Belgrade, 09. 04. 2008.

SERBIA - EU

• JEREMIC: KOSOVO MUST NOT BE OBSTACLE ON ROAD TO EU
• JEREMIC: UNITED IN DEFENDING SOVEREIGNTY OVER KOSOVO
• SOLANA BACKS SIGNING OF SAA WITH SERBIA BEFORE ELECTIONS

• RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTER MEETS WITH AMBASSADOR VUKICEVIC
• OSCE EXPECTS FAIR, DEMOCRATIC ELECTION
• KONUZIN: RUSSIA WILL RESPECT VOTERS' WILL
• CROATIA EXPECTS SERBIA AND KOSOVO TO BEGIN COOPERATING
• INTERNATIONAL ROMA DAY MARKED

• SOLANA: EULEX TO BE DEPLOYED THROUGHOUT KOSOVO
• SOLANA: KOSOVO REMAINS "EXCEPTION" IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
• DICARLO: UNMIK TO DECIDE ON SERBIAN ELECTIONS IN KOSOVO, DICARLO
• U.S. OPENS EMBASSY IN KOSOVO
• LAVROV: SERBS HAVE THE RIGHT TO DECIDE WHERE THEY WANT TO LIVE
• LAVROV SAYS THERE IS NO POINT IN SENDING ARMY TO KOSOVO
• MOSCOW-PREPARATION OF KOSOVO'S CONSTITUTION TO CREATE TENSIO
• GALLUCCI WILL LEAVE KOSOVO WHEN HIS MANDATE EXPIRES
• RUSSIA REQUESTS INFORMATION ABOUT CRIMES AGAINST SERBS
• ROUND TABLE ON KOSOVO HELD IN ROME

• LAVROV ASSURED ENERGY AGREEMENT WILL BE RATIFIED
• DJELIC: EXPORTS SHOULD RISE ANNUALLY 25 PERCENT BY 2011
• DEUTSCHE BANK DENIES ALLEGATIONS BY ATEC OWNER
• COMTRADE BUYS SLOVENIAN HERMES SOFTLAB

NIKOSIA, April 8 (Beta) - Serbia's bid to join the European Union should not be affected by its refusal to accept the independence of Kosovo, Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic said on April 8.

Jeremic said he wanted to "dispel confusion" that Serbia's EU aspirations depend on its recognition of the breakaway province's unilateral declaration of independence.

"There was a lot of confusion in the last few days and there were a lot of people who were trying to insinuate that Serbia will have to somehow acquiesce, to accept the independence of Kosovo in order to maintain its European aspirations. Well, that is not true," Jeremic stated after talks with his Cypriot counterpart, Markos Kyprianou.

He said Serbia would not "give up its sovereignty and territorial integrity, and at the same time, it's not going to give up its quest to become a member of the European Union."

Kyprianou reiterated Cyprus's opposition to Kosovo's independence, which he said is shared by a "substantial number" of EU member states. He said that without unanimity, the EU cannot set recognition of an independent Kosovo as a condition for Serbian membership.

"We will continue fighting very hard not to allow Kosovo to become a member in international organizations," said Jeremic.

Jeremic repeated Serbia's plans to challenge Kosovo's declaration of independence by appealing to the International Court of Justice.

ATHENS, April 9 (Tanjug) - Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic assessed in Athens on Wednesday that the main issue in the May 11 elections in Serbia would be "whether to choose Europe," because Serbia was strongly united in the defence of the territorial integrity and the preservation of sovereignty over Kosovo and Metohija.

"An overwhelming majority of our citizens are not prepared to give up our country's sovereignty over Kosovo. We are strongly united on this issue. And we will remain so. We will continue defending our territorial integrity, and we will continue defending the rights of the Kosovo Serbs," Jeremic said while addressing the participants of the Conference on the Foreign Policy and Security for Southeast Europe, which is organised by the British Economist Magazine. Jeremic reiterated that Kosovo would not be a member of the UN, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), and that as such, it would not belong to the world community of sovereign nations, that it would remain unattractive for foreign investments, be unresponsive to the rule of law and incapable of preventing its freefall to failure without the engagement of Belgrade.

