REPUBLIC OF SERBIA - MINISTRY FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS

 EULEX "TACITLY" IMPLEMENTS AHTISAARI’S PLAN

SERBIA

TADIC: DEFENCE SYSTEM IS STABLE, SITUATION UNDER CONTROL

BELGRADE, Dec 25 (Tanjug) - Serbian President Boris Tadic said on Thursday that the defence system was stable, that the police, army and all security structures were doing their job and that the security situation in the country was under control, the Serbian president’s office said in a statement. The Serbian president said that he would call the National Security Council in a few days. Tadic said that he was monitoring the situation. He stressed that he was not satisfied because personal conflicts were voiced in the public and that he would make appropriate decisions in due time, the statement said.

DEFENCE MINISTER INFORMS GOVERNMENT ABOUT REFORMS

BELGRADE, Dec 25 (Tanjug) - On the occasion of some media reports, Serbian Defence Minister Dragan Sutanovac informed the government at its Thursday session about the implementation of reforms at the Serbian Defence Ministry and Army and added that the security situation in the country was stable, the Serbian government’s Press Relations Office said on Thursday. The Serbian government also decided to increase by 50 percent as of January 2009 the salaries of people employed at the bodies, organisations, services and public enterprises in the Autonomous Province of Kosovo-Metohija who lived and worked in the territory of the province. At the same time, people who work in Kosovo-Metohija and live in other parts of Serbia will receive an increase of 12.5 percent. Elected and appointed officials will receive a 10-percent increase.

GOVERNMENT SUPPORTS SUTANOVAC’S REPORT

BELGRADE, Dec 25 (Tanjug) - The Serbian government at its Thursday session unanimously supported the stands of Defence Minister Dragan Sutanovac about the process of reform of the Serbian Army and security situation in the country, Tanjug was told at the Serbian government. Sutanovac presented an oral report to the government about the way of implementation of reforms at the Serbian Defence Ministry and Army. Some ministers strongly criticised Serbian Army Chief of the General Staff Zdravko Ponos during the session, and the criticism primarily referred to Ponos’s statement for the media and protection of the civilian and democratic control of the Army, it was said at the government.

PONOS: COUNTRY’S SECURITY NOT THREATENED, ARMY IS FUNCTIONING

BELGRADE, Dec 25 (Tanjug) - Chief of General Staff of the Serbian Army Lieutenant General Zdravko Ponos said on Thursday that the country’s security was not threatened and that the Serbian Army and the system of subordination was functioning well, pointing out that "all the talk about any possible rebellion have nothing to do with the reality." At a session of the Security and Defence Committee of the Serbian National Assembly, Ponos said that the recent events in the Serbian Army did not represent a "personal war" between himself and Defence Minister Dragan Sutanovac."The Army is neither his nor mine, the Serbian Army belongs to all the people of Serbia that have the right to know how it is functioning, what the army they send their children to looks like and whether in 10 or 15 years their young ones will live in a safe Serbia," Ponos underlined. He asked the members of the committee not to use the session for personal political purposes, explaining that with his interview for the Belgrade daily Politika, he had pointed in public to the dissatisfaction that existed over the unresolved issues in the Army, which, as he put, had been his duty to do. "The issues I have raised are not part of a party fight, but rather have to do with the preserving and strengthening of the country’s ability to defend itself, for which I bear part of the responsibility, but you also have your share in this, and it would be better if it was you and not I that brought up that issue," Ponos said. The session which was focused on the events regarding the defence system was called by the committee’s president, Dragan Todorovic, who said that Defence Minister Dragan Sutanovac had also been invited to attend the meeting, but that he had not come. The session was called following a dispute between Defence Minister Dragan Sutanovac and Chief of General Staff Lieutenant General Zdravko Ponos. The main reason was the interview Ponos gave to Politika on Wednesday, in which he said that the country had no defence policy and that his "dispute" with Defence Minister Dragan Sutanovac "was not a conflict between two individuals, but rather a clash of concepts on where Serbia, as a safe country, will be in 2015, 2020."

