EU has no new conditions, foreign minister says

FM Vuk Jeremic says he did not hear from EU Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fule that a new condition for EU accession was to recognize Kosovo as independent. The minister met with Fule in Brussels on Thursday. EU has no new conditions, foreign minister says After the meeting, Jeremic told reporters that Serbia would never recognize Kosovo and added that the foreign policy priority would be regional cooperation. "When it comes to recognizing Kosovo by Serbia today, tomorrow, or in three months' time, in a year, or a century from today, my position remains the same," said Serbia's foreign minister. The province's ethnic Albanians unilaterally declared independence more than three years ago. Speaking about internal issues, Jeremic said that it was important for Serbia to continue reforms in order to get a positive opinion from the European Commission (EC) and for the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue to bring concrete results. Stefan Fule for his part told reporters that he heard "a series of comments in EU countries and none of them is presently willing to accept any new state as a member that would have open issues when it comes to the region or its neighbors". "Therefore I believe serious efforts are necessary to find a solution to that question through the enlargement process," he stated. A German parliamentary delegation yesterday in Belgrade asserted that their country would block Serbia from joining the EU unless it "de facto" recognized its southern province as an independent state. Five out of EU's 27 members do not recognize Kosovo. "I respect opinions of parliamentarians of the member-countries, my mandate is very clear when it comes to the European Commission, and when we worked on the questionnaire for Serbia, we made it clear it did not refer to Kosovo," said Fule. The EU commissioner also said that he "did not wish to speculate that the issue of Serbia's recognition of Kosovo could not be put on the agenda several years from now". He added that a priority at this junction should be "to reach agreement on some practical issues in the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue", and expressed his hope there would be "tangible results" in the coming weeks. Fule pointed out that Serbia should fulfill recommendations from EC’s report on progress in 2010 which encouraged the government to continue and speed up work on establishment of the rule of law, combat against crime and corruption and solving of property issues. On the other hand, Vuk Jeremic said that there was good will in the EC to make the report of Serbia’s progress in the EU integration positive but that one should be honest and say that Serbia still had not done many things and that it needed to finish the work. “The door is ajar, but there is still more work to do in Serbia than outside its borders,” he explained. Jeremic told reporters that he and the EU enlargement commissioner had discussed Serbia’s current position in the process of joint work with the EC on preparation of a report that would play a key role in political decision making until the end of the year. “The work should be approached rationally and without euphoria, clearly fulfill a series of criteria and conditions so Serbia would get a positive assessment from the European Commission,” Jeremic stressed. Vuk Jeremic (Tanjug, file)

EU has no new conditions, foreign minister says

After the meeting, Jeremić told reporters that Serbia would never recognize Kosovo and added that the foreign policy priority would be regional cooperation.

"When it comes to recognizing Kosovo by Serbia today, tomorrow, or in three months' time, in a year, or a century from today, my position remains the same," said Serbia's foreign minister.

The province's ethnic Albanians unilaterally declared independence more than three years ago.

Speaking about internal issues, Jeremić said that it was important for Serbia to continue reforms in order to get a positive opinion from the European Commission (EC) and for the Belgrade-Priština dialogue to bring concrete results.

Stefan Fule for his part told reporters that he heard "a series of comments in EU countries and none of them is presently willing to accept any new state as a member that would have open issues when it comes to the region or its neighbors".

"Therefore I believe serious efforts are necessary to find a solution to that question through the enlargement process," he stated.

A German parliamentary delegation yesterday in Belgrade asserted that their country would block Serbia from joining the EU unless it "de facto" recognized its southern province as an independent state. Five out of EU's 27 members do not recognize Kosovo.

"I respect opinions of parliamentarians of the member-countries, my mandate is very clear when it comes to the European Commission, and when we worked on the questionnaire for Serbia, we made it clear it did not refer to Kosovo," said Fule.

The EU commissioner also said that he "did not wish to speculate that the issue of Serbia's recognition of Kosovo could not be put on the agenda several years from now".

He added that a priority at this junction should be "to reach agreement on some practical issues in the Belgrade-Priština dialogue", and expressed his hope there would be "tangible results" in the coming weeks.

Fule pointed out that Serbia should fulfill recommendations from EC’s report on progress in 2010 which encouraged the government to continue and speed up work on establishment of the rule of law, combat against crime and corruption and solving of property issues.

On the other hand, Vuk Jeremić said that there was good will in the EC to make the report of Serbia’s progress in the EU integration positive but that one should be honest and say that Serbia still had not done many things and that it needed to finish the work.

“The door is ajar, but there is still more work to do in Serbia than outside its borders,” he explained.

Jeremić told reporters that he and the EU enlargement commissioner had discussed Serbia’s current position in the process of joint work with the EC on preparation of a report that would play a key role in political decision making until the end of the year.

“The work should be approached rationally and without euphoria, clearly fulfill a series of criteria and conditions so Serbia would get a positive assessment from the European Commission,” Jeremić stressed.