Strasbourg, 12/09/2002 (Agence Europe) - The President of the Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly, Peter Schieder, issued the following statement on Wednesday: "An agreement on the Constitutional Charter on relations between Serbia and Montenegro is long overdue. In recent weeks, we have seen progress, and solutions have been found on all but one last issue, concerning the modalities of elections to the parliament of the future state. The Belgrade agreement, reached under the auspices of Javier Solana, stipulated that work on the Charter would be completed by the end of June. At the beginning of July, I was given assurances that constitutional reform would be concluded by September. It would be regrettable if yet another deadline - the planned debate on Yugoslavia's accession to the Council of Europe on 24 September - passed without a final agreement on the Constitutional Charter. This is a question of the credibility of the country's leaders. They are expected to honour their word. On Monday 23 September the Bureau of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe will meet to finalise the order of business for the September part-session. Its decision on whether to maintain the report on Yugoslavia's request for accession or postpone it will depend on the progress of constitutional reform… If Yugoslavia and its leaders are serious about their European ambitions, they will put their differences aside and reach an agreement."