"I do not expect new pressure ahead of next round of talks"

BELGRADE Serbian Prime Minister Ivica Dacic has said that there will be no new pressures ahead of the new round of Belgrade-Pristina negotiations in Brussels. According to him, it will be clearer whether it will be possible to find a solution for northern Kosovo. "I do not expect new pressure ahead of next round of talks" “At the meeting before last, there was a proposal to agree some general principles and to initial them. They did no envisage executive powers for Serbs in the north. I did not want to sign it. Anyone can offer me anything but I will never sign anything that is not good for Serbia and that does not secure functioning and survival of the Serb community in Kosovo,” the prime minister told daily Blic. He stated that Serbia would not accept anything less than the forming of a community of Serb municipalities that would have executive powers. “If they do not want to accept this proposal, we cannot accept anything below that. In that case, we will say clearly that we will fulfill ten EU’s requests from December. The community (of Serb municipalities) is not even mentioned in them. Our proposal for the community of Serb municipalities is a model that would solve all open issues, including those from the December conditions, and primarily the parallelism of institutions that the EU insists on,” Dacic pointed out. He assessed that the dialogue did not mean that Serbia should be asked to accept Kosovo’s Constitution and that this was something he could not agree to because “the Serb community would have no powers left in that case”. “We have reached a situation when we need to speak openly with European partners about issues of our further European integration, issues from the dialogue. Serbia will not change its stance in order to get a date for the beginning of the EU accession negotiation in the summer but it does not mean that we are giving up on Serbia’s European pathway,” the PM stressed. Commenting on the U.S. support to Pristina to base everything it offers in the negotiations on Kosovo’s laws, he said he was wondering why there were negotiations in the first place and why Serbia had to take part in the process. “Then they can sit down with Kosovo Serbs and solve the issues of laws. But if they want to do it with us, then it is a special political agreement, instead of leading the negotiations so we would force Kosovo Serbs to accept what is written in the local laws. This is not a constructive approach to the negotiations and it does not lead anywhere,” Dacic concluded. Ivica Dacic (Beta, file) Beta Blic

"I do not expect new pressure ahead of next round of talks"

“At the meeting before last, there was a proposal to agree some general principles and to initial them. They did no envisage executive powers for Serbs in the north. I did not want to sign it. Anyone can offer me anything but I will never sign anything that is not good for Serbia and that does not secure functioning and survival of the Serb community in Kosovo,” the prime minister told daily Blic.

He stated that Serbia would not accept anything less than the forming of a community of Serb municipalities that would have executive powers.

“If they do not want to accept this proposal, we cannot accept anything below that. In that case, we will say clearly that we will fulfill ten EU’s requests from December. The community (of Serb municipalities) is not even mentioned in them. Our proposal for the community of Serb municipalities is a model that would solve all open issues, including those from the December conditions, and primarily the parallelism of institutions that the EU insists on,” Dačić pointed out.

He assessed that the dialogue did not mean that Serbia should be asked to accept Kosovo’s Constitution and that this was something he could not agree to because “the Serb community would have no powers left in that case”.

“We have reached a situation when we need to speak openly with European partners about issues of our further European integration, issues from the dialogue. Serbia will not change its stance in order to get a date for the beginning of the EU accession negotiation in the summer but it does not mean that we are giving up on Serbia’s European pathway,” the PM stressed.

Commenting on the U.S. support to Priština to base everything it offers in the negotiations on Kosovo’s laws, he said he was wondering why there were negotiations in the first place and why Serbia had to take part in the process.

“Then they can sit down with Kosovo Serbs and solve the issues of laws. But if they want to do it with us, then it is a special political agreement, instead of leading the negotiations so we would force Kosovo Serbs to accept what is written in the local laws. This is not a constructive approach to the negotiations and it does not lead anywhere,” Dačić concluded.