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The Government of the Republic of Serbia

In the service of citizens

SAA may be signed in January 2008

Belgrade, 19 November 2007

Director of the Serbian government’s EU Integration Office Tanja Miscevic said today that Serbia may sign the Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA) with the EU next January.

In a statement to the Tanjug news agency, Miscevic said that apart from full cooperation with the Hague Tribunal, there are no other political conditions for signing the agreement, though there is a great deal of technical matters to complete.

She explained that Serbia first has to conclude the translation of the text of the SAA and harmonise it with Serbian legal terminology, which the ministries are currently working on, and afterwards the Secretariat for Legislature should perform the final legal and technical revision of the text.

Miscevic said that the Serbian government will then declare itself regarding the text of the SAA and will authorise a person to sign the agreement.

She said that the text has to be translated into 22 official languages of EU member states and that each of those states must authorise the signing of the document.

According to Miscevic, the procedure is such because this is the so-called mixed agreement which, apart from signatures on behalf of Serbia, also requires those on behalf of the EU, that is, of representatives of both the union and its member states.

Miscevic pointed out that the technical procedure is the most complex and it usually takes four to six months, due to a large number of translations, adding that the period can be shorter.