Brussels, 29/05/2013 (Agence Europe) - On 29 May, Serbia's Prime Minister Ivica Dacic said that his government will “do everything in its power to totally execute the plan (implementing the agreement with Kosovo)”. Speaking to the European Parliament's foreign affairs committee, he nevertheless said that, due to all the measures to be taken and set up, it will be “difficult to respect everything by the end of June”. The legislative framework needs to be amended, the police and justice system need to be discussed, local elections which are due to take place in the autumn need to be planned, and the way the bodies of the Serbian communities are going to operate until the elections also needs to be examined. “Working groups are due to meet in the coming days. There will possibly be some difficulties - some big, some small - but on the whole it should be possible to implement the plan”, he said, adding that talks continue on energy and telecoms - for which “we really want to reach a compromise”. Dacic stated that Serbia “has not recognised the independence of Kosovo, but is aware of the reality on the ground”. He added that the agreement will not lead to the creation of a “Republika Srpska” in Kosovo either - which was greatly worrying the EU.
In Dacic's view, the 19 April agreement is a “considerable step forward” for ensuring the fate of the Kosovan Serbs - whose participation is important. “It is therefore in our interest that the Serbs are able to participate in the implementation of this agreement. It will not be able to be implemented totally if it is only implemented in Belgrade. That's why the dialogue (with the Kosovan Serbs) continues”, he said. The dialogue is complicated. A local Kosovan Serb official, Marko Jaksic, announced the Kosovan Serbs' intention of creating a “a provincial assembly, in line with the Serbian constitution” in order to “defend against the Brussels agreement which is anti-constitutional and which provides for the Serbian community to be linked to the constitution and laws of Kosovo”.
Stressing that it is a “workable objective” to obtain a date for opening the negotiations at the end of June, Dacic said that “Serbia is not asking for any favours but we want the accession criteria that are applied generally to be applied to Serbia” (our translation throughout). (CG/transl.fl)