Draskovic Optimistic About EU Feasibility Study

16/03/2005

Serbia-Montenegro Foreign Minister Vuk Draskovic held talks with EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn in Brussels on Tuesday, voicing confidence afterwards that his country will soon meet the requirements for obtaining a positive feasibility study on EU accession.

(AP, AFP, BBC, Radio B92, Tanjug - 15/03/05)

"We understood that message very clearly that Serbia-Montenegro cannot even think about ... approaching the EU till transferring to The Hague all the indictees including General Mladic," Foreign Minister Vuk Draskovic said. [AFP]

Serbia-Montenegro Foreign Minister Vuk Draskovic voiced confidence Tuesday (15 March) that his country would soon meet the requirements for building closer ties with the EU.

Within the next several weeks, the Union is due to issue a feasibility study on Serbia-Montenegro's preparedness for starting stabilisation and association talks. Brussels has made it clear, however, that a positive assessment depends on the country's full co-operation with the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY). That is also a key condition for all other potential candidate countries that were involved in the Balkan conflicts of the 1990s.

Although a series of war crimes suspects have surrendered to The Hague over the past few months, more than a dozen indictees remain at large. Among them are the ICTY's three most wanted fugitives -- wartime Bosnian Serb leaders Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, and retired Croatian General Ante Gotovina.

"Serbia-Montenegro cannot even think about Brussels and approaching the EU before bringing to The Hague all indictees, including Mladic," Draskovic told reporters following talks with EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn in Brussels on Tuesday.

If, by the end of this month, Serbia-Montenegro has met all the requirements including its obligations to the ICTY, a recommendation will be made in April for opening accession and stabilisation talks with the country, the commissioner said.

"We expect more concrete action in regard to the transfer of indictees to The Hague tribunal," Rehn said at a joint press conference with Draskovic.

His statement came a day before the EU's widely expected decision to postpone the start of Croatia's membership talks with the Union due to the country's failure to hand over Gotovina to the ICTY. The negotiations had been scheduled to start on Thursday.

"The message we are sending to the region is that you have a real concrete European future," said Rehn. "But that requires that each and every country will have to fulfil its international obligations, especially those related to the rule of law which is the most fundamental European value."

Referring to the postponement of Croatia's talks, Draskovic said the message the EU was sending to the region was "very clear to all the states in Southeastern Europe". Last month, he cautioned that Serbia-Montenegro would be "completely written off" unless it fulfils all of its obligations to The Hague tribunal.

Expressing optimism about the feasibility study, Draskovic said Tuesday that steps towards achieving his country's other top foreign policy goal -- admission into NATO's Partnership for Peace programme -- should come next on the agenda.

"The EU and Euro-Atlantic integration is our wish, our only path and only future," Draskovic said, noting that almost all other European countries are members of that programme.