"When the underlying implications of such a destabilising outcome sink in, a new window of opportunity will open up (.) and create the conditions to forge a comprehensive settlement of the province's future status (.) through compromise, concession and consensus-building," he explained. Europe is today closely associated by many in Serbia with the support for the unilateral proclamation of the independence of the southern Serbian province, the Serbian foreign minister said, explaining that it was because of that that the European idea was presently "on the defensive" in Serbia and was no longer seen as "our destiny, but as a decision for us to make."

The international conference, which is being held in the Greek tourist resort Kavouris, is attended, along with Jeremic, by the foreign ministers of Greece, Dora Bakoyannis, of Bulgaria, Ivailo Kalfin, Albania, Lulzim Basha, and of Romania, Adrian Cioroianu, as well as Republika Srpska Prime Minister Milorad Dodik.

BRUSSELS, April 8 (Beta) - EU High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy Javier Solana said in Brussels on April 8 that the EU should do everything it can to sign the Stabilization and Association Agreement (SAA) with Belgrade before the May elections in Serbia.

Solana also said that Hague tribunal indictee Ratko Mladic would never end up in the tribunal's detention unit if Tomislav Nikolic's Serbian Radical Party won the elections.

Addressing the European Parliament, Solana underscored that the EU should make every effort to sign the agreement with Belgrade on May 10, so that the Serbian people, as he put it, could truly feel that the EU wants Serbia as a member.

"We will aim to maintain the most fundamental possible relations with Serbia. We must make every effort to create a feeling among the Serbian people that we want them as close to us as possible," Solana told reporters.

He went on to say that he wanted to go to bed on the evening of May 10 with a clear conscience, knowing that the EU had done all it could, "and not to wake up on May 12 and see that we could have done more."

"Bear in mind that if (Tomislav) Nikolic wins, (Ratko) Mladic will not be in The Hague, which is why we must do everything in our power," Solana stressed. "I love Serbia very much, even though it is prone to looking back rather than ahead," he added.

The European Commission will also determine what it can do to liberalize the EU visa regime for Serbian citizens, Solana said, adding that visas and the SAA were two very important issues "the EU should do by May 11."

Asked by the chief of the European Parliament's delegation for Southeastern Europe, Doris Pack, whether he thought the situation surrounding the signing of the SAA with Serbia was "a trap," Solana only briefly replied that the EU wanted that agreement signed as soon as possible.

MOSCOW, April 8 (Tanjug) - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has received Serbian Ambassador Stanimir Vukicevic, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.

During the Monday meeting, they reviewed the key issues of cooperation between Russia and Serbia and the situation regarding the resolution of the Kosovo issue, the statement said. Lavrov reaffirmed Russia's commitment to close cooperation with Serbia and readiness to invest efforts together with Belgrade to achieve a just and lasting solution for Kosovo.

BELGRADE, April 8 (Beta) - OSCE Parliamentary Assembly officials and Serbian parliamentary representatives said on April 8 that they were confident that parliamentary elections in Serbia would be fair and democratic, a statement from Parliament said.

OSCE Parliamentary Assembly special representatives Roberto Batelli and Andreas Nothelle met with Democratic Party caucus whip Nada Kolundzija, Democratic Party of SerbiaNew Serbia caucus whip Milos Aligrudic and G17 Plus deputy caucus whip Snezana Stojanovic Plavsic.

They discussed "current circumstances on the domestic and international political scenes affecting the preelection process in Serbia," the statement said.

OSCE Parliamentary Assembly president Goran Lennmarker said on April 7 that, in addition to the elections, the goal of the OSCE delegation's visit to Serbia was to send a clear message that the organization wanted to see Serbia in Europe.

