Independent Serbia on the road to EU

Belgrade-Brussels via Hague

The negotiations about the future status of Kosovo & Metohija started on February 20 in Wien and on March 11 the former president of Serbia and Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Slobodan Milosevic was found dead in his cell in the Hague Tribunal. The European Union decided on May 3rd, to suspend the negotiations about association and stabilization with Serbia and Montenegro because the most wanted Hague Tribunal accused person Ratko Mladic wasn't arrested and sent to Hague. Only a few weeks later, the citizens of Montenegro decided to have an independent state. The new Constitution Law was brought officialy on November 8th and Serbia will have new Parliamentary Elections on January 21st, 2007


By MARKO ANDREJIĆ
from Belgrade, SERBIA


The most important happening in the last year, for most of Serbians, was getting their independent state after the Montenegro referendum on May 21st, where the citizens of the smaller republic in ex-Serbia and Montenegro federation decided to have their own independence. So, the "new country" Serbia is just a result of the will of someone else and again, like many times in the last 15 years and more, its citizens couldn't express their own opinion then they could just wait to see the consequences. This was just the final act of drama called "Yugoslavia is dead" that started with bloody wars in Bosnia & Herzegovina and Croatia and finished with six independent states (ex-Yugoslav republics) and one province where the UNMIK forces still trying to make something called "normal life". But they are not very good at that and you could read more about Kosovo in the previous issue of "Wave" (No.2, December 2006). After the independence and accepting the new Constitution Law on November 8, Serbia will have new Parliamentary Elections on January 21st, 2007.

The Theatre or Negotiations

Negotiations about the future status of Kosovo & Metohija, the Serbian south province where the UNMIK forces are settled since NATO bombing in 1999, started on February 20th, in Vienna (Austria). The teams consisted of Belgrade's politicians and experts and the representatives of the temporary Kosovo institutions from Pristina, with the international mediation (the main mediator Marti Ahtisari), met eight times and in eight (8) rounds they got no important and useful results except one small part about cultural heritage. The Serbian team had to face with people on the other side like Agim Ceku or Hasim Tachi, who were proved to be war criminals and terrorists. The Mediation team was consisted of representatives of Contact group, the European Union, the OSCE and NATO.

The result of the first, and of all the other rounds, are best said by the words of the special UN mediator, Marti Ahtisari: "Belgrade is willing to give everything but independence, Pristina is asking only for independence." The Serbian side presented its vision and solution of the problem where Kosovo and Metohija will stay a part of Serbia but with the big autonomy in the most functions. The Albanians didn't want to talk about that.

The Serbian Parliament accepted in September the report of the negotiating team that negotiations in Vienna have failed as no any agreement was made. Prime minister of Serbia, Vojislav Koštunica said, in one of his New Year interviews, that "negotiations in Wien were the theatre, not negotiations".

Milosevic's Death in Hague

On March 11th, 2006 the former president of Serbia (1990-97) and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (1997-2000), Slobodan Milosevic was found dead in his cell in Hague Tribunal. The three accusations against him, among which for genocide and breaking the rules of war, will never be proved and the process that was started in February 2002 and interrupted for 15 times, mostly for Milosevic's health problems, will never come to an end. After Franjo Tudjman, former Croatian president and Alija Izetbegovic, the ex-president of Bosnia & Herzegovina, the third "creator" of the Yugoslavian disaster and the signer of Deyton's agreement at the end of 1992-95 wars, became history. People on this territories hope there will be no more leaders like those mentioned above, with crazy ideas, but some less important actors of the happenings are still alive and very active on the political scenes. The results of Milosevic's era is still everywhere around us.

According to the autopsy, Milosevic died of a heart attack. After many public debates and verbal fights between different political options, he was buried on March 18th, in the yard of his family house in Pozarevac, and in Belgrade - hundreds of thousands people came to pay their posthumous homage to their loving president. On the other side, some people were almost celebrating the death of the man who ruined the country and destroyed the best years of their lives. No one of Milosevic's family was present on the funeral.

The road to the European Union

The European Union decided on May 3rd, to suspend the negotiations about association and stabilization with Serbia and Montenegro because the most wanted Hague Tribunal accused person Ratko Mladic wasn't arrested or sent to Hague. Even after forming the Council for the national security, Mladic is still uncatchable for the Serbian authorities. Some of his assistants were arrested in the meanwhile. After the EU decision about stopping the negotiations, the vicepresident of the Serbian government, Miroljub Labus, resigned.

Only a few weeks later, the citizens of Montenegro decided, by voting on referendum, to have an independent state. After all these years, first in old Yugoslavia then in FR Yugoslavia and finally Serbia & Montenegro federation, smaller Republic in this association with only about 500,000 citizens got its independence and after many years there is again a border between Serbia and Montenegro. The huge number of Montegriners say there is no Montenegro nation, it's all Serbian people who were born and live in the south republic, and that's also the results of the statistics but the government led by Milo Djukanovic succeeded in their long year tries to get their own state. As a consequence, Serbia also became an independent state again after 88 years.

The new Constitution Law was brought officialy on November 8th and that was the end of Milosevic's Constitution from 1990. The text of the law was written in a fast procedure and maybe in a few days as a combination of two suggestions - that of the Serbian government and that of the president Tadic. The Parliament accepted it on September 30th and the people confirmed it by the referendum on October 28th and 29th. So, the independent Serbia got its new Constitution and that was the reason for the new Elections for the Parliament, scheduled for January 21st. This helped the government not to fall in the Parliament as it was obviously predicted to happen after resignations of some of the Members of Parliament from G17+ party.

As the final important political happening in the last year for Serbia and its citizens, there was the NATO Summit in Riga on November 29 and the surprising and unpredictable decision - Serbia was accepted as the 23rd member of the NATO Partnership for Peace. It is an organization mostly for Army cooperation but the Serbian president Boris Tadic concluded that "it is a big political step forward". He signed the agreement about the Partnership for Peace officialy on December 14th in the Head Office of NATO. The Serbian people hope that this is one more sign for a better future. How that will look like, we'll know better after the Elections on January 21st. Looking forward to that.