SETimes.comSerbian parliament ratifies SAA, Russian gas deal
10/09/2008
Lawmakers ratified crucial agreements with the EU and Russia, but the Serbian authorities still have hard work ahead of them.
By Igor Jovanovic for Southeast European Times in Belgrade – 10/09/08
Serbia's parliament ratified two documents of great importance for the country's future on Tuesday (September 9th). One is the Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA) with the EU, and the other is an energy agreement with Russia, under which Gazprom will buy Serbia's NIS oil monopoly.
Even with action by lawmakers, however, the government will have to make an all-out push for the pacts to become effective.
The EU and Serbia signed the SAA on April 29th, but the 27-member bloc immediately suspended the treaty pending Belgrade's full co-operation with The Hague war crimes tribunal. Following the arrest of Radovan Karadzic, the European Commission has been seeking to put an interim trade agreement into effect as early as September 15th. The trade deal would implement the economic part of the SAA.
Prospects remain uncertain, however. One EU member, the Netherlands, insists that no agreement with Serbia should go into effect unless Belgrade hands over another top war crimes indictee, Ratko Mladic, to The Hague. Serbian authorities hope a positive report by the UN tribunal's chief prosecutor, Serge Brammertz, could lead the Netherlands to soften its position. Brammertz is in Belgrade this week to assess the situation.
Serbian leaders have hailed ratification of the SAA as a "historic moment", paving the way for the country to become an official candidate for EU membership. Deputy Prime Minister Bozidar Djelic hopes Serbia could gain such status as early as 2009, making it eligible for several billion euros' worth of aid designed to speed up the reform process.
The bad news is that a political consensus in Serbia remains elusive. The opposition coalition led by former Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica voted against ratification, arguing that Serbia cannot join the EU unless the bloc's members respect Serbian sovereignty over Kosovo. The Serbian Radical Party (SRS), meanwhile, was on the verge of backing the SAA but changed its stance after a last-minute intervention by party leader Vojislav Seselj.
Seselj, a war crimes indictee, is in The Hague tribunal's detention unit. Conflict has long simmered between him and the party's deputy leader, four-time presidential candidate Tomislav Nikolic, who has been trying to reform and modernise the SRS. Tensions came to a head after Nikolic agreed to throw his support behind ratification, only to have the jailed Seselj overrule him. The SRS is now split, with Nikolic taking a number of party members with him to establish a new political formation.
In the end, 140 out of 250 MPs voted to ratify the SAA. In contrast, the energy deal with Russia sailed through smoothly, with 214 lawmakers in favour, but the story does not end there. Dissent has broken out within the Serbian government over the deal. Economy Minister Mladjan Dinkic says the price offered by Moscow, 400m euros, is too low. The real value of the company is 2.2 billion euros, he insists.
Dinkic heads a working group that wants to negotiate the price with the Russians, who have rejected any thought of increasing their offer.
Other cabinet members, meanwhile, think the price is not so important. They point out that the agreement makes Serbia part of the South Stream gas pipeline project, which promises not only energy stability for the country but also significant revenues from transit of natural gas to Europe.