OSCE Parliamentary Assembly representatives are visiting Belgrade as part of preparing for their monitoring mission on May 11, when a Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly delegation will arrive in Belgrade.

MOSCOW, April 9 (Tanjug) - Russia holds that the current period of political struggle is Serbia's internal affair and the country has pointed out on a number of occasions that it will respect the decision the Serbian people will reach in the (May 11) elections, newly-appointed Russian Ambassador Alexander Konuzin, who will arrive in Belgrade on April 10, has said in an interview for the Belgrade daily Politika.

Any decision that may be reached on the occasion will be acceptable for Russia, the Russian ambassador said. Of course, the fact that the country's leadership is focused on electoral issues has caused certain limitations as regards the functioning of the authority and does not help a speedy realisation of the envisaged cooperation that has been determined by the recently signed agreement. We want to believe that political will make it possible to soon overcome the technical problems which have presented themselves, Konuzin added.

Asked whether in saying that he was referring to the South Stream and whether he thought that the crisis would affect its realisation, he answered that Russia wanted to believe that the new situation would not have a negative effect on the realisation of that project. The document has been signed and agreement has been reached, he underlined. The crisis in the Serbian government has caused certain corrections as regards the deadlines, but we do not think that this will cause any serious problems and we hope that the agreement will be realised by the envisaged deadlines, Konuzin said.

BRUSSELS, April 9 (Tanjug) - Kosovo's independence is a reality and this is why Zagreb expects from Serbia and Kosovo to begin cooperating, Croatian Foreign Minister Gordan Jandrokovic has said in an interview with the Brussels-based daily Europolitics.

We share the stand of over 30 countries, including most of the European Union member states, that the reality on the terrain has to be recognised, Jandrokovic said, explaining that that was not a hostile act toward Serbia, but rather a mere recognition of reality. Kosovo independence is a reality and now we expect that the two sides - both Serbia and Kosovo - begin to cooperate, the Croatian foreign minister said.

Croatia, together with Bulgaria and Macedonia, recognised Kosovo's unilateral secession from Serbia late in March.

BELGRADE, April 8 (Beta) - Serbian ombudsman Sasa Jankovic said on April 8 that the Roma were "still one of the most vulnerable groups of citizens and face great difficulties in the exercise and protection of their rights."

On the occasion of International Roma Day, April 8, Jankovic said he would insist on "the consistent implementation and protection of the individual and collective rights of the Roma, but also on spreading the culture of human and minority rights, which encompass as well the prevention of any form of discrimination and empowering particularly vulnerable minority communities."

Radomir Buric, a representative of the U.N. Development Program office in Belgrade, told a news conference that the marking of April 8 was important this year, among other things because Serbia is in June to assume the chair of the Decade of Roma Inclusion, running from 2005 to 2015.

Buric pointed out that the key to a successful society was assistance to its most threatened members.

Serbian President Boris Tadic extended his good wishes to all Roma citizens on April 8, announcing that he would stand for the state doing more toward raising levels of tolerance for the Roma and their full integration into society.

Around 49 percent of the Roma population in Serbia are poverty-stricken, while roughly 60 percent have not completed elementary school.

BRUSSELS, April 8 (Beta) - European Union High Representative Javier Solana said on April 8, in Brussels, that the EULEX mission should be deployed throughout the territory of Kosovo, adding that, after the parliamentary elections in Serbia, the next key moment would be June 15, "when the constitution of Kosovo comes into force."

The May 11 elections in Serbia will be very important among other things because they will be held in northern Kosovo for the first time, Solana stressed in an address to the Foreign Policy Committee of the European Parliament.

U.N. and EU legal experts are working on some sort of memorandum on understanding, which should harmonize technical and perhaps some legal provisions about cooperation between UNMIK and EULEX, BETA learned from European diplomatic sources in Brussels.

