| In
what they called a message to the Serbian people, EU foreign ministers
unequivocally pledged to lift the sanctions against Yugoslavia if the September
24 election results led to a democratic change, thus furnishing compelling
evidence that Europe’s policy towards Yugoslavia has changed for the better.
Of course, it would have been much more useful for Serbia’s democracy hadn’t
the ministers made the lifting of international sanctions conditional,
but this gesture of goodwill will no doubt mean a lot to the Serbs, particularly
given the fact that we have already fulfilled their sole condition – readiness
for democracy. This is also yet another opportunity to pay full respect
to France’s diplomacy and Hubert Vedrine, a man at its helm.
However,
another message from Brussels, the one about a meeting between the EU and
western Balkans countries in Zagreb, on November 24, gave me no reason
for pleasure at all. I have to say that the announcement that invitations
for the Zagreb conference will go to the 15-nation bloc, Albania, Bosnia
and Herzegovina, Macedonia, Croatia, Slovenia, as well as Montenegrin President
Milo Djukanovic, UNMIK chief Bernard Kouchner, representatives of civil
society and local governments in Serbia and myself, was disconcerting indeed.
I am deeply convinced that in tackling major issues such as normalisation
of relations between a country and the world one should never go from specific
to non-specific but vice-versa instead. Should we make such an elementary
logical mistake we may prejudice solutions to two critical problems Yugoslavia
is facing today – a solution to Kosovo’s status and a general solution
to the issue of succession. The meeting is quite likely to be interpreted
as a bid to derogate the Resolution 1244, which no responsible politician
in Serbia and Yugoslavia can possibly accept.
I sincerely
hope that the EU will reconsider its positions, and let the things develop
in the only proper way – a Yugoslavia freed from the sanctions and with
a democratically elected authority, a rightful member of the United Nations,
the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe and the International
Monetary Fund, will be able to negotiate on Kosovo’s status in compliance
with all provisions of the Resolution 1244, and work patiently and carefully
to normalise relations with its neighbours, by no means neglecting the
issue of refugees.
Belgrade,
September 18, 2000 |