Byzantine Blog

Ischinger: Serbia Chose Kosovo Over EU

If forced to choose between its Kosovo province and the EU, Serbia will reject the EU membership and decide in favor of Kosovo, Wolfgang Ischinger, the EU representative in the mediating Troika, assessed on Thursday, in an interview for Germany’s leading business magazine Handelsblatt from Dusseldorf.

Instead of forcing Serbia to make a choice which, both on behalf of the current Serbian leadership and Serbian people has already been made for Kosovo, Ischinger said the EU must offer visa facilitation to Serbia “as a sign of the country’s getting closer to the Union, which would represent a positive signal for the negotiations on Kosovo’s future.”

He also criticized the US announcements on the possible recognition of a unilaterally proclaimed independence of the southern Serbian province.

All the statements which give the impression that the solution has already been determined are counterproductive, the German diplomat said ahead of the beginning of the second round of eye-to-eye talks between Belgrade and Pristina, which are supposed to be held in Brussels on October 14.

Nothing Can Replace Kosovo to Serbs

Serbian government minister and Vice President of the Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS), Aleksandar Popovic, said on Friday that Serbia was not going to exchange Kosovo-Metohija province for anything, including the EU membership.

In an interview for the Novi Sad daily Dnevnik, Popovic said that Serbia’s EU membership was a separate issue which had no connection whatsoever with the status of its Kosovo-Metohija province.

He explained that the EU demanded from each country that wanted to become its member, and therefore from Serbia as well, to fulfill certain conditions and none of those required from someone to give up a part of their own territory.

Community of Serbian Municipalities in Kosovo Province Calls for Election Boycott

Community of Serbian Municipalities and Towns in Kosovo and Metohija called Friday on Serbs and other non-Albanians remaining in the province not to vote in the UNMIK-orchestrated elections scheduled for November 17.

Conclusions on the non-participation of Serbs remaining in Kosovo-Metohija in the upcoming elections were unanimously adopted during the session.

The community of Serbian Municipalities and Towns fully supported the position of Serbia’s leadership that the elections, stage managed by the mono-ethnic Albanian Kosovo Assembly and provisional government, are neither acceptable nor binding.

That is why the Community has called on Serbs and other non-Albanians not to vote in the elections, “aimed at the creation of yet another Albanian state in the Balkans.”

The Community of Serbian Municipalities expects from Serbian state bodies to impose penalties on those who fail to observe the election boycott.

European Parliament: Serbs and Roma Live in Horrible Conditions in Kosovo Province

Serbs, Roma and other non-Albanians in Kosovo-Metohija province continue to live in horrible conditions, eight years after the arrival of international administration to Serbia’s southern province, participants of the session on “Multi-ethnicity, KFOR and UNMIK in Kosovo,” organized by the Independence and Democracy group in the European Parliament, have concluded.

Members of the European Parliament, including Patrick Luis from France, who is also the organizer and moderator of the meeting, opposed independence of the Serbian province, evaluating that it would open Pandora’s Box of secessionist movements and might have serious consequences for Europe.

Members of the Paris-based Civic Collective for Peace in Kosovo and Metohija also addressed European Parliament representatives.

Representative of the Roma community in France Nedzmedin Meziri said that the status of the Roma in Kosovo province since the arrival of the international forces is catastrophic, giving a number of shocking examples of discrimination and ghetto conditions for the Kosovo Roma.

Ivana Bacvanski analyzed the link between politics and organized crime in the province, which entirely annuls the most basic principles of the rule of law.

Cartoon by Nikola Otas (Serbia)