According to Solana's interpretation, the European mission therefore does not have to perform a direct transfer of competencies from UNMIK, as EULEX is coming to Kosovo to give assistance to the Kosovo authorities.

BRUSSELS, Apr 8 (Tanjug) - The European Union has said it a thousand times that Kosovo is a unique case and that is why Kosovo will remain an exception and not a rule in international relations, EU High Representative for the CFSP Javier Solana Representative for the CFSP Javier Solana said before the European Parliament Committee on Foreign Affairs in Brussels on Tuesday.

Solana gave a negative answer to a question by Romanian representative Adrian Severin on whether the new international order should be based on the Kosovo case. Kosovo is an exception and we shall have to treat it as such, said Solana. Responding to a question on differences among the EU member states regarding Kosovo, Solana said that the most important thing is that all EU member states had agreed on operational decisions. Solana also said that the Union's plan to deploy EUROLEX in all parts of Kosovo remains.

WASHINGTON, April 9 (Tanjug) - US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Rosemary DiCarlo has said in an exclusive interview for the Voice of America that UNMIK will decide whether local elections will be held in Kosovo on May 11, since the UN mission has been responsible for organizing elections in Kosovo since 1999.

"UNMIK has governed Kosovo, and now-in this transitional period-is monitoring processes such as elections," DiCarlo said, adding that it was necessary to await an UNMIK decision. "In any case, it's clear we believe that it would have been better if the Serbs had taken part in the Kosovo elections in November.

Some of those that took part entered parliament and the government. Our aim in Kosovo is to have a multi-ethnic society that European civilization is founded on. And we hope that a solution will be found in the near future," she added.

PRISTINA, April 8 (Beta) - On April 8, the U.S. opened its embassy in Pristina, thereby establishing cooperation with Kosovo at the top diplomatic level.

Tina Kaidanow, formerly the chief of the U.S. office in Pristina, now the charge d'affaires, said the embassy had been opened at the recommendation of U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Kosovo President Fatmir Sejdiu said Kosovo had a long history of special relations with the U.S., cultivated and strengthened during the most difficult times in the existence of the people of Kosovo.

Kosovo Premier Hashim Thaci described the opening of the U.S. embassy as "a magnificent deed."

The first U.S. mission in Kosovo was established in June 1996 and had the character of a cultural and informational center of the U.S. embassy in Belgrade.

Immediately after June 1999 and the conclusion of the NATO bombing of the then Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, a special office for Kosovo was opened in Pristina, headed by a person virtually bearing the title of ambassador.

The governments of Slovenia and Kosovo on April 8 also established diplomatic relations at the embassy level.

Slovenian Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel initialed the start of diplomatic relations on behalf of his country, while Thaci did the same on behalf of Kosovo.

MOSCOW, Apr 8 (Tanjug) - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov expressed at the Russian Duma on April 2 his confidence that the minority people living in Kosovo, mainly Serbs, but not only Serbs, have the full right to express their will in regards to how and where they want to live and in what capacity would they stay, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.

Lavrov said that it is no accident that the Serb municipalities in Kosovska Mitrovica and other Serb enclaves categorically refuse to cooperate with anyone from among international representatives, except KFOR and UNMIK, which had been set up in keeping with UN Security Council Resolution 1244. Forcing them to submit and accept alleged legitimacy of the European Union's mission is absolutely unacceptable, said Lavrov, adding that Moscow had been discussing this with EU and UNMIK representatives.

Minister Lavrov also said that Russia now has the right to ask, and it had already asked, its Western partners, who had claimed that it is impossible to continue the status negotiations, whether their argument that the Albanians could never again live together with the Serbs may be implemented on the situation inside Kosovo as a principle. They don't know what they are saying, said Lavrov, expressing their confidence that the development of the situation had not been stopped.

MOSCOW, April 8 (Tanjug) - "There is no point in sending army to Kosovo" for Russia, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday and added that the situation had not changed in comparison with the period when Russia decided to withdraw its contingent from Serbia's southern province.

