Serbia signs key EU pre-membership deal (Roundup)

Apr 29, 2008, 15:37 GMT

Luxembourg - In what was hailed as a major stabilizing factor for the Western Balkans, Serbia and the European Union on Tuesday signed a key document paving the way for Belgrade to eventually join the 27-member bloc.

The Stabilization and Association Agreement (SAA), a precursor to membership talks, was signed during a ceremony in Luxembourg by the EU's foreign ministers and top officials and Serbian Deputy Prime Minister Bozidar Djelic, in the presence of Serbian President Boris Tadic.

'Without an SAA there can be no possibility for a full integration of the Western Balkans into the European Union, and without such an integration there is no possibility for a final reconciliation amongst the people of the Western Balkans,' Tadic said.

Olli Rehn, the EU enlargement commissioner who had worked hard to get the agreement sealed, said the SAA was the best possible guarantee of Serbia's future membership of the union.

'European integration has proven to be a powerful unifying force throughout Europe. It has brought peace and prosperity to millions of European citizens. It can do the same for Serbia,' Rehn said.

At their meeting in Luxembourg, EU ministers also gave the go- ahead to a similar text for Bosnia-Herzegovina.

But Bosnia's SAA would only be signed once the text had been translated into all 23 EU languages, a process likely to take several weeks.

Moreover, the ratification of Serbia's SAA was made conditional on Belgrade proving that it was cooperating fully with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague.

'The (EU) council welcomes the signature of the SAA with Serbia as an important step on the country's path towards the EU,' ministers said, adding that 'full co-operation with the ICTY, including all possible efforts to arrest and transfer indictees, is an essential element of these agreements.'

The SAA is a document setting out how an aspiring EU member should reform its political, economic and legal systems to come in line with EU norms, and how the EU should help it do so.

As its name suggests, it is designed to bring basic stability and prosperity to a region devastated by the conflict that erupted after the implosion of the former Yugoslavia.

Vuk Jeremic, Serbia's foreign minister and a pro-European member of the government, hailed Tuesday's decision as 'an important political statement' opening the doors to Serbia's EU membership.

'This is going to be a historical day for Serbia and for the Western Balkans. From today on, the path towards full EU integration of the Western Balkans is irreversible,' Jeremic said.

But Serbia's caretaker Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica, whose nationalist Democratic Party of Serbia could tip the balance in the May 11 parliamentary elections, vowed to cancel the agreement even before it was signed.

'Serbia will never accept the SAA with the European Union and the new government and the new parliament will annul it', Kostunica said.

Serbia's nationalist parties are furious at the recognition by many EU member states of Kosovo, the predominantly ethnic-Albanian province that declared independence from Belgrade in February.

But Slovenian Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel, whose country holds the rotating presidency of the EU, said this was still 'a happy day both for the EU and for Serbia'.

Rupel thanked in particular the foreign minister of the Netherlands, Maxime Verhagen, whose country had threatened to veto progress on the SAA.

The signing of Serbia's SAA had been a bone of contention among EU governments since it was initialled last November.

The breakthrough came after the Netherlands put forward a compromise ahead of the meeting in Luxembourg aimed at breaking the deadlock.

While they would sign the SAA, Dutch officials said it would not come into full effect until Belgrade had handed over all remaining war-crimes suspects, most notably Ratko Mladic, the Bosnian-Serb general indicted for genocide and crimes against humanity, to The Hague.

'The Netherlands and Belgium have been very flexible and put forward several proposals because we want to give the Serb people a signal that we care about them and that their future is in Europe,' Dutch Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen said earlier on Tuesday.

Rupel confirmed that the SAA's implementation would depend 'on the assessment of the council (of EU member states) on whether full cooperation (with the ICTY) has been in place.'

And Jeremic insisted his government would continue to work 'very hard' to 'make sure that our cooperation with The Hague is full, complete and unequivocal.

'And I am sure that this is quickly going to lead to the apprehension and handing over to The Hague of the very few remaining indictees that are still at large and are somewhere in our region,' he added.

EU officials hope that the SAA will help Tadic and other pro- European forces win the elections, which opinion polls suggest will be a neck-and-neck race between the ultra-nationalist Serbian Radical Party (SRS) and Tadic's pro-European bloc.

But with neither side expected to clinch a clear majority, observers say Kostunica will likely find himself in the position of playing king-maker come May 11.