Daily: President has EU diplomats "worried"

Diplomats from EU member states have expressed their concern over the signals of the Serbian authorities that they may "choose to stall the necessary reforms".

Izvor: Danas

Tuesday, 02.10.2012.

11:07

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BELGRADE Diplomats from EU member states have expressed their concern over the signals of the Serbian authorities that they may "choose to stall the necessary reforms". This is according to the Belgrade-based daily Danas, which reported this in the context of President Tomislav Nikolic's recent statement that Serbia would not "rush" with attempts to be given a date for the start of EU membership talks. Daily: President has EU diplomats "worried" Addressing an assembly of the ruling Serb Progressive Party (SNS) on Saturday, Nikolic also asserted that the country would have "its own conditions" in the integration process, and that it had "no reason to chase after a date and a paper". Now the daily quotes its unnamed sources who said that western diplomats "listened carefully" to the president's speech, and now have "two ways of interpreting it". The first is that top state officials in Belgrade had chosen to take Serbia "along a new route, which is not entirely clear at the moment", while the second is that the president in fact reacted "in a daily political manner", and to a previous statement made by EU foreign policy chief, who said he had "tough decisions to make regarding Kosovo". The worst case scenario, continued the article, which the EU is "seriously considering", would be that Nikolic's statements represented the position of the new administration that Serbia should put aside its EU integration bid, which would then mean "not only a hard-line policy on Kosovo", but also, "pushing aside the necessary reforms". According to the daily's sources, "this is one of the tests for the new government that the west has been waiting for since June - had Serbia chosen the EU, or stalling". The same sources also noted that when Nikolic visited the village of Knic the next day, on Sunday, "he maintained the same tone" that he had established at the SNS event the night before. The president's speech on Saturday has in the meantime been analyzed and interpreted by other officials, and foreign representatives posted in Belgrade. Tomislav Nikolic (Beta, file) Danas

Daily: President has EU diplomats "worried"

Addressing an assembly of the ruling Serb Progressive Party (SNS) on Saturday, Nikolić also asserted that the country would have "its own conditions" in the integration process, and that it had "no reason to chase after a date and a paper".

Now the daily quotes its unnamed sources who said that western diplomats "listened carefully" to the president's speech, and now have "two ways of interpreting it".

The first is that top state officials in Belgrade had chosen to take Serbia "along a new route, which is not entirely clear at the moment", while the second is that the president in fact reacted "in a daily political manner", and to a previous statement made by EU foreign policy chief, who said he had "tough decisions to make regarding Kosovo".

The worst case scenario, continued the article, which the EU is "seriously considering", would be that Nikolić's statements represented the position of the new administration that Serbia should put aside its EU integration bid, which would then mean "not only a hard-line policy on Kosovo", but also, "pushing aside the necessary reforms".

According to the daily's sources, "this is one of the tests for the new government that the west has been waiting for since June - had Serbia chosen the EU, or stalling".

The same sources also noted that when Nikolić visited the village of Knić the next day, on Sunday, "he maintained the same tone" that he had established at the SNS event the night before.

The president's speech on Saturday has in the meantime been analyzed and interpreted by other officials, and foreign representatives posted in Belgrade.

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