Belgrade DMH 221013

LOCAL PRESS

Dacic in Luxembourg: We expect a positive decision from EU Council (RTS)

“We expect the EU Council’s decision on commencement of Serbia’s accession talks to be fully realized and that in December, the Council decides to open the first inter-governmental conference in January the latest,” Serbian Prime Minister Ivica Dacic stated in Luxembourg after separate talks with Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt and French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius. According to Dacic, Fabius and Bildt very positively assessed Serbia’s efforts on its EU course emphasizing that, considering the very positive report of the European Commission, Paris and Stockholm believe there is no room for new conditions. Commenting on the initiative launched by Germany and Great Britain that Serbia’s progress in the accession process be closely tied to normalization of relations between Belgrade and Pristina, Dacic pointed that the decision has not been made yet. “This is still being discussed and this is why it is important that we discuss it with as many representatives of the EU member states as possible so that the positive decision the EU Council made in June does not get relativized by subsequent amendments,” the Serbian Prime Minister said. He emphasized that it is of historical importance that Serbia’s negotiations on the EU membership commence as soon as possible and it is therefore significant to have support of friends.

Ljajic: Support to “Srpska”, high turnout important (Tanjug)

Serbian Deputy Prime Minister Rasim Ljajic has called the residents of Kosovska Mitrovica to turn out for the local elections, stressing that Serbia is not removing from Kosovo. “The political struggle of the Serb community for its rights does not stop with this, only the conditions of this struggle are changing. Elections are an opportunity for these elections to receive full meaning and capacity,” said Ljajic. He supported the Serbian (Srpska) Civil Initiative at the upcoming elections in Kosovo and Metohija, pointing out that the most important thing is for voter turnout to be high and for the election campaign to pass peacefully. Following the tour of the office of “Telekom Srbija” in Kosovska Mitrovica, Ljajic said the upcoming elections exceeded the significance of local elections. “There is an opportunity for the Serb community in Kosovo and Metohija to receive legitimate, legal institutions, accepted and recognized by the entire international community,” said Ljajic.

Polls full of the dead (Novosti)

Despite pressures from Brussels, Pristina isn’t giving up political tricks in order to obstruct the election process in Kosovo and Metohija, so they have registered as many as 600,000 people more than at the last census in 2011. Belgrade insists on this issue being resolved as soon as possible, which was the topic of yesterday’s meeting between Serbian Prime Minister Ivica Dacic and the EU High Representative Catherine Ashton on the margins of the meeting of the Council for the SAA in Luxembourg. Nenad Rikalo, who replaced the representative from the Independent Liberal party (SLS) list in the Central Electoral Commission (CIK) at Belgrade’s request, tells Novosti that the lists still carry a large number of dead people, while there are also double voters, especially Albanians, who are on several polls. “This is especially the case in the north where the Serbs are a majority. We insist that the lists be checked again, but we have great resistance in the CIK. According to the 2012 census, 1,950 Albanians lived in the northern part of Kosovska Mitrovica, and now there are five times more of them, i.e. 7,500. This should not influence the final election results, because around 20,000 Serbs in this town have the right to vote, but it doesn’t contribute to a positive election atmosphere. Rikalo says the ballots are neutral in status and that they carry the CIK logo. Belgrade has also requested an official examination of the translation since the ballots are bilingual and there had been intentional mistakes in the past. Novosti learns that in the final sum, around 140,000 Serbs should have the right to vote. Of around 16,000 complaints that arrived from Serbia proper, the CIK resolved positively 4,000 while 5,500 are still under examination.

