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The Government of the Republic of Serbia

In the service of citizens

An important step taken towards Europe in the past year

Belgrade, 14 March 2005

Serbian Deputy Prime Minister Miroljub Labus underlined today that the biggest achievement of the Serbian Government in the past year was that an important step was taken towards Europe, which will be formally completed with the positive assessment of the Feasibility Study.

Miroljub Labus at today's press conference

Labus said that political stability was the first condition which the government fulfilled and underlined that the European Commission concluded that there is a sufficient level of political stability for negotiations on the Agreement on Stabilization and Association to take place.

Labus emphasized that based on the talks which he had last week in Skoplje, he concluded that the Serbian Government had a much better rating abroad and expressed his belief that the government will have such a rating in this country as well in the following year.

According to him, the issue of harmonization of economic systems of Serbia and Montenegro was successfully resolved, