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| Solana: EU must help pro-European forces |
| 8 April 2008 | 12:37 -> 19:15
| Source:
Tanjug |
BRUSSELS --
The EU should help Serbia’s pro-European forces sign the SAA before May 11, says Javier Solana.
 | Boris Tadić, Javier Solana (FoNet, archive)
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“We have to do everything to give people in Serbia the impression that we want them as close as possible to us. I want to go to bed on May 10 and for my conscience to be clear that we did everything we could, and not to wake up on May 12 and realize that we could have done more,“ the EU high representative told the European Parliament’s Foreign Policy Committee.
Solana added that should Serb Radical Party (SPS) deputy leader Tomislav Nikolić win the Serbian elections, Ratko Mladić would not be extradited to The Hague, and that was why the European Union (EU) should help the pro-European forces by signing the Stabilization and Association Agreement (SAA) with Serbia before May 11.
The EU high representative said he loved Serbia, even though it was prone to looking backwards instead of forwards.
He asked the European Parliament to help send a positive signal to the citizens of Serbia ahead of the elections.
Solana said that they must do everything possible by May 11 to demonstrate to the people of Serbia that Europe cared about them. One of the things that could be done was to sign the SAA with Serbia, in spite of the difficulties, he explained.
“At the same time, the European Commission will see what it can do regarding visas. The SAA and the question of visas are two very important things that Europe should take care of before May 11,” the high representative insisted.
He added that “the local elections on May 11 will be very important because they’re being held for the first time in northern Kosovo.“
“We’ll have to see what that looks like,“ Solana said.
The next important date for Serbia after the elections will be June 15, he continued , "when the Kosovo constitution becomes law".
“We have to see how the situation develops between May 11 and June 15,“ said the high representative.
He added that “some changes“ had taken place in Kosovo, and that for this reason there should be a certain “adjustment,“ in agreement with the UN secretary-general.
The matter of “complete deployment“ of the EULEX mission to Kosovo also depended on talks with the secretary-general, said Solana.
The Spanish diplomat also said that the Union's "plan to deploy EULEX in all parts of Kosovo remains in place".
"The European Union has said it a thousand times that Kosovo is a unique case and that is why Kosovo will remain an exception and not a rule in international relations," Solana said before the Committee Tuesday.
He was answering a question by Romanian representative Adrian Severin, who wished to know whether the new international order should be based on the Kosovo case.
"Kosovo is an exception and we shall have to treat it as such," said Solana.
Responding to a question on differences among the EU member states regarding Kosovo, Solana said that the "most important thing is that all EU member states had agreed on operational decisions".
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| Politics - Most relevant news |
Tuesday, 8 April
2008 |
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All news for 8. April 2008
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