Provisional Assembly of AP Kosovo and Metohija reiterated call to Serbs not to go to polls (Tanjug)

The representatives of the Provisional Assembly of the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija have reiterated the call to the Serbs not to turn out for the elections on 3 November that were slated by the president of the so-called “Republic of Kosovo” and rejected objections that they are going against Serbia’s interests. “We are attributed that we are against our state, that we are almost its enemies, but we are in fact the pillar of the defense of our state,” the President of the Provisional Assembly Slavko Stevanovic told a press conference in Belgrade, adding that the call for the boycott is not against the state. He reiterated that the local elections were slated by an unrecognized state of Kosovo and that they are “anti-constitutional and illegal” and “pushing the Serb people into a Greater Albania.” Asked about the call by the Serbian Patriarch Irinej for participation in the elections, Stevanovic said he had sent him a letter wanting “the Patriarch to state what he had specifically said” but that there was no response yet, adding he didn’t wish to strain relations with the Serbian Orthodox Church. Member of the legal-political council of the Provisional Assembly Dusan Celic said he had received an envelope “with the logo of the so-called Republic of Kosovo” with the message that he has the right to appeal because his registration for voting had not been accepted, even though, as he said, he had never submitted such request. “I am asking who had filled in the form with my personal data, without my knowledge,” said Celic, who has the status of a displaced person, noting that he expects the reactions of the ombudsman and commissioner for information of public importance and protection of personal data.

 

REGIONAL PRESS

Sorensen submits progress report: There is no common vision on future of B&H (Fena)

The Head of the EU Delegation and the EU Special Representative in B&H Peter Sorensen has submitted the Report of the European Commission on B&H’s progress to the Presiding of the B&H Council of Minister Vjekoslav Bevanda. “There is still no common vision of representatives on the country’s general direction and future or on the manner of its functioning,” reads the report. Sorensen will also present the results of the Report to the President of the B&H Federation Zivko Budimir and the Prime Minister of the B&H Federation Nermin Niksic, while his Deputy Renzo Daviddi will present the Report to the members of the Collegiums of both Houses of the B&H Parliamentary Assembly.

Daviddi: Europe will not propose solution for Sejdic-Finci (Srna)

Deputy Head of the EU Delegation in B&H Renzo Daviddi has stated the EU Council and the European Commission will not propose an agreement on resolving the Sejdic-Finci ruling.

“We are just trying to alleviate the reaching of a solution, i.e. a consensus that would result from ideas of the participants to this process,” said Daviddi. “We are continuing bilateral negotiations aimed at parties harmonizing,” said Daviddi, adding there is no deadline imposed by the EU but a time limit over the general elections. He pointed out that April next year is the deadline for amending the legislature, i.e. the electoral law. “The Central Electoral Commission cannot slate elections without passing the electoral law in line with the decisions of the B&H Constitutional Court. I hope this will lead to constitutional reforms if an agreement is reached,” said Daviddi. When it comes to the suspension of 47 million Euros from IPA funds because agreement had not been reached on the Sejdic-Finci decision, Daviddi said the procedure had been launched and that the money is lost regardless of whether agreement will be reached. 

Finci: We didn’t take even one step forward (Oslobodjenje)

“Unfortunately, from 10 to 20 October we didn’t take even one step forward in resolving the implementation of the Sejdic-Finci ruling,” said Jakob Finci, president of the Jewish community in B&H. “We have come to a very tough situation, and I’m certain that Sejdic and Finci are at least partly to blame for this,” Finci told reporters after a session of the Council of National Minorities of B&H, at which they discussed implementing the ruling by the European Court of Human Rights. According to Finci, it is clear that B&H political leaders do not have ideas how to resolve this problem. “It is clear that Europe doesn’t want to take this ‘hot potato’ in its hands, because it does not want to be blamed when something disrupts us again and I don’t see another solution other than compromise among our leaders,” said Finci. He recalled that the Council of National Minorities once sent its own proposals to resolve the problem. “But we received the response that we aren’t responsible for giving constitutional amendments and in this way we were de facto rejected,” said Finci. Tihomir Knezicek, president of the Council of National Minorities, told reporters that the Council cannot do anything when it comes to implementing Sejdic-Finci. “The Council is an advisory body for the B&H Parliamentary Assembly, which has a very limited mandate, such that in fact it can give its opinion, its thoughts, and as far as the ruling is concerned there is nothing concrete it can do,” said Knezicek.