CVETKOVIC: SALARIES CANNOT BE SECURED IN THE STREET

BELGRADE, Dec 25 (Tanjug) - Serbian Premier Mirko Cvetkovic said Thursday that the Serbian government will not renage on its decision to postpone the implementation of the General Collective Contract, because it is determined to preserve the country’s economic stability. "The government should take care of all the citizens of this country. It should not permit a return to the 1990s, and allow the hyperinflation and mass job losses that we are facing. For the government, this is unacceptable and it will not permit something like this to happen," Cvetkovic said in an interview to Tanjug. Reacting to union threats to expand protests in order to secure the implementation of the General Collective Contract, Cvetkovic warned that salaries are not secured in the street. He underscored that the issue of the implementation of collective contracts is erroneously being linked to the budget, i.e. the government’s readiness to secure funds for company-subsidized hot meals and holiday cash grants for people employed in the public sector, while the role of employers is completely being forgotten. The employers are those who also decide about the implementation of the General Collective Contract, and they should say whether they have economic possibilities to secure such payments to their ememployees out of their revenues. Cvetkovic pointed out that the public is unaware of the fact that the employers want to withdraw their signature from the General Collective Contract. Contrary to the government which urges the postponement of the implementation of the collective contract for public sector employees, the employers are far more radical and want the Contract to be withdrawn and to be renegotiated. "The Social - Economic Council will convene shortly and, if the employers continue urging their proposal, we will have big problems," Cvetkovic stated. He set out that the citizens of Serbia should be aware that in question are not just relations between the trade unions and the government, but "a more complex relationship between the workers and their employers, in which the government plays a dual role - as the employer of everyone working in the public sector and as the regulator of economic trends in the country." The General Collective Contract was agreed by the Union of Employers of Serbia and the Alliance of Independent Unions and the United Professional Unions Independence and it came into force on May 2008. The labour and social policy minister adopted the decision on the implementation of the General Collective Contract by all employers in the territory of Serbia, and this will be applied starting Jan 1, 2009. This means that employers and the state should pay everyone employed in the public and private sectors company-subsidized hot meals in the amount of 15% of the average monthly salary and to annually earmark for holiday cash grants 75% of the mean republican salary.

CVETKOVIC: APPEALS TO PARLIAMENT TO ADOPT BUDGET

BELGRADE, Dec 26 (Tanjug) - Serbian Prime Minister Mirko Cvetkovic on Friday appealed to MPs to adopt the 2009 budget by the end of the year and warned that the government cannot practice an adequate economic policy in the event of temporary financing. "The budget is the economic policy. No budget - no economic policy," Prime Minister Cvetkovic warned in an interview for Tanjug. The prime minister agreed with the viewpoint that temporary financing implies fewer funds, fewer expenses, and consequently savings in the budget, but he pointed out that the Serbian government is not needed to implement the temporary financing in that event. Asked what consequence Serbia could have as a state if it enters the 2009 with temporary financing from the budget, the prime minister replied that the key consequence is the one that the Serbian government will not have the possibility to practice the fiscal part of the economic policy if there is no budget. Nevertheless, Cvetkovic pointed out that he is confident the budget can be adopted by December 29. "That optimism of mine is based rather on the fact that I believe there are technical possibilities," Cvetkovic explained. Even though there are only four days left until this deadline, the prime minister said, it is technically possible to adopt the budget by the end of the year, because it is now only a matter of the political will - whether MPs want to do this or not. Regarding the arrangement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Cvetkovic said the IMF Board of Directors should adopt a decision about this in mid-January 2009. He said he has not received any information for now about a possible postponing of the deadline for this decision in the event that Serbia fails to adopt the budget by the end of this year. Serbia has the possibility to ask the European Union for macro financial assistance of around 400 million euros, Cvetkovic pointed out, but things are additionally complicated for Serbia because of the elections and change of administration within the Union. This is another reason why Serbia must hurry up with the adoption of the budget, so that it could count on these funds by February 2009 at the latest, Cvetkovic said.

