The EU-Serbia Stabilization and Association Parliamentary Committee’s 10th meeting in Strasbourg called for more rule of law, and media freedom in the country, the European Parliament said in a statement issued on Thursday, TV N1 reports. The statement says as follows:
If there would be a unified stance of the international stakeholders, Pristina would by now revoke 100 percent tariffs it imposed on goods from central Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, Center for Foreign Policy Director, Dragan Djukanovic told RTS.
He also thinks there is a higher probability that due to the Kosovo issue extraordinary parliamentary elections in Serbia would take place in May next year, rather than in June this year.
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said late on Tuesday he was surprised by US Ambassador Kyle Scott saying that "not only Pristina is to blame". Ambassador Scott said earlier the blame for the current relations between Belgrade and Pristina is also the absence of dialogue on both sides.
"I am surprised by Scott's statement. Hang on, man. They say, don't shift the blame. Say what we are guilty of?" Vucic said while on a Happy TV talk show.
The journalist remarked that some have asked Vucic to seal off passages towards Kosovo and Metohija "airtight."
French Ambassador to Serbia Frederic Mondoloni told TV N1 on
Thursday that his country’s President Emmanuel Macron should visit Serbia in
July, adding Paris wants “a strong Europe and a strong Serbia in the European
Union.”
Minister for European Integration Jadranka Joksimovic sees no reason for the process of Serbia's EU integration to slow down due to Pristina's moves.
Minister Joksimovic told the Belgrade based daily Vecernje
Novosti that only way for the European Union to preserve the integral
inviolability and indivisibility of the negotiation process with Serbia is to
"evacuate the monitoring of the Brussels agreement from the negotiating
platform for Chapter 35."
Ivan Vejvoda, associate of the Institute of Social Sciences in Vienna, told RTK2 that frequent visits by international officials to Belgrade and Pristina are aimed at encouraging the continuation of a dialogue that will lead to finding a mutually acceptable solution that must be verified by the UN Security Council.
Serbia’s Trade Minister Rasim Ljajic said on Tuesday the Central European Free Trade Agreement (CEFTA) of 2006 became debatable after Kosovo introduced the 100 percent import duties on goods from Serbia and requires a recovery to maintain, the Beta news agency reported.
Ljajic added Serbia was losing a million Euros per day due to Pristina's taxes introduced last November.
First Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic spoke with on Monday with representatives of the European Council on Foreign Affairs (ECFR).
According to the Serbian government, they discussed "the current state of affairs in relations between Serbia and the European Union in the process of our country's Eurointegration and the future of the dialogue Belgrade and Pristina."
Head of the EU Delegation to Serbia, Sem Fabrizi said the stance of the European Union is clear and there is no change in the format of the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue, Tanjug news agency reported.
Asked to comment on a statement of the European Parliament Rapporteur for Serbia David McAllister on possible Russia and US involvement in the dialogue, Fabrizi said the stance is very clear, the EU is there to support the dialogue between the two sides and is doing so based on the mandate it received from the UN General Assembly.
The statement of EU High Representative Federica Mogherini that the UN Security Council would have to verify the Belgrade-Pristina agreement does not mean there would be a change in the format of the negotiations, Serbian Foreign Affairs Minister Ivica Dacic told RTS.
Dacic added there are no negotiations at all, and Pristina “may hang its platform on the wall as a newspaper or internal announcement.”
Dacic also noted Serbia was always saying any agreement that might have been reached would need to be verified by the UN, as a world organization.