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Stabilisation and association agreement to focus on trade liberalisation
Belgrade,
28 April 2005
Secretary of the Serbian government’s EU Integration Office Tanja Miscevic said today that 80 percent of the Stabilisation and Association Agreement with the EU will be made up of trade liberalisation between Serbia-Montenegro and the EU.
Miscevic told Tanjug news agency that the agreement will define the pace of reducing the Serbia-Montenegrin duties on goods imported from the EU, with the aim of ultimately abolishing them completely.
She noted that the speed at which duties for agricultural goods will be reduced would not be the same as for other goods that do not need special protection treatment.
According to her, laws relating to free movement of labour and goods as well as laws regulating judicial reform, interior, education and agriculture will need to be adopted. Following the Croatian example, 400 laws and 10,000 by-laws will be prepared in the accession phase, Miscevic noted.
The remaining 20 percent of the agreement will concern the political dialogue, she said, noting that the agreement has nine chapters. It would be ideal if the talks lasted only seven months, she said, expressing hope that the process will not take more than a year.
The EU defined conditions that Serbia-Montenegro needs to accomplish, she said, noting that the conditions were divided into three levels.
The three levels are broken down to address criteria from the 1993 Copenhagen summit, terms applied specifically for Western Balkan countries and lastly the individual criteria for each country, the Secretary explained.
The four most important Copenhagen criteria are legal, economic, political and administrative, Miscevic said. Economic measures mean market economy and competitiveness, political criteria refer to the rule of law, respect of human rights and stable democratic institutions, legal criteria mean acceptance of the EU “legal heritage”, while administrative criteria refer to the administration’s capacity to fulfil obligations from the agreement, Miscevic said.
She noted that the speed at which duties for agricultural goods will be reduced would not be the same as for other goods that do not need special protection treatment.
According to her, laws relating to free movement of labour and goods as well as laws regulating judicial reform, interior, education and agriculture will need to be adopted. Following the Croatian example, 400 laws and 10,000 by-laws will be prepared in the accession phase, Miscevic noted.
The remaining 20 percent of the agreement will concern the political dialogue, she said, noting that the agreement has nine chapters. It would be ideal if the talks lasted only seven months, she said, expressing hope that the process will not take more than a year.
The EU defined conditions that Serbia-Montenegro needs to accomplish, she said, noting that the conditions were divided into three levels.
The three levels are broken down to address criteria from the 1993 Copenhagen summit, terms applied specifically for Western Balkan countries and lastly the individual criteria for each country, the Secretary explained.
The four most important Copenhagen criteria are legal, economic, political and administrative, Miscevic said. Economic measures mean market economy and competitiveness, political criteria refer to the rule of law, respect of human rights and stable democratic institutions, legal criteria mean acceptance of the EU “legal heritage”, while administrative criteria refer to the administration’s capacity to fulfil obligations from the agreement, Miscevic said.
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