http://www.playfuls.com/news_10_17631-ROUNDUP-EU-Gives-Serbia-Date-For-Candiate-Status-Tensions-Remain.html
ROUNDUP: EU Gives Serbia Date For Candiate Status, Tensions Remain
World
07:43 PM, March 6th 2007
by News Staff
The European Union on Tuesday said that EU- hopeful Serbia in 2008 could
become a candidate country for EU accession, the first time the bloc has
set such a date.
But in a sign of still tense relations between the EU and Serbia, EU
enlargement chief Olli Rehn insisted that Belgrade has to show "concrete
and convincing actions that must lead to full cooperation" with the
international war crimes court in The Hague.
Rehn told reporters after a regular meeting with Serbian top officials
in Brussels that it was up to The Hague to assess the level and quality
of Serbia's cooperation.
However, he said that Serbia's new government must draw up a political
programme showing its clear commitment to arrest and transfer former
Bosnian Serb General Ratko Mladic and other key suspects.
Such a plan would also include installing "competent people" for hunting
Mladic as well as a restart of cooperation with The Hague.
The tribunal said recently that Belgrade had stopped transferring
documents and reports on all war crimes suspects since last October.
Serbian President Boris Tadic said that cooperation with the court would
be the new government's "priority number one."
He said that a reform of the country's intelligence agencies would be
one of the measures aimed at arresting and delivering the war crimes
suspects.
"I really believe that all indictees have to be in The Hague," Tadic added.
The Serbian president also said that he intended to form "a new
government with European intentions" until the end of this month.
Rehn cautioned that a resumption of currently frozen talks on closer
ties with Serbia "depends mostly on the new government."
If the EU and Serbia managed to restart negotiations in the course of
this spring, the pact could be concluded in autumn.
"Achieving candidate status in 2008 is ambitious, but under the best
circumstances it can be possible," Rehn said.
Talks on a so-called stabilization and association agreement, the first
step towards EU member ship, were frozen in May last year over Serbia's
failure to hand in Mladic to The Hague.
Signalling further disputes over the future status of Serbia's breakaway
region Kosovo, Tadic insisted that Serbia would "respect all decisions
by the United Nations but we are not going to accept Kosovo's independence."
UN Kosovo envoy Martti Ahtisaari has invited Tadic and Serbian caretaker
Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica for a meeting in Vienna on March 10 to
discuss a UN proposal that aims to set Kosovo on the path to independence.
The plan has received backing from the United State and its Western
allies, but has faced criticism from Russia, setting the stage for a
possible showdown between the two veto-wielding powers at the UN
Security Council.
EU top diplomat Javier Solana said that the 27-member bloc was fully
supporting Ahtisaari's efforts and would accept "a final solution" on
Kosovo taken by the UN body.
"We are not going to make war, we are not going to make problems, ...
but Kosovo's independence is not acceptable for Serbia," Tadic insisted.
Talks about the future status of the breakaway Serbian province Kosovo
ended last week without any agreement. Ahtisaari said both parties
insisted on their "diametrically opposed" positions.
Ahtisaari plans to present his proposal on the future status of Kosovo
to the UN Security Council in late March.
Belgrade insists that Kosovo is an integral part of Serbia's territory
and will not accept the province's independence.
Kosovo's ethnic Albanians, who constitute more than 90 per cent of the
province's population, have been in legal limbo since the province was
put under UN administration in 1999.
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