The National Assembly of Serbia on Thursday passed a bill ratifying an agreement on the establishment of the Western Balkans Fund with the aim of strengthening ties and encouraging the European integration of Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Kosovo, Macedonia and Serbia.
The fund will finance different projects, helping the signatories to become better connected and reach the ultimate goal of EU accession faster.
Head of the European Union Office in Pristina, Nataliya Apostolova said firmly during a press conference today that combating of crime and corruption are conditions for liberalisation of visas.
She said that progress has been made on this direction, however, she also mentioned the condition of the demarcation of the border with Montenegro, saying that there will be no visas without conclusion of this issue.
By Hashim Thaci,
President of Kosovo
Kosovo has been in a visa liberalisation dialogue with the EU for nearly five years now, and has been working towards this goal for much longer than that. Its neighbours in the region have all but forgotten what they went through over six years ago, by now so used to this basic freedom. Is Kosovo so different from its neighbours? High-level European Commission officials said a year and a half ago that Kosovo is to ‘walk the last mile’ toward visa-free status. One is left to wonder, how long is that last mile?
MP of the Serbian List in the Kosovo Assembly Nenad Rašić says that relations between Albanians and Serbs in Kosovo have never been worse and it needs the help of the international community for the improvement, particularly of the EU in Kosovo but their representatives are completely passive in recent time.
President of Kosovo, Hashim Thaci, called today a meeting of the National Council for European Integration and said that special effort need to be made to finalise the visa liberalization process as quickly as possible. He said that the current situation regarding the inability of the people of Kosovo to travel freely to European countries is “unjustifiable”.
Ivica Dacic on Friday denied the claims that Serbia failed to open any new EU accession negotiations chapters in October because of Russia.
The foreign minister added that new chapters will be opened "when there has been is progress in the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue."
Kosovo Deputy Prime Minister Branimir Stojanović told Tanjug that it is quite clear that there is no political will of Pristina to implement within a reasonable time fully what has been agreed, and that there are no decisions, especially when it comes to the formation of the Association/Community of Serb municipalities (ZSO).
Maja Kocijancic, spokeswoman for EU foreign policy and security chief Federica Mogherini, said in Brussels Thursday she was not familiar with a document in which Pristina had set new conditions for Belgrade, noting the EU was a facilitator in a dialogue that was currently focused on implementing agreements.
In a statement to Tanjug, she confirmed Serbian PM Aleksandar Vucic and Mogherini would speak by phone later in the day.
The Office of the European Union in Pristina has requested from the Kosovo Assembly MPs to restrain from calls which put into question the decisions of the courts.
As many as one third of EU members are blocking the continuation of the procedures for the opening of Chapter 31 in Serbia's accession negotiations.
The Belgrade-based daily Vecernje Novosti writes this on Thursday.
Chapter 31 relates to foreign policy and security, and taking the leading role among those blocking it are Germany, Great Britain and the countries of the former Warsaw Pact - the Czech Republic, Hungary, Bulgaria, Poland and Romania, said the article.