Kosovo conditions Serbia

EU says that this process is based on the individual merits of each country in its roads towards membership. Croatia, a few days before signing the treaty, is a model for the region.

“Most of the discussion focused on taking Croatia as a successful model for concluding the last chapter, that of justice, by proving not only the enlargement process credibility, but also the transforming power of enlargement, as well as the lessons that should be taken”, declared the Commissioner for Enlargement, Stefan Fule.

The Polish Presidency declared that there were positive signs for Montenegro. Mikolaj Dowgielewicz, the Polish Minister of State for European Matters declared:

“For Montenegro, the Council underlined that the country has reached a high level of accordance with the membership criteria, especially in the political area, and has advanced in establishing a market economy. Naturally, it will be up to the European Summit to decide the date for the membership negotiations with Montenegro.”

The status of Serbia is still conditioned by the neighboring relations with Kosovo.

“The European Summit will decided if Serbia should receive the Candidate Status or not. As you can imagine, the debate was focused on the regional reconciliation and dialogue between Kosovo and Serbia”, Dowgielewicz added.

The Council welcomed the Commission’s recommendation for starting the dialogue with Kosovo for lifting the visa regime, but “only if all requests will be really fulfilled”. The FYROM seems less lucky. Regardless Hague’s positive decision, which ruled in favor of Skopje, the Council postponed the review of this decision to the next summit. Even the meeting of the PM Gruevski with the EU President, Van Rompuy, didn’t change anything.

“I encouraged PM Gruevski to continue looking for an acceptable solution with Greece, and expressed my hopes that the International Court of Justice will encourage these efforts even more”, declared the President of the EU.

The first one to shatter the hopes was the General Secretary of NATO, who declared that this Hague Court decision wouldn’t change anything from Bucharest’s conclusions, which have conditioned the country’s membership with the change of the name.

Arta Tozaj, Bruksel

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