SERBIA: Serbia's parliament confirms the government of Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica

Serbia's parliament confirmed the government of Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica on Tuesday, paving the way for an immediate resumption of talks with the European Union on closer ties after a one-year hiatus. The last-minute coalition of Kostunica, a moderate nationalist, with pro-Western President Boris Tadic last Friday was a great relief to the West, which feared the Balkan country's fragile democracy would relapse into nationalism. The vote came just before a midnight deadline and despite an ultranationalist protest. "It is a process of talks on stabilisation and association and I'm confident that process, now when Serbia has all institutions, when it has a good programme supported by those three parties in the government, will continue," Kostunica said. "Both stability and development of Serbia is something that, I'm certain, we're getting with today's forming of Serbia's government and that pleasure I immediately shared with new ministers in Serbia's government," he added. But he vowed Serbia would make no concessions on the breakaway province of Kosovo, which a U.N.-supervised process has set on course for independence, for the sake of EU ties. In a dramatic parliament session, hardline deputies protested over a late-night police search for war crimes fugitive Ratko Mladic, who they see as a hero, and dragged the debate out to 30 minutes before the constitutional deadline. EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn was due in Belgrade on Wednesday to meet Serbian leaders. Bozidar Djelic, deputy PM in charge of EU affairs, said he had been given the "excellent news" that talks with the EU would be "deblocked immediately". "We will have confirmation officially tomorrow," he told reporters. Last year the EU froze talks on a Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA), the first step towards membership, over Mladic, who it says is being aided by hardliners in the Serbian army and police. Rehn said on Monday the EU was "rather confident" the programme of the new government would warrant an immediate resumption of SAA talks, but noted Belgrade would have to send Mladic to The Hague before the SAA could be signed. Officials said the army searched several buildings late on Tuesday as part of its "continuous" search for Mladic, but had not found him. The hardline Radicals protested parliament had a right to know, and at some point threatened to walk out. Kostunica told parliament earlier the coalition had agreed on the "five pillars" of its policy, notably on Kosovo, EU membership, cooperation with the Hague tribunal, social and economic reforms and fighting crime and corruption. The EU had been urging the formation of a moderate coalition since Serbia's inconclusive Jan. 21 election, but toughened its stance last week when ultranationalist Tomislav Nikolic was elected parliament speaker. Brussels was shocked and put pressure on Kostunica and Tadic to agree a coalition, and replace Nikolic. The result was a delicate balance: Kostunica is prime minister but Tadic's Democratic Party gets 13 of 25 cabinet posts. "Serbia today is getting a puppet government," Nikolic said during the parliamentary debate. Apart from reviving the EU talks, Kostunica will try to fight the imminent independence of Kosovo, which has been run by the United Nations since 1999, when NATO ousted Serb forces who had killed 10,000 civilians in a two-year war with separatist ethnic Albanian guerrillas. "We are forming a ministry for Kosovo to confirm in practice that as far as Serbia is concerned, Kosovo will always be a Serbian province," Kostunica said. The United States and most EU states favour independence for Kosovo and want a quick decision. Serbia's ally Russia wants a 'compromise solution', and says it may veto a draft Security Council resolution to make Kosovo independent with international supervision.

ITN Source | May 17, 2007

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