Bildt: EULEX not condition for Serbia

NOVI SAD -- Swedish FM Carl Bildt says the deployment of the EULEX mission in Kosovo is not a condition for the ratification of the Stabilization and Association Agreement.

Carl Bildt (FoNet, archive)

"EULEX is important for the people who live there, especially for the ethnic Albanians,” Bildt said.

“It is very wrong to link the EULEX mission to the part of Kosovo north of the Ibar river, which makes up only 10 percent of its territory. It is much more important to concentrate on the remaining 90 percent of Kosovo, because Albanians need a legal state,” Bildt told Novi Sad daily Dnevnik.

He said that the EULEX mission would build its credibility with Serbs through its activities in the enclaves south of the Ibar River.

Bildt said that the European Union wanted Serbia to have a more constructive approach to EULEX, but stressed that there would be no conditions set.

The minister also said that he wanted the Office of the High Representative for Bosnia-Herzegovina to be dissolved, because “it is of no more use.”

"It was essential once, but not any more. We need to establish a strong European mechanism that will lead Bosnia into the future,” said Bildt, who was the first high representative for Bosnia-Herzegovina.