DINKIC ON CRISIS OF AUTHORITY IN GOVERNMENT

BELGRADE, Dec 26 (Tanjug) - G17 Plus leader and Deputy Prime Minister Mladjan Dinic has assessed that there is a crisis of authority in our government and that a government in which "some people outside it are trying to be in charge of its departments" is doomed to failure. "If you deprive the prime minister, defence minister, minister of finance, minister of economy of their authority, and if some people outside the government are trying to run its departments, such a government is doomed to failure," Dinkic said in an interview for the Belgrade daily Politika published on Friday, assessing that the crisis of authority had been present ever since October. He evaluated that the "crisis of authority has become so evident that we have a situation in which certain members of public company management boards vote against the decisions of their own government" and in which "a soldier attacks the defence minister in public, which has never happened before." Announcing that we would be faced with a year of global economic crisis, which had already started to seriously affect a number of companies, Dinkic said that "it will be possible to mitigate the consequences of this crisis only if the government works quickly, efficiently and as a team." "A government with no authority has no chance to succeed," Dinkic underlined. Dinkic said that his party was not afraid of new elections, claiming that "all the threatening with new elections is based on completely wrong estimations of so-called media magnates that are giving advice to our president (Boris Tadic)." He said that President Tadic "will have to assume complete responsibility for all the problems in the society if it is not clear to him that the government has no authority."

LJAJIC: COOPERATION WITH ICTY TECHNICAL MATTER

BELGRADE, Dec 25 (Tanjug) - President of the National Council for Cooperation with the ICTY Rasim Ljajic said on Thursday that Serbia’s cooperation with The Hague Tribunal was more a technical than a political issue, and that there was political readiness in the country to finalize that job, but that the problem was how to find a clue that would lead to Ratko Mladic. In an interview with TV B92, Ljajic said that the problem lay in "the operational search, in the fact that we are unable to find a clue that would lead us to Ratko Mladic." Asked if it was possible that the Netherlands made some kind of concession in respect to the trade agreement, Ljajic answered that he would like that to happen, but that he did not share the optimism that the country would change its position.

NEW LAWS WILL REGULATE SERBIA’S POLITICAL SCENE

BELGRADE, Dec 25 (Tanjug) - Serbian Minister for State Administration and Local Self-Government Milan Markovic has told Tanjug that the ministry had prepared several important bills which will regulate the political scene and make the everyday life of citizens easier. The ministry has prepared several bills set by the Serbian government - on political parties, registers of births, marriages and deaths and a bill on associations, while the parliament has recently endorsed a law amending the Law on public servants, specified Markovic. The amendments to the Law are aimed at strengthening the role of independent institutions, directly of ombudsman and indirectly of all independent institutions in Serbia, such as the commissioner for information of public importance, clarified Markovic. Markovic believes that with an adoption of the bill on birth, marriage and death registers, the everyday life of citizens of Serbia will become easier, since the basic novelties of the bill refer to the issuance of birth, marriage and death certificates without limited validity duration and regardless of the registration place of origin. According to Markovic, the aim of the bill on political parties is to make the political scene of Serbia "more serious" by setting more strict requirements for party foundation. All political parties will have to reregister within six months, and registration of political parties will have to be renewed every eight years in order to have an insight into real participation of parties in the country’s political life, clarified Markovic. Working versions of the bill on the state election commission and the bill on local elections have been drafted as part of the election system reform. The ministry has also prepared a working version of the bill on communal police, which is aimed at setting up the communal police which will introduce order into everyday life in Serbia’s towns. The ministry also plans to draw up a bill on election of parliament members, register of voters. When asked what he believes to be the biggest success of the government, Markovic said that this was the support the UN General Assembly gave to Serbia’s request for an advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice on the legality of the unilaterally proclaimed independence of Kosovo.

