Luxembourg, 09/10/2000 (Agence Europe) - The European Union has an "appointment", Monday in Luxembourg, "with the new democratic Serbia" and, in accordance with the undertakings that the EU 15 Ministers for Foreign Affairs had made during their informal meeting in Evian, it, during the General Affairs Council held in Kirchberg, "revised in a radical manner its policy" towards this country. This is what announced Hubert Védrine at the end of the afternoon, by indicating that the sanctions - those which targeted Milosevic and people associated with him - would be lifted this Tuesday (with the publication of the decision in the OJ). During a press conference, Mr Védrine announced that he would go to Belgrade this Tuesday to pass on to President Kostunica the decisions taken by the EU 15 and convey their "hopes, suggestions and expectation concerning the democratisation process of Serbia and its rapprochement with Europe". He also announced that President Kostunica would be welcome in Biarritz during the informal European Council. Below is the complete text of the decision taken and the prospect outlined by the General Affairs Council which, according to Mr Védrine, forms a "historical outlook".
"The European Union welcomes the election of Mr Kostunica as President of the FRY.
In voting for him, the people have chosen democracy and Europe. As a result, in accordance with its message on the eve of the elections, the Council has radically reviewed the EU's policy towards the FRY. It has taken the following decision.
1. Sanctions.
The Union has decided to lift all sanctions imposed on the Fry since 1998, with the exception of the provision affection Milosevic and those associated with him.
2. Economic and financial cooperation.
The Council has decided to allow the FRY to benefit from the CARDS programme. The activities of the European Agency for Reconstruction will be extended to the FRY. The Union will maintain and extend its humanitarian aid programmes to vulnerable persons resident in the FRY, particularly to displaced persons and refugees from the former Yugoslavia. The European Union confirms its resolve to make an active a contribution to the reestablishment of navigation on the Danube and to participate in feasibility studies for the reconstruction and modernisation of the FRY's infrastructure on a regional basis. The Finance Minister of the Union will examine, in consultation with the international financial institutions, the conditions for integrating the FRY into the international financial community as rapidly as possible. The Council asked for the European Commission and the World Bank, under the aegis of the Steering Committee for the Balkans (HLSG) to be jointly responsible for evaluating the needs and co-ordinating economic and financial assistance to the FRY.
3. Closer relationship with the European Union.
The Council has also decided to propose to the FRY that is participate in the stabilisation and association process lunched at the Cologne European Council. Accordingly, the Council invites the FRY to rapidly set up a "Joint EU/FRY task force" in order to examine ways of progressing towards a stabilisation and association agreement. The Council has asked the Commission to submit to it proposals on extending to the FRY the benefit of the asymmetric Community preferences adopted at the GAC on 18 September.
By implementing all of these measure without delay, the European Union intends to contribute to the establishment of democracy and the rule of law in the FRY, to the success of the major political, economic and social reforms it will introduce and to its opening up to Europe. The FRY's full participation in the Stability Pact for South East Europe will help in this matter. The Council has asked that Co-ordinator of the Stability Pact, in his capacity as special envoy of the European Union, to submit to it proposals to the effect as soon as possible. The fifteen EU Member States each express their desire to re-establish or normalise their diplomatic relations with the FRY as soon as possible. The European Union also hopes that the FRY will start a reconciliation process with its neighbours and will re-establish relationships of trust and cooperation. The European Union will help meet these objective as far as it is able. Accordingly, the President of the FRY will be invited to the Zagreb summit (24 November 2000).
In the context of the mandate on the Balkans defined at the Lisbon European Council, the Council has asked Mr Solana Secretary General, High Representative for CFSP, to attach particular importance to relations between the European Union and the new FRY and to submit a report to that effect to the forthcoming General Affairs Council.
The French Foreign Affairs Minister, President of the Council of the Union, will travel to Belgrade on Tuesday 10 October to inform President Kostunica of these decision and invite him to meet the Heads of State and of Government of the Union at the forthcoming Biarritz European Council".
Mr Patten added, during the press conference, that the Commission would send to Belgrade, after the visit to be made by Mr Védrine on Tuesday, an experts mission to assess the needs in the short and longer term. To the question of knowing if the extradition of Mr Milosevic would be a condition of EU aid, Mr Védrine indicated that these "two very important issues" were not "legal tied", but that there existed "a form of global political link between all the aspects of the building of a democracy in Serbia and its rapprochement with the Union". Mr Patten confirmed that there are no "conditions in the stricter sense", but recalled in the rush that the Stability Pact involves for all countries concerned to undertake political and economic reforms.
Kosovo: Bernard Kouchner calls Belgrade for "symbolic gesture" by liberating Albanian prisoners
Before the Ministers raise, during lunch, the issue of the lifting of sanctions against Serbia, the Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary General Bernard Kouchner wanted to give the Council an idea of the reality lived in Kosovo where the appointment of a democratically elected President in Belgrade is not seen as the end of the story. A "reality of Kosovo" which, according to him, "includes that of Montenegro and Macedonia". "In Kosovo, the war is not over!", said Mr Kouchner when explaining that the confrontations between communities continues and that gap are still being found, while the "missing people represent a cancer for Kosovo". In this context, if the arrival to power of President Kostunica is welcomed by all the Kosovar leaders, it "does not appease their fears", as much as "certain remarks" made by the new President "awake other fears". According to Mr Kouchner, the Albanians from Kosovo feed these fears: a) the fear that: "the major financial effort" that was approved in their favour by the EU, "without which nothing would have been possible, is reduced, cut back, since the EU would bring aid to Serbia" (we will have to remain very present beside them", he added); b) that stemming from the "contradiction between the reality of their desire for independence and resolution 1244" that the UN Special Representative must "apply in the broad guidelines", in the framework "of a peace building mission". For Mr Kouchner, it is now important "to give time to the healing of wounds and the work of mourning", given the spirit of "a history long of thirteen centuries" during which these communities have not spoken". Also adding: "It is not in fifteen months that the required relationship building and the (…) confidence building can be completed". On this basis and so as to favour the development of trust, Mr Kouchner suggested that Serbia be helped, but that it make "at the same time a very important symbolic gesture at a psychological level" by working towards the freeing of Albanian prisoners in Kosovo. "It is a very important and central subject for the election", felt Mr Kouchner, for whom a "gesture in this direction would be incredibly well received" in Kosovo.