 

INTERNATIONAL PRESS

Negotiations with Serbia can pull neighbouring states into accession swirl (EurActiv, 18 October 2013)

Last week’s release of the annual EU progress reports on the Western Balkans and Turkey brings the EU’s accession policies back into the international spotlight. The prospect of starting membership negotiations with the EU has led to positive political developments and more stability in the Balkans, Dominik Tolksdorf writes.

Dominik Tolksdorf is researcher at the Paris-based Institut français des relations internationales (IFRI).

Several countries in the Balkans have made progress on their way into the EU: Montenegro started accession negotiations with the EU last year and has since completed two chapters on policy areas. The European Commission has also recommended in its progress report that membership negotiations start with Macedonia, which overcame a political crisis at the beginning of the year. In addition, Albania, with a more stable political situation, will probably be granted EU candidate status in the upcoming weeks. Kosovo will soon start negotiations on an association agreement with the EU that might be signed as early as 2014.

Most striking is the progress seen in Serbia, long considered the eternal troublemaker in the region. The governments of Serbia and Kosovo achieved an historic breakthrough in April 2013 when they completed an agreement concerning the normalization of their relations. Critical to this agreement was Serbia’s concession to dismantle its parallel structures in North Kosovo in exchange for the right to form an association of the Serb-inhabited municipalities and to grant them a high level of autonomy within Kosovo.

The Serbian government’s agreement on the compromise was unprecedented, and Belgrade still has to convince the Serbs in North Kosovo to bite the bullet and accept it. An important test of the resilience of the agreement will be the municipal elections in Kosovo on November 3, 2013. According to the April agreement, citizens from the Serb-inhabited municipalities in North Kosovo will be asked to take part in elections that they have boycotted for years to elect representatives for Kosovo’s institutions. Both the Serbian government and the head of the Serbian Orthodox Church have called on local Serbs to participate in the elections.

An important motivator for Serbia in signing the April Agreement was the prospect of starting EU membership negotiations in early 2014. The implementation of the agreement is therefore taken seriously by both sides, and failure to comply can lead to harsh criticism by one of the parties. This dynamic was recently seen when the government of Kosovo denied Serbian politicians the right to enter North Kosovo during the election campaigns. In response Serbia’s Prime Minister Ivica Daèiæ condemned this political choice on the part of Kosovo as an obstruction of the April Agreement and threatened to discontinue talks in Brussels. Fortunately, the escalating conflict was settled shortly before the publication of the progress reports under the auspices of the EU’s foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, who mediated talks between the Prime Ministers of Serbia and Kosovo.

Although it remains to be seen how many Serbs will in the end participate in the elections, these events suggest the resiliency of the April agreement, and, more importantly, that it provides a functional mechanism for long-term reconciliation process between both countries. The prospect of EU membership negotiations can therefore be viewed as the main contributing factor to preventing conflict and ensuring the agreement is maintained.

The EU should ensure Serbia’s continuing commitment to the agreement by firmly engaging Belgrade into the membership negotiations in upcoming years. The new progress report provides a sound testimonial of Serbia’s efforts in meeting the criteria for EU accession in the past months. Although the EU does not ignore Serbia’s deficits (the EU has recently harshly criticized the government’s banning of a gay pride march), prospects are good that the negotiations will still run smoothly. Serbia’s aspiration to accelerate its EU integration process is also clearly influenced by Croatia’s EU entry in July 2013, which demonstrated that the prospect of gaining membership can materialize if there is sufficient commitment by the applicant state.

If Serbia’s membership negotiations start next year and proceed smoothly there is a good chance that this will also pull its neighbouring countries into the accession swirl, particularly Bosnia and Herzegovina, where the EU “membership carrot” has so far shown almost no effects. Indeed, doing so would encourage countries in the Western Balkans to overcome common sources of instability, including high unemployment (especially among youths), corruption, ineffective rule of law institutions and partial judiciaries, and poor protection and lack of integration of minority groups.