"This decision was in connection with the absence of (Russia's) wish to link with the policy of KFOR, which could have been considered ethnic cleansing in reverse," Lavrov told the Echo of Moscow Radio in an interview. According to the Russian minister, the recognition of Kosovo's independence, unilaterally declared on February 17, did not start as envisaged.

"The plan was to persuade or force about 100 countries to recognise Kosovo's independence, and just 37 recognised it, while more than 50 said without any doubt that they would not recognise it," Lavrov said. "This is not the picture which those who encouraged Kosovo to declare independence wanted to see," Lavrov said and the Itar-TASS news agency reported.

MOSCOW, April 8 (Tanjug) - The preparation of Kosovo's constitution is an attempt to reinforce the province's self-proclaimed independence with a pseudo-legal basis and is a continuation of the separatist policy of Pristina and its patrons in violation of international law, Moscow said on Tuesday.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement that it was evident that part of Kosovo's population that did not accept the self-declared independence would not accept the future constitutional organisation of the province and that the situation would get even more strained as a result. Instead of a forced creation of external attributes of an illegal state it is necessary to think about an acceptable outcome which can be achieved only in a dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina, the statement said.

In an effort to make it appear as if there is a plan harmonised in the international community, they revoke the famous provisions of Martti Ahtisaari which have never received the UN Security Council support and essentially represent just a failed attempt to impose a unilateral solution for the Kosovo issue, Moscow said. It was stressed that claims were incomprehensible that the European Union had allegedly approved the preparation and adoption of the Kosovo constitution, because it was well-known that there was no consensus on Kosovo's independence in the European Union.

PRISTINA, April 8 (Tanjug) - UNMIK regional administrator for northern Kosovo Gerard Gallucci has said that he would leave Kosovo when his mandate expires.

The Pristina electronic media quoted the Zeri paper as saying that Gallucci stated that his mandate expires in several months and that he would leave Kosovo then. Gallucci did not link his departure from Kosovo with his disagreements with UNMIK deputy chief Larry Rossin over the unrest in Kosovska Mitrovica.

Gallucci and Rossin clashed following the riots in northern Kosovska Mitrovica, which were provoked after the UNMIK police entered the courthouse and arrested about 50 Serb judicial employees.

MOSCOW, April 8 (Tanjug) - Russia has officially addressed the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, asking whether the ICTY has any information about crimes against Kosovo Serbs mentioned in the book of former ICTY chief prosecutor Carla Del Ponte and what has been done to investigate them.

Moscow is carefully observing war crimes investigation developments stemming from Del Ponte's book, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement stressing that the facts that had appeared in the public about the heinous crimes against the peaceful Serb population committed by KLA extremists under the motto of fight for independence were shocking.

Commenting on media reports that Switzerland had forbidden Del Ponte to participate in the promotion of her book, the Russian Foreign Ministry said that it was no wonder that such discoveries did not fit the scenario of a number of states whose propaganda described Kosovo Albanians as martyrs and legitimised Kosovo's independence on this basis. Moscow says that one could presume that limitations in the freedom of expression regarding crimes against the peaceful population had the aim of alleviating the impact in the international political and public circles of the facts that disclose the criminal background of illegal sovereignty of Kosovo.

MOSCOW, April 9 (Tanjug) - A round table on current status of the Serbian Orthodox community and prospects of preservation of Christian heritage in Kosovo and Metohija has been held in the organisation of the Russian Church in Rome, the Church said in a statement on Tuesday.

Taking part in the round table, Serbian Ambassador to Vatican Vladeta Jankovic pointed to the fact that in 1999, there had been as many as 1,5000 Orthodox monasteries and churches in Kosovo, and that 150 of these holy sites had been ruined during the NATO bombing and the March 2004 pogroms. According to him, as many as 40 cases have been registered in which the monasteries suffered double destruction - demolition and mining, all with the aim of a complete destroying of spiritual and cultural heritage.