CIPLIC: POSITIVE EVALUATIONS IN HUMAN RIGHTS REPORTS

BELGRADE, Dec 25 (Tanjug) – Minister for Human and Minority Rights Svetozar Ciplic has expressed his satisfaction with the fact that the reports on the status of human rights in Serbia submitted so far had received good evaluations. In his statement with Tanjug, Ciplic recalled that based on international conventions on specific groups of human rights, Serbia is obliged to submit regular periodic reports on the status of human rights. Speaking about the criticism in those reports, Ciplic said that most of the comments had referred to absence of laws. “The good news is that most of those laws are in the procedure, and their adoption and implementation will be of priority next year,” said he. Fulfillment of all tasks Serbia had assumed as part of its Decade of Roma Inclusion Presidency is also an important task.

2009 PRIORITY TO RESUME CONSTRUCTION OF CORRIDOR 10

BELGRADE, Dec 25 (Tanjug) – Serbian Minister for infrastructure Milutin Mrkonjic on Thursday stated that the ministry’s priority in 2009 will be to resume the construction of Corridor 10, an investment worth EUR 1.5 billion, and to build about 100 km of the highway. At an annual news conference, held together with his associates, Mrkonjic recalled that section of Corridor 10 through Serbia should be completed in the next three years, during which period a total of 300 km of highway will be constructed. Next year, a 20 km-long section should be constructed from Horgos to Novi Sad, 20 km of the road from Nis to Dimitrovgrad, as well as 30 km of road from Leskovac to Presevo, and, finally, 10.6 km around Belgrade. The total value of the works is about EUR 500 million. As stated by ministry representatives, about EUR 1.2 billion of the World Bank, European Investment Bank and European Bank for Reconstruction and Development funds for the construction of Corridor 10 should become “operational” in late March 2009, provided projects are completed. About RSD 6 billion less than this year was allocated from the 2009 budget to the Ministry for Infrastructure, but Mrkonjic said that “we should be satisfied” in view of the current economic crisis. He also said that the works on the Belgrade railway station Prokop are underway and that the project, which is worth about EUR 35 million, should be completed in the next 14 months. EUR 4.6 billion will be allocated for the railway works on Corridor 10 in the next eight years, of which EUR 1.1 billion will be used in the first four years. Mrkonjic underscored that water traffic in Serbia had been neglected without any justified reason, which is why one of the ministry’s priorities will also be to develop traffic along Corridor 7, recalling that the European Union had earmarked funds for cleaning up the Danube River. According to the ministry, the water transport participates with 4.7% only in Serbia’s overall transport although it is more cost effective, safer and environment friendly than other forms of transport.

POLICE ARRESTS KLA MEMBERS

BELGRADE, Dec 26 (Tanjug) - Members of the Serbian Interior Ministry, upon the order of War Crimes Prosecutor Vladimir Vukcevic, arrested early on Friday a large number of members of the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) on founded suspicion that in the period between June and October 1999, they had abducted 159 civilians of Serb nationality and killed at least 51 people in the region of Gnjilane in Kosovo. "Violating the stipulations of international law and national legislature, the suspects committed a number of brutal crimes, including rape, imprisonment, crippling, torture and plundering of civilians, all with the aim to expel the Serbs and other non-Albanians from the territory of the Gnjilane Municipality," The War Crimes prosecution said in a statement. The members of the so-called KLA Gnjilane Group committed the crimes on three locations in Gnjilane, the Prosecution stated. Being a high-risk operation, it took months to plan the arrest of the suspects, most of whom were armed. The arrest operation was carried out with the assistance of the Security Information Agency (BIA) and the Serbian Interior Ministry. Interior minister Ivica Dacic confirmed for Tanjug that the operation had been launched early on Friday and that it referred to the crimes that had been committed against the Serbs and other non-Albanians in the region of Gnjilane in 1999.

