Western Balkans and EU - Part 18
[ Western Balkans and EU ]
Back to the Balkans after one week of holidays... The Kosovo status negotiations are entering a more difficult phase, with the third round of talks showing openly the different points of view on decentralisation and on the financing of Kosovo-Serb municipalities. The closing of the Mitrovica-bridge after a young Kosovo-Serb was attacked (cf. dtt-net.com) also contributed to the tightening of the situation. Nevertheless, things are moving in Belgrade:Last week, Carla del Ponte advised the EU to continue SAA talks with Serbia, as Serbia had shown co-operation in tracking Karadzic and Mladic. The deadline for handing over Mladic has now been extended until 1st May.
A few days later, Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Draskovic said on public television (RTS) that "Serbia must tell publicly that it doesn’t rule Kosovo and it will not rule Kosovo and it belongs to Albanian majority to govern with Kosovo, with respecting the rights of Serbs." - which caused uproar on the Serbian nationalist side... (cf. dtt-net.com).
This was partly an unswer to the "hardline" policy of the Kosovo Coordination Centre of the Belgrade government which asked Kosovo-Serb civil servants who receive salaries from Serbia and from the provisional Kosovar institutions to renounce to the salaries payed from the Kosovo budget (cf. B92).
Meanwhile, the EU, the World Bank, and USAID pledged a huge amount of funds (56 million euro) to cover the Kosovo budget deficit for 2006 - a strong sign of support, as donor support for other parts of the region is dropping (e.g. Bosnia-Herzegovina).
< previous Posting next >
<< previous Topic next >>
Antworten