Serbian parliament passes pre-membership treaty with EU (2nd Roundup)

Belgrade - The Serbian parliament on Tuesday backed the Stabilization and Association Agreement (SAA) with the European Union, taking a small step toward membership of the bloc. In the 250-seat assembly, 140 voted in favour of the SAA, which is a pre-membership agreement. None of the 78 deputies from the opposition ultra-nationalist Serbian Radical Party (SRS), which is in turmoil over the government's efforts to strengthen ties with EU, took part in the vote. The 28 representatives from former prime minister Vojislav Kostunica's camp voted against. The outcome of the vote was greeted positively in Brussels. 'The European Commission encourages any measures by Serbia that bring the country closer to the EU. In this context, the ratification of the SAA and of the interim agreement is welcome news,' said Kristina Nagy, spokeswoman for EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn. Serbia and the EU initialled the SAA in November 2007 and signed it in late April in Luxembourg. It must now be ratified by all of the EU's 27 member states before it can come into effect. While the commission says it is willing to at least implement parts of the SAA dealing with trade following the capture of war-crimes indictee Radovan Karadzic, not all EU governments are expected to ratify the entire agreement as long as two other wanted war crime suspects, Ratko Mladic and Goran Hadzic, remain on the run. The UN war crimes prosecutor, Serge Brammertz, is now expected to update EU governments about Serbia's cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague after a visit to Belgrade later this week. And Serbia is hoping that a positive report by Brammertz could launch a series of SAA ratifications among member states and lead to its promotion to a membership candidate as early as 2009, as indicated last week by European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso. In the meantime, EU foreign ministers are due to decide on whether to implement an interim trade liberalization agreement at a meeting scheduled for September 15. 'This is a historic moment for Serbia,' the Serbian deputy premier in charge of relations with EU, Bozidar Djelic, told reporters after the SAA ratification. 'The road is paved for Serbia to put up its membership candidacy.' Once it comes into effect, the SAA will define the terms and conditions for the flow of goods, people and capital between the EU and Serbia, as well as dictate the tempo of reforms that the country needs to introduce before it can join the bloc. Tuesday's SAA vote was delayed by two months by the nationalist opposition, which obstructed each motion in parliament by filibustering and forced an early, prolonged recess in mid-July. The outcome of the vote firmly set Serbia on its European course, after months of wavering in the wake of the secession of its province of Kosovo, which triggered the fall of Kostunica's government and early elections in May. Inside the assembly, the pro-European camp grouped behind President Boris Tadic closely defeated the Serbian nationalist bloc - which has since started splitting amid infighting between hardliners and moderates. Though neither of the two wings took part in the SAA vote, the moderate leader, Tomislav Nikolic, described the ratification as 'historic.' Lawmakers also overwhelmingly passed a major energy deal with Russia, despite criticism that it included an unfavourable sale of the national oil monopoly NIS. According to the deal, Russia would divert its projected multibillion-dollar South Stream natural gas pipeline to cross Serbia and buy a 51-per-cent stake in NIS for 400 million euros (570 million dollars). Among the votes against the treaty with Russia were representatives of G17 Plus, a reformist party which is a part of Tadic's ruling coalition. Pointing to independent audits, G17 claims that the value of NIS is three times greater than what it is being sold for. In a session with only a series of votes on the agenda, parliament also approved a series of credit arrangements worth hundreds of millions of dollars. The deals had also been stalled for months owing to political uncertainty in Serbia.