killed or fled the country during and after the Bosnian war, there is still no accurate data on the percentages of these groups living in the country.

Bosnian Serb MPs against ratification of border deal with Croatia (Hina, 12 October 2013)

Political parties from the Serb entity with deputies in the Bosnian parliament will not agree to the ratification of an agreement on border crossings with Croatia because they demand that some of them be reclassified, Nezavisne Novine daily reported on Saturday.

The agreement was signed in June, just before Croatia joined the European Union, to align the crossing of the border and the transport of goods with EU criteria. The Bosnian lower house was to have discussed its ratification last week, but the item was taken off the agenda for further discussion at the request of Serb MPs.

The agreement puts in a subordinate position all business people, notably those from the Serb entity, because only two border crossings are envisaged for animal products and four for plant products, the latter all in the (Croat-Bosniak) Federation entity, said Lazar Prodanovic of the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats.

Some municipalities along the Croatian border also complained about the border crossing reclassification, prompting the Bosnian Presidency to request on August 8 that the agreement be amended.

Serb Democratic Party president Mladen Bosic said European Commission representatives told him they were surprised that Bosnian representatives had not insisted in the negotiations "on more adequate locations for the six inspection crossings."

Dragan Vrankic of the HDZ BiH party agreed that the agreement should be changed, but only after ratification in the state parliament and then the Presidency. He said the EC would not object to the changes if Bosnia and Croatia agreed on them.

Croatia does not need to meet Bosnia's demands until the existing agreement is ratified, as confirmed by Bosnian Assistant Foreign Minister Zoran Perkovic.

Bosnian Council of Ministers Chairman Vjekoslav Bevanda, Foreign Minister Zlatko Lagumdzija and Security Minister Fahrudin Radoncic are expected to discuss the matter with parliament's leaders by the end of the month in an attempt to find a way out

EU suspends Bosnia funds over constitution changes (AP, 12 October 2013)

The European Union says it is suspending over half of its funds it provides to prepare Bosnia for a potential future membership in the bloc because of the inability of the country's leaders to change the constitution.

The country's constitution was part of a compromise that ended Bosnia's 1992-1995 war, and it envisages that only a Bosniak, a Croat or a Serb the three dominant ethnic groups can become a president. But a Jew and a Roma sued the country at a European court, claiming discrimination, and won.

The EU said in a statement Friday it is suspending 47 million euros ($63.6 million) from its pre-accession funds after Bosnia's leaders failed to agree on constitutional changes required by the court.

Croats And Serbs Make Headway In Improving Relations, Minority Status (SETimes, by Ivana Jovanovic and Selena Petrovic, 13 October 2013)

The new Croatian-Serbian Friendship Association founded by a group of citizens in Rijeka, Croatia, has the goal of improving relations between Croatia and Serbia, as well as the status of the Croatian minority in Serbia and the Serbian minority in Croatia.

Federation President Nikola Ivanis said the organisation, which opened last month, plans to foster better relations by “improving co-operation between businesses, sport associations, tourist communities and scientific institutions.”

“We have organised a visit by 32 people from Istria and coastal Croatia to Guca in West Serbia, and we are expecting tourist operators from south Serbia to visit the Rijeka Carnival in 2014,” Ivanis told SETimes.

He said the status of the Croatian minority in Serbia and Serbian minority in Croatia is advancing, but there is a lot of space for improvement, which requires “stronger will by executive authorities in both countries.”

Slaven Bacic, the president of Croatian national council in Serbia, told SETimes that relations between two states are better, not only in comparison to 1990, but also compared to the last 10 years.

“The conflict end and normalisation of relations changed the visions about minorities. But there is a lot of space for improvement. We are contributing by our co-operation with representatives of the Serbian minority in Croatia,” Bacic said.

He added that huge shifts in the lives of the Croatian minority were made after the end of the Milosevic regime, especially in Vojvodina, Serbia, where 58,000 Croats live.

“This is the 12th year of education in the Croatian language; we have 40 Croatian associations and a legally elected body for minority government. A few years ago the Institute for the Vojvodina Croats culture was established. But resistance in numerous government segments is still present and we have to deal with them on a daily basis,” Bacic said.

According to Sandro Knezovic, a research fellow at Zagreb-based Institute for Development and International Relations, although “there are certain criticisms related to the status of Croats in Vojvodina, they are definitely going to be addressed during discussions between Serbia and the European Union. This will be one of the more significant issues on the table [in the accession negotiations]. In this context, the improvement of their status and returning to the thesis that minorities must not be barriers, but the bridge between neighboring countries, is to be expected.”

“Minority rights were a significant issue during Croatia’s accession negotiations, and all communities in Croatia, the Serbian minority included, currently enjoy the highest level of minority rights protection,” he told SETimes.

Davor Paukovic, an assistant professor at Dubrovnik University and associate at the Political Science Research Centre in Zagreb, said that facing the past is crucial to good relations between the two countries.

Instead of relying on participants remaining from the era of the dissolution of Yugoslavia to do that, he said, the focus should be on new generations.

“The media, historiography, education system and the political elite, all play the most important part,” he said, adding that the second stage would be solving bilateral issues, such as mutual genocide lawsuits at the International Court of Justice.

Knezovic agreed, saying, “Over time a generation shift occurs. We hope that new generations will have a pragmatic approach toward politics, maybe even better than the one the present generations has,” he said.

Serbian Inflation Rate Returns to Target, Paving Way to Rate Cut (Bloomberg, by Gordana Filipovic, 11 October 2013)

Serbia’s inflation rate fell to the lowest level in 16 months to within the central bank’s target band, raising the chances of monetary easing.

Consumer prices rose 4.9 percent from a year earlier, after a 7.3 percent increase in August, the statistics office in Belgrade said today. The “key contribution” to slowing inflation was from monetary-policy measures, falling agricultural prices, weak demand and relative dinar stability, the central bank said on its website.

The Narodna Banka Srbije seeks to keep the inflation rate at 4 percent plus or minus 1.5 percentage points. Inflation was last within central bank’s target band in June 2012. The drivers of last month’s drop in the inflation rate will continue to weaken price pressure and keep the rate within the target band, it said.

The “immense inflation decline might open the door for a very moderate key-rate cut until the end of 2013” even as the bank maintains a “very cautious attitude” because of fiscal risks, Ljiljana Grubic, an economist at Raiffeisen Bank AD in Belgrade, said by phone.

The dinar weakened 0.3 percent to 114.2095 per euro as of 3:31 p.m. in Belgrade. The central bank bought euros today on the interbank market to curb the Serbian currency’s gains, according to three local bankers who asked not to be identified in line with their companies’ policies.

The “huge drop” in the inflation rate was “not entirely expected,” driven by food prices, a base effect, fiscal consolidation curbing domestic demand and the stable dinar, Timothy Ash, an economist at Standard Bank (SBK) Group Ltd. in London, said in a note to clients.

Inflation Breakdown

September food and beverage prices, which account for more than a third of the consumer basket, rose 0.4 percent from a year earlier. Housing, water and electricity costs went up 10.6 percent, tobacco and alcohol rose 21.8 percent and health services 9.7 percent, the statistics office said.

The International Monetary Fund advised Serbia on Oct. 8 to remain cautious with monetary policy easing, which “has been appropriately put on hold,” until fiscal consolidation takes root.

The central bank has held its benchmark policy rate at 11 percent in the past three months after cutting it by a total of 75 basis points in May and June.