KOSOVO AND METOHIJA

TADIC: SERBIA WILL CAREFULLY FOLLOW WORK OF EULEX

KOSOVSKA MITROVICA, Dec 26 (Tanjug) - Serbian President Boris Tadic has said that Serbia will carefully follow how the European Union (EU) mission in Kosovo EULEX is doing its job, and that it will intervene with the United Nations (UN) if that mission fails to remain within the domain of the rule of law. Serbia will cooperate with the EULEX, and, under UN Security Council decision, EULEX is obliged to coordinate with the state organs of Serbia, Tadic said. Speaking in an interview for the Pristina Serbian weekly Jedinstvo, the President said Serbian institutions will be at the disposal of EULEX in the coming period, which he said can be extremely important for the efficacy of the EU mission in Kosovo and Metohija. EULEX is a technical mission, he said, and in that sense it has status neutrality. All those who are mistakenly defining the EU mission in Kosovo in their public appearances are inflicting damage to the successful work of that mission, he said. The status of Kosovo can be defined only at the UN Security Council and no mission engaged in Kosovo can determine the status of that province, Tadic said. The State of Serbia does not have a strategic goal to partition Kosovo, he emphasized, primarily because of the majority of Serbs who live in central and southern municipalities of that province. Furthermore, such a policy would not be in keeping with the Serbian Constitution, Tadic said. Should anyone consider setting before Serbia "the absurd condition" that Belgrade should recognize the independence of Kosovo for the sake of its integrations with Europe, President Tadic said, the answer would be a negative one. Tadic also spoke about the fact that a number of EU member-states will never recognize the independence of Kosovo precisely because they are defending their own national interests in that way, as they would jeopardize their own integrity with such an act of recognition. "For these countries, the independence of Kosovo represents a dramatic foreign-policy and a real precedent, that makes any country that is complex and pregnant with separatist tendencies deeply unsafe and politically unstable. That is why Serbia has an ally in the fact that the independence of Kosovo jeopardizes the integrity of certain European countries as well, but also of numerous countries outside the continent of Europe," Tadic concluded.

SERBIA WILL NEVER RECOGNISE INDEPENDENCE OF KOSOVO

BELGRADE, Dec 25 (Tanjug) - Serbian Minister of Kosovo-Metohija Goran Bogdanovic said on Thursday that as long as the Democratic Party and its partners had the greatest responsibility in the leading of the state, Serbia "will never recognise the unilaterally declared independence of Kosovo." Commenting on a claim of Kosovo Premier Hashim Thaci that Serbia has de facto recognised Kosovo’s independence, Bogdanovic told Tanjug was this was a statement "for internal use, for alleviating the existing tension on the Kosovo Albanian political scene." "By a unilateral decision, provisional institutions in Pristina proclaimed the independence of Kosovo and thus violated international rules and documents adopted at the UN Security Council. They also directly jeopardised Serbia’s territorial integrity and sovereignty in Kosovo-Metohija reaffirmed under UN Security Council Resolution 1244 in 1999," Bogdanovic said. He said that Serbia had no need to make decisions on Kosovo, because the province’s status is determined under international documents and representatives of provisional Kosovo institutions know this very well, but that they were presently trying to conceal their failed international attempts regarding the recognition of the status. "Serbia strengthens its state structures in Kosovo-Metohija every day and makes efforts to strengthen Kosovo Serbs. I understand that Kosovo institutions have a problem with that, but they cannot change international rules and retailer borders as they wish. We will wait for the International Court of Justice decision so that they can see once again that they are wrong," Bogdanovic said. He added that representatives of provisional Kosovo institutions had room to change their policy and turn to cooperation, rather than to stick their heads into sand.

EULEX "TACITLY" IMPLEMENTS AHTISAARI’S PLAN

ZVECAN, Dec 25 (Tanjug) - Representatives of four municipalities from northern Kosovo assessed on Thursday at a news conference in Zvecan that EULEX has "tacitly" started to implement the Marti Ahtisaari plan and Kosovo Constitution. Mayors of Zvecan, Kosovska Mitrovica, Leposavic and Zubin Potok announced that in the coming days special sessions of the municipal assemblies will be held on this occasion. Zubin Potok mayor Slavica Ristic pointed out that UNMIK, which according to Resolution 1244 of the UN Security Council is obliged to implement it, no longer operates on the ground. "We want to cooperate exclusively with UNMIK. We will not cooperate with EULEX before it becomes status neutral," Ristic said, adding that municipal mayors in northern Kosovo will request an interpretation from the official Belgrade concerning the six-point plan.

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