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The Government of the Republic of Serbia

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Serbia to join “White Schengen List” by fulfilling certain conditions

Belgrade/Strasbourg, 19 June 2007

Serbian Deputy Prime Minister Bozidar Djelic met today with EU Justice and Home Affairs Commissioner Franco Frattini and voiced pleasure that the European Commission has for the first time confirmed that Serbia may join the “White Schengen List” once it fulfils certain conditions.

Author: Fonet

In a statement to the Tanjug news agency, Djelic said that so far, no date has been set for Serbia to join the list, but added it is Serbia’s aim to achieve this by end-2008 or early 2009.

According to Djelic, the important thing is that the EU has shown good will towards Serbia and that Serbia is not expected to wait for all other Western Balkan countries, like Albania.

Djelic explained that only Serbia’s individual possibilities are important, which is hugely encouraging for its European agenda.

He pointed out the importance of the expert meeting to be held in Belgrade in September and stressed that this will be an opportunity for Serbia to show what it has done regarding travel documents, what it intends to do regarding border control, as well as fighting corruption and organised crime.

The Deputy Prime Minister said that Frattini will visit Belgrade while executing his task to define priorities with the aim of starting a dialogue that should last a year.

Following the meeting Frattini stated that Serbia has three more steps to make before joining the “White Schengen List”.

The first is to implement the agreement on visa relaxations by year’s end, after which it will be particularly important to create a comprehensive dialogue on liberalisation of the visa regime, specified Frattini.

The Commissioner said they agreed that representatives of the European Commission and Serbia should analyse the entire situation in September regarding the judiciary and safety, and announced that with this aim he will visit Serbia’s capital by year’s end.

According to him, the third step is to improve measures for boosting safety in the western Balkans and in that context, Serbia is expected to help considerably in creating conditions for arresting criminals and in other areas.

Speaking about whether Serbia can expect to join the "white Schengen list" before 2010, Frattini said that the Commission's institutional obligation is to help Serbia reach that goal.

Hans-Gert Pottering and Bozidar Djelic

Author: Fonet

Djelic also met today in Strasbourg with European Parliament President Hans-Gert Pottering.

Pottering told the Tanjug news agency that it is necessary that the young in Serbia have easier access to the EU and that the European Parliament is very open on that issue and that it will try to help.

In today's talks with European Commissioner for Competition Neelie Kroes, an agreement was reached to send a European Commission expert to Serbia to work with the anti-monopoly commission.

The Serbian Deputy Prime Minister also met today with chairwoman of the European Parliament's Delegation to Southeastern Europe Doris Pack and one of the topics was Kosovo-Metohija.

Djelic and Pack agreed that the issue of Kosovo's status should be separated from the process of the European Integration.

The Serbian Deputy Prime Minister who is on a three-day visit to European institutions, after yesterday's visit to Luxembourg and today's to Strasbourg, will arrive in Brussels later today. Tomorrow he will meet there with EU High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy Javier Solana.