Trade deal to be unblocked soon?

The Interim Trade Agreement (ITA) between EU and Serbia could be unfrozen at the EU Council of Ministers regular meeting next Monday and Tuesday. This is according to an article published in Wednesday in Belgrade daily Politika. Trade deal to be unblocked soon? "There is a hope, after the new signals from the Dutch parliament and in case that [Chief Hague Prosecutor] Serge Brammertz’s report is favorable, that the Dutch Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen will agree with his counterparts from the rest of the EU and vote for the implementation of the Interim Trade Agreement with Serbia," Politika writes, quoting its diplomatic sources in Brussels and Belgrade. The newspaper's sources also said that it now remained for the Brammertz report to become official, and for a model to be found to start the ratification of the Stabilization and Association Agreement (SAA). The ITA is part of the SAA, signed between Serbia and the EU in the spring of 2008, and immediately suspended. However, Serbia has been unilaterally applying the trade deal since the beginning of this year. The Netherlands has blocked Serbia's further EU integration pending Belgrade's full cooperation with the Hague Tribunal. Now the daily writes that the Brammertz report set to be presented to the UN Security Council on December, will be favorable. "This should enable the Netherlands to give up on their explicit position that it is necessary to complete the cooperation in order to implement the agreement," the article says.

Trade deal to be unblocked soon?

"There is a hope, after the new signals from the Dutch parliament and in case that [Chief Hague Prosecutor] Serge Brammertz’s report is favorable, that the Dutch Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen will agree with his counterparts from the rest of the EU and vote for the implementation of the Interim Trade Agreement with Serbia," Politika writes, quoting its diplomatic sources in Brussels and Belgrade.

The newspaper's sources also said that it now remained for the Brammertz report to become official, and for a model to be found to start the ratification of the Stabilization and Association Agreement (SAA).

The ITA is part of the SAA, signed between Serbia and the EU in the spring of 2008, and immediately suspended. However, Serbia has been unilaterally applying the trade deal since the beginning of this year.

The Netherlands has blocked Serbia's further EU integration pending Belgrade's full cooperation with the Hague Tribunal.

Now the daily writes that the Brammertz report set to be presented to the UN Security Council on December, will be favorable.

"This should enable the Netherlands to give up on their explicit position that it is necessary to complete the cooperation in order to implement the agreement," the article says.