Prior Filip conveyed the stand of Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Russia that Kosovo represented a holy land for the Serbs and that its loss had deprived them of their own history.

MOSCOW, April 8 (Tanjug) - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is assured that the Russia - Serbia agreement on cooperation in the oil and gas industries, will be ratified by all Serbian parliaments, regardless of their composition.

In a stenogram of Lavrov's April 2 address to the Duma (Russian parliament lower house), revealed by the Russian Foreign Ministry on Tuesday, Lavrov said that he fails to see why Russia should link its ratification deadline with that for Serbia. In question is purely a technical delay, tied to the election campaign, Lavrov stated, expressing belief that all Serbian parliaments, regardless of their composition, will ratify the agreement shortly after the constitution of the parliament.

BELGRADE, April 8 (Beta) - Serbian Deputy Prime Minister Bozidar Djelic said on April 8 that it is necessary for the exports of Serbian companies to rise annually 25 percent by 2011, with the target markets being the EU, Russia and Ukraine, the Balkan countries, the Middle East and North Africa.

Speaking at the Serbian Chamber of Commerce, Djelic unveiled a draft strategy to increase exports, which foresees changes in the export structure, the conquering of new markets and increasing the number of major exporters.

"The plan is to increase the share of products with a higher level of processing in exports from 43.2 percent to 65 percent, and to up the number of companies annually exporting over EUR10 million worth of goods from 66 in 2007 to 120 by 2012," Djelic said.

The per capita export of Serbian companies in 2007, totaling EUR896, is 11fold lower than that of Slovenian companies and 2.3fold lower than that of Croatian firms.

BELGRADE, April 8 (Beta) - The head of Deutsche Bank's Serbian office, Nemanja Zugic, on April 8 said the bank has not considered any decision on pulling out of the Serbian market.

"Deutsche Bank remains devoted to Serbia, which we are proving with our complete dedication to the Horgos-Pozega highway project, a venture of strategic and national importance for Serbia," Zugic said in a statement given to BETA.

He pointed out that Deutsche Bank maintains relations with all banks and leading companies in Serbia, and was the first and only bank to issue a nonstate bond from Serbia onto the foreign capital market in 2007.

Mirko Kovac, owner of the Austrian company A-Tec, who was in talks with Deutsche Bank on a loan for the purchase of the copper mining and smelting complex RTB Bor, on April 7 said that the bank had withdrawn from financing major projects in Serbia in 2008.

Deutsche Bank is also to be the main financier of the Horgos-Pozega highway construction, a project worth between EUR1 billion and EUR1.7 billion, depending on the source of information.

The beginning of implementation of the project has been delayed due to problems the concession holders are facing in securing the financial package.

BELGRADE, April 8 (Beta) - Serbian information group ComTrade on April 8 took over the Slovenian software company Hermes Softlab, but the value of the deal was not disclosed.

The merger of ComTrade and Hermes Softlab has created the biggest IT group in Southeastern Europe, with annual revenues of EUR300 million and 1,600 employees, which will operate on the markets of 14 countries.

The Slovenian business daily Finance earlier reported that ComTrade had offered some EUR40 million for the purchase of Hermes Softlab.

Hermes Softlab was founded in Ljubljana in 1990 and is involved in developing programming equipment and IT solutions for data storage services and lottery game providers, telecommunications services, financial institutions and the public sector.

The company operates through a network of offices in Europe and the U.S., and in September 2006 it purchased the Kragujevac based software firm Virtual Team, with which it had previously cooperated.

ComTrade Group boasts 11 members in Serbia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Bosnia Herzegovina, Montenegro, Macedonia, Albania, Saudi Arabia and the U.S. Last year, it opened the first automated computer assembly line in Belgrade and employs a total of about 800 workers.