La Commission européenne a rendu un jugement positif au sujet des progrès accomplis jusqu’ici par la Serbie sur la voie des réformes, écrit Aleksandar Mitic dans Transitions Online.
The European Commission decided on 12 April that Serbia and Montenegro had made sufficient progress in its reforms to obtain a positive verdict on the feasibility study, a precondition for the start of talks on a stabilization and association agreement (SAA) with the European Union.
Serbia and Montenegro is the last country in the Western Balkans without a feasibility study.
The news has been widely welcomed in Belgrade as a sign that difficult measures taken over the last several years have paid off, and also as encouragement for further reform steps.
Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica told the daily Novosti after the decision, “We have a lot of work and hardship ahead of us, but with the positive position on the feasibility study we are set on the European road, which is a one-way road in the right direction. We are going towards Europe and our interest is to speed up this process as much as possible.”
The eagerly anticipated decision was announced by Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn, who said he expected talks on the stabilization and association agreement to begin by November or December. The EU Council of Ministers is set to decide on 25 April whether to endorse the EC’s positive finding on the feasibility study.
“This is the beginning of the European road for Serbia and Montenegro,” Rehn said. “The country has achieved a great deal over the past few years and it is time to move on. »
The commissioner praised Belgrade’s cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague but warned that full membership in the EU would be dependent on “full cooperation” with the ICTY.
« Serbia and Montenegro has finally made significant progress in cooperating with the Hague tribunal, » Rehn said in a reference to a spate of surrenders, voluntary and otherwise, by Serbian war crime indictees over the last few weeks.
« This trend must continue until none of the remaining indictees is still at large, » Rehn said.
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