Brussels, 18/07/2000 (Agence Europe) - The mayor of communes in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia, Montenegro and Kosovo) met, on Monday evening, their European Union counterparts, on invitation from the European Union High Representative, Javier Solana. The aim of this meeting was to promote partnerships between cities in the FRY on the one hand and cities in the EU on the other, but it also enabled mayor close from neighbouring communes in Serbia and Kosovo especially - to meet for the first time, welcomed the entourage of Javier Solana. The meeting also enabled the mayors to discuss their expectations. They notable called for aid for schools, so that the next school year takes place under good conditions. The mayor of Pancevo presented the ecological problems suffered by his town. Furthermore, several mayors of EU cities invited their counterparts from the FRY. The President of the Committee of the Regions, Jos Chabert, announced his intention to promote these initiatives with the members of the Committee. No follow-up meeting is planned, as it was a case of giving impetus and that the concrete co-operation must now take place between mayors, indicated the High Representative's spokesperson.
During a press conference, Mr. Solana, underlined the importance of the support that civil society and the European Union municipalities can bring to the return to the normal functioning of local democracy in Kosovo and in the rest of Yugoslavia. He raised the very concrete character of the aid that can thus be brought, notably to the functioning of the administration. The co-ordinator for the Stability Pact, Bodo Hombach, recalled that numerous partnerships between local authorities have already been established in several Balkan countries who are part of the Stability Pact. These partnerships with cities in western Europe and even the United States have enabled to consolidate local democracy, said Mr. Hombach who insisted on the need to support all the democrats in Kosovo, Montenegro and Serbia.
These partnerships are essential as they forge relations between cities, between communities", the UN representative in Kosovo, Bernard Kouchner said, praising the courage of the mayors of Yugoslavia who had taken part in the meeting. He placed special emphasis on the importance of this cooperation at city-level, in anticipation of the local elections that are to take place in the autumn, in Kosovo. He then recalled that there were still many people who did not want these elections: "There are those who are against democracy, and some of them work for Milosevic. There are also those,, notably in certain minorities, that the safety conditions a simply not there.