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| Radicals table resolution, commotion in coalition |
| 4 March 2008 | 16:16 -> 19:06
| Source:
B92, Beta, Tanjug |
BELGRADE --
Tomorrow's parliament session in Belgrade looks set to dangerously deepen the rift within the ruling coalition.
The Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS), led by Prime Minister Vojislav Koštunica, and New Serbia, with Infrastructure Minister Velimir Ilić at the helm, will vote to include a draft resolution on the protection of Serbia's territorial integrity to the agenda of the parliament's first spring session this year, party officials have confirmed.
The draft was submitted earlier by the Serb Radical Party (SRS).
DSS spokesman Andreja Mladenović said this afternoon that his party will vote for the new parliamentary resolution on Kosovo.
"The DSS will vote for a new parliamentary resolution on Kosovo-Metohija as it upholds Serbia's official policy and the state and national principle that Kosovo is Serbia, and that Serbia wants to pursue its integration in Europe as a whole state with Kosovo as its integral part," he told Tanjug.
"If someone wants to change the state and national principle that Kosovo is Serbia, they should submit their own draft resolution citing a new principle that Serbia should pursue its integration endeavors without Kosovo," Mladenović added.
"With some corrections to the text, we are willing to accept this, for the simple reason that this resolution has at its core the actions of state and state organs that are in line with the Serbian constitution," DSS whip Miloš Aligrudić said earlier today.
Asked if his party's position in the matter will jeopardize the survival of the already shaky cabinet, Aligrudić said, "As far as we're concerned, it will not".
Koštunica is heading a coalition government that includes his party, New Serbis, President Boris Tadić's Democrats (DS), and Mlađan Dinkić's G17 Plus.
The SRS is the largest opposition party, and the one with most seats in the parliament. The DS has the most mandates within the ruling coalition, but does not have the parliamentary majority even with its informal partners G17 Plus, and Čedomir Jovanović's LDP, should the DSS and NS decide to side with the Radicals.
Aligrudić said that putting the draft up for parliamentary debate, despite fierce opposition from the DS and G17 Plus, will be "in line with a united state policy on Kosovo, and in line with the constitution and previous parliament resolutions on the subject".
He added that neither his party nor the SRS "essentially objects to Serbia's entry into the EU". But they wish to have guarantees that "Serbia will join the EU only with Kosovo".
The Democrats reacted to the DSS move today by saying that they are "categorically opposed to including the territorial protection draft into the agenda of the parliament tomorrow".
Boris Tadić denounced the move as "reminiscent of the 1990s", and repeated that he and his party believe Kosovo will be best defended if Serbia is integrated into the EU.
The president also said that the resolution, if adopted, "will not be binding for the government", led by Vojislav Koštunica.
DS whip Nada Kolundžija told journalists earlier that the resolution is "unacceptable and unthinkable", and explained her party saw the move as tantamount to "taking the foreign policy outside of the government [jurisdiction]".
"The parliament has no jurisdiction to do that," Kolundžija said.
She also reminded that the government was formed on five principles, "one of them being Serbia's European path".
But Koštunica's party is repeating that another principle was, "preservation of Serbia's territorial integrity".
Kolundžija however voiced hope that "all the parties of the ruling coalition" will have a unified approach to the discussion of the proposed draft, and added that it is "unacceptable for such an important issue to be raised by an opposition party, no matter how big the party is".
As for speculation that the DS is mulling calling a referendum on joining the EU, she described it as "calculation, at this point".
Kolundžija also expressed fears that the DSS might decide to adopt the resolution with a "new parliamentary majority", hinting that the prime minister's party may team up with the Radicals.
G17 Plus vice-president Tomica Milosavljević, who is also a government minister, reacted to the possibility that the draft could be included in the parliamentary agenda tomorrow, and described such outcome as a "precedent".
As for a possible EU referendum, Milosavljević said that Serbians "already expressed their stand in the presidential elections when the convincing majority was won by a pro-European candidate".
The LDP announced today it will not support the motion to put the SRS draft in the parliamentary agenda tomorrow, and called on the Democrats to call early elections.
The draft
The draft resolution, seen by Tanjug news agency, demands protection of the territorial integrity of the Republic of Serbia in relations with international organizations, calling on the European Union to clearly and unequivocally confirm the entirety of the state territory of Serbia and to withdraw its decision to deploy its mission in Kosovo and Metohija.
The draft resolution says that the Serbian parliament "calls on the EU to clearly and unequivocally confirm the entirety of the state territory of the Republic of Serbia as the sole condition for the continuation of the talks on Serbia's association with the EU."
"Serbia will negotiate its EU membership, only it the EU fulfills this minimum possible request of the state of Serbia," the draft says.
The draft resolution warns the EU that only an entire Serbia within its internationally recognized borders can, wants and wishes to participate in European integrations.
The draft resolution says that the Serbian parliament, in keeping with the UN Charter, the final Helsinki Act, UN Security Council Resolution 1244, the Constitution of the Republic of Serbia and resolutions adopted by the National Assembly, denounces in the strongest possible terms the EU decision to send its mission (EULEX) to Kosovo and Metohija.
The draft underscores that only the UN Security Council has the legitimacy to adopt decisions on changing the UN mission in Kosovo and Metohija.
In the draft, the Serbian parliament calls on the EU to, respecting European values realized by Serbia's state organs in keeping with the Serbian constitution, withdraw its illegal decision to deploy its mission and that EU countries which recognized the unilateral independence, annul this decision.
The draft resolution underscores that Serbia is determined in the protection of its constitutional order and is certain that only peace and the respect of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of European states, can contribute to long-term stability, both in the region and in the entire European continent.
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