Deputy PM says he will not withdraw resignation

Serbian Deputy PM Bozidar Djelic has said he will not withdraw his resignation letter that he submitted after Serbia had failed to get the EU candidate status. He added that “European integrations are very difficult at the moment without a solution to the Kosovo issue”. Deputy PM says he will not withdraw resignation “Of course I am not going to withdraw my resignation. That would be a denial of the principle of responsibility,” Djelic told daily Blic. When asked what the reaction of EU Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fule was, he said that he “was not comfortable at all”. Assessing that the failure to get the EU candidate status this time represented “only a lost battle and not a war”, Djelic stressed that European integration remained the most favorable strategic path for Serbia. “At the moment we have a fact that European integrations are hardly going without solving of the Kosovo issue,” the deputy prime minister said, adding that it was contrary to a platform for submission of a joint resolution to the UN General Assembly together with the EU. “We were told then that the dialogue with Pristina and the Kosovo issue would not be strictly connected to our European integrations but a number of countries changed their policy last summer and they tied those two issues tighter together every week,” he was quoted as saying. When asked what would happen next, Djelic said that Serbia needed to take a stand regarding new institutional, economical and security realities of the EU that were changing in a flash. He believes that it is necessary to find a series of new solutions for the problems that we could have solved through the EU integration process if the situation had been better. Djelic said that the latest development in Brussels showed that the EC, which thought that Serbia had fulfilled all the requirements for the status and that it had taken big steps toward fulfillment of the conditions for the beginning of the accession talks, did not represent the opinion of all member states anymore. He therefore believes that it is inevitable to question the path’s integrity. “There is a bigger risk now that some EU country will decide to add or change the conditions along the way,” the deputy prime minister said but added that it would be a precedent if the agreed conditions changed again by March when the European Council should once again decide about Serbia’s EU candidate status. Bozidar Djelic

Deputy PM says he will not withdraw resignation

“Of course I am not going to withdraw my resignation. That would be a denial of the principle of responsibility,” Đelić told daily Blic.

When asked what the reaction of EU Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fule was, he said that he “was not comfortable at all”.

Assessing that the failure to get the EU candidate status this time represented “only a lost battle and not a war”, Đelić stressed that European integration remained the most favorable strategic path for Serbia.

“At the moment we have a fact that European integrations are hardly going without solving of the Kosovo issue,” the deputy prime minister said, adding that it was contrary to a platform for submission of a joint resolution to the UN General Assembly together with the EU.

“We were told then that the dialogue with Priština and the Kosovo issue would not be strictly connected to our European integrations but a number of countries changed their policy last summer and they tied those two issues tighter together every week,” he was quoted as saying.

When asked what would happen next, Đelić said that Serbia needed to take a stand regarding new institutional, economical and security realities of the EU that were changing in a flash.

He believes that it is necessary to find a series of new solutions for the problems that we could have solved through the EU integration process if the situation had been better.

Đelić said that the latest development in Brussels showed that the EC, which thought that Serbia had fulfilled all the requirements for the status and that it had taken big steps toward fulfillment of the conditions for the beginning of the accession talks, did not represent the opinion of all member states anymore. He therefore believes that it is inevitable to question the path’s integrity.

“There is a bigger risk now that some EU country will decide to add or change the conditions along the way,” the deputy prime minister said but added that it would be a precedent if the agreed conditions changed again by March when the European Council should once again decide about Serbia’s EU candidate status.