Full Thread: Kosovo
View Single Post
Old April 30th, 2008 #50
Serbian
Senior Member
 
Serbian's Avatar
 
Join Date: Nov 2004
Posts: 21,689
Default

Implementation of EU-Serbia pact held off

Quote:
CONSTANT BRAND
April 29, 2008 1:32 PM

LUXEMBOURG-European Union nations signed a pre-membership trade-and-aid pact with Serbia Tuesday to help pro-Western parties there win the May 11 elections and signal they want to pull Serbia closer despite significant differences over Kosovo.

The EU's 27 foreign ministers and Serbian Deputy Premier Bozidar Djelic signed the deal. But, wary of Serbia's Balkan wars record, the EU will only implement the pre-membership deal once Belgrade fully cooperates with the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal in The Hague, which has demanded the extradition of the last remaining war crimes suspects.

The pact was signed after the Netherlands and Belgium lifted their vetoes on the signing of the so-called Stabilization and Association Agreement. But because it will not take immediate effect, the signing had a largely symbolic value.

Dutch Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen said "the best proof" of Belgrade's cooperation with the U.N. tribunal would be delivering four war crimes suspects, notably Ratko Mladic, the former Bosnian Serb commander wanted for the murder of 8,000 Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica in 1995, to trial in The Hague.

At a news conference with EU officials, Serbian President Boris Tadic said he hoped the signing of the pre-membership accord will discount the impact of anti-EU parties in the run-up to the May 11 elections.

"Many enemies of our European future are engaged in scare-mongering," he added.

He vowed to quickly extradite Mladic, ex-Bosnian Serb political leader Radovan Karadzic and other suspects, but said it was difficult because the suspects move around frequently and are at times abroad.

Tadic also called for his country to be made an official EU candidate country by the end of the year.

Serbia's Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic rejected criticism that it amounted to little more than a political gesture. He said it was important in the run-up to the May elections, which he called "a referendum on our membership in the European Union."

The pre-membership accord, when implemented, would offer Serbia easier travel to EU nations as well as increased aid, trade and technical expertise to prepare it for possible entry into the EU. The deal has been on the table for months, but was put on hold following Kosovo's declaration of independence Feb. 17, which soured EU-Serbia ties.

Serbia's hardline Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica in Belgrade said the signing of the deal was "an act against the constitution and the state and as such illegal and illegitimate."

"It is worth absolutely nothing," he said in a statement.

He said the signing of the agreement "cannot be interpreted as Serbia's signature for the independence of Kosovo."

EU officials insisted the EU-Serbia agreement does not apply to the territory of Kosovo, which declared itself independent from Serbia in February.
__________________
Christianity and Feminism, the two deadliest poisons jews gave to the White Race


''Screw your optics, I'm going in'', American hero Robert Gregory Bowers