02.05.08: Serbia - Agreement with EU Deepens Rift - The Diigo Meta page

• 05 May 08
  

  Prof. Dr Wolfgang Schumann

  enlargement enlargementpolicy_candidates enlargementpolicy_eu serbia elections westernbalkans

  • Serbia achieved a long proclaimed foreign policy goal earlier this week when it signed a pre-membership pact with the European Union in Luxembourg.
    
    But though this was declared a priority when the isolationist rule of Slobodan Milosevic ended in 2000, both the content and the timing of the Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA) has brought deep controversy.
  • Some leaders have seen the agreement as triumph. "This is a historic moment for Serbia," foreign minister Vuk Jeremic said after deputy Prime Minister Bozidar Djelic signed the SAA with the EU's enlargement commissioner Olli Rehn and foreign ministers of all 27 EU nations.  
    
     Jeremic and Djelic belong to the Democratic Party (DS) of Serbian President Boris Tadic, who also attended the ceremony. The DS was part of the coalition government led by conservative outgoing Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica from the Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS). The DSS wants all ties with nations that recognised Kosovo to be cut. Besides the 17 EU countries, that would mean also the United States and other countries.

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