The past year has demonstrated that the prospect of EU membership can be a powerful incentive for governments to take unprecedented decisions toward stability and conflict resolution. While the EU’s accession policies are not a panacea for all of the problems facing the Balkans, they have the potential to steadily improve dynamics in the region.

EFAC deeply concerned over Bosnia (World Bulletin, 22 October 2013)

The Foreign Affairs Council expressed its “serious concern” that Bosnian political leaders did not agreed on solution for the implementation of the 2009 ruling by the ECHR concerning minority rights.

The Foreign Affairs Council meeting in Luxemburg resulted with the declaration stating concern for the lack of the progress in Bosnia and Herzegovina, AA reports.

The Council expressed its “serious concern” that Bosnian political leaders did not agreed on solution for the implementation of the 2009 ruling by the European Court of Human Rights concerning minority rights.

The Council expresses its full support to the facilitation efforts led by the EU Special Representative/Head of Delegation and the Commission on this issue.

"It underlines that it is up to the Bosnia and Herzegovina political leaders to make the necessary progress. It stresses that the current lack of a solution of the Sejdić/Finci issue is preventing Bosnia and Herzegovina to further progress towards the EU,” it was stated.

At the same time, the Council decided to prolong the mandate for the EU military operation Althea in Bosnia.

“As part of the overall EU strategy for Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Council confirms the EU's readiness to continue at this stage an executive military role to support Bosnia and Herzegovina's authorities to maintain the safe and secure environment, under a renewed UN mandate.”

In its last week issued progress report, the European Commission concluded that Bosnia is the only country in the region where only “limited progress” in fulfilling political and economic criteria of the European Union has been achieved.

“A shared vision by the political representatives on the overall direction and future of the country, or on how it should function, remains absent,” said the report.

The Foreign Affairs Council is the EU body responsible for foreign policy and defence to trade, development cooperation and humanitarian aid. The Council is composed of the foreign minister of the EU member states, and headed by the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy.

Macedonian EU accession progress 'as far away as ever' (The Parliament, by Richard Howitt, 21 October 2013)

My own belief is that the approach to the forthcoming EU council presidency of Greece, could and should bring necessary new political impetus to resolving the dispute between Athens and Skopje

Few would argue that EU member states are respecting the principle that bilateral issues should not be brought in to the EU enlargement process

With Macedonia holding the unwanted status of longest running EU accession candidate in the western Balkans, Europe must push ahead with negotiations, argues Richard Howitt.
Last week, for the fifth successive year in a row, the European commission urged the opening of accession talks with the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.
Given the political turmoil in the past year and genuine concerns about media freedom in the country, it is too simple to ascribe the continuing failure of EU member states to agree the recommendation and set a date for the talks to the long-standing name dispute with Greece.
Yet the stark truth is that motivation in in Skopje to confront those challenges that stand in the way of maintaining EU-related reforms is, as in other accession countries - in my experience, directly related to progress towards accession itself.
And that progress seems as far away as ever, after a 20 year failure of the UN-process to resolve the naming conflict. Few would argue that EU member states are respecting the principle that bilateral issues should not be brought in to the EU enlargement process.
Despite the warning signs, there is a dangerous complacency in the European council that the country can continue to be rebuffed without consequences.
In the European parliament, where I have been able to assemble overwhelming majorities in favour of starting the talks, I say too much time has already been lost.
Once again this year I will be backing enlargement and European neighbourhood policy commissioner Štefan Füle's recommendation that the naming issue can be resolved in the early phase of talks, allowing them to start first.
Indeed, beginning a screening process would put the focus on the very justice, democracy and human rights issues in the country, about which EU member states claim they are most concerned.
My own belief is that the approach to the forthcoming EU council presidency of Greece, could and should bring necessary new political impetus to resolving the dispute between Athens and Skopje.
Füle was kind to ask me to personally help broker the country's 1 March agreement earlier this year, which was successful in ending a boycott of parliament.
Now I join with him again to say that the political will which was shown then and which needs to be maintained by the country's politicians, also needs to be matched by political will in the European council, to allow the western Balkans country with the longest running EU candidate status to finally move ahead.
Richard Howitt is parliament's rapporteur on the resolution on the 2012 progress report on the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia

Tito’s Shield (dissidentvoice.org, by Binoy Kampmark, 21 October 2013)

Jovanka Broz and Yugoslavia’s Memory

Jovanka Broz is dead.  Her legacy, like so much in the former Yugoslavia, was a troubled one. It is mournful, heavy with a blanket of nostalgia.  “With Broz’s death,” cited Serbian Prime Minister Ivica Daèiæ, “we are left without one of the most reliable witnesses of our former country’s history.”  He also acknowledged the other side of the matter: the vengeful “historical injustice” done to Broz (Blic Online, October 21).

Broz was one of those extraordinary creatures made extraordinary by history.  She was born Jovanka Budisavljeviæ in December 1924 in Lika, Croatia.  She joined the partisans at the age of 17, serving till the end of the Second World War in 1945.  In 1952, she married Josip Broz, known in the annals as Tito, the mastermind of the modern Yugoslavian state, a key leader of the Non-aligned movement.  She remained the state’s first lady for almost three decades, living a life of ostentation as her husband straddled the Cold War divide.

Broz suffered with the country she and her husband presided over.  She became effectively stateless at the destruction of the Yugoslavian Socialist federation in the 1990s.  She was instrumentally forgotten via state orchestrated amnesia.  A veil of silence was drawn around her.  Tito himself lost his heroic lustre as the bodies started piling up, with historical scores being settled in bloody fashion.  “Brotherhood and unity” had to be replaced by the ethnic sloganeering and patriotic froth of seven new countries.

Broz proved something of a buffer against mania and influence.  For that reason, she had to be marginalised by the party elite suspicious of her influence.  Repeated efforts were made to do so. In the late 1970s, as Tito slid into a realm of dementia and disorienting illness, he took the lead in isolating Broz after being convinced his security was at stake. There were rumours that she had been involved in intrigue behind several military appointments.  Like an oriental grand vizier, Tito tended to fear for his welfare from those nearest him.

On Tito’s death in 1980 Broz was deemed persona non grata.  Widows of distinguished statesmen are often seen to be the cherished link to the past.  In Broz’s case, she was made a special example of the state’s internalised paranoia: excluded from public life, made an effective prisoner of the state, deprived of a passport and identification, kept in a crumbling state-owned villa in the Belgrade suburb of Dedinje.  Armed guards kept vigil, monitoring her movements around the clock.

It became common knowledge that her residence lacked basic comforts, including heating.  Tito’s widow was condemned to freeze.  “I remember that it was minus 11 (Celsius) outside and there was no heating in the house,” recalled Serbian Trade Minister Rasim Ljajiæ on visiting Broz in 2005.

In 2009, in a rare interview with the Politika daily, she spoke of how the authorities swooped in at the moment of her husband’s death.  “They chased me out… in my nightgown, without anything, not allowing me even to take a photo of the two of us or a letter, a book.”  The authorities were swift, confiscating the couple’s property even as Tito’s body was barely cold.  The stash, given Tito’s extensive international travelling and tribute, would have been extensive and to this day much of it remains unaccounted for.

“They wanted to settle accounts with Tito, by accusing me of preparing a plot against him” (Spiegel Online, October 21).  With his death, she was to be entombed from public life, that chapter closed.

Now that she is finally left life, Broz’s request to be buried next to Tito is being considered.  According to Daèiæ, “we are willing to accept her and her family’s request”.  The logistics, however, will be problematic given the way Tito’s House of Flowers was constructed, assuming its own sacral powers and architectural impregnability.

The dead cannot plot coups.  Their image is at the mercy of the living.  They can be restored, revered and admired once they have bitten the dust.  Condolences and nods of respect will be plenty for Broz.  But they will be tainted by disingenuousness.  When alive, she was treated as the refuse of memory, undeserving of even the most basic of amenities.  That is the symbolism of Yugoslavia – a state that came from seed that went to seed, and perhaps something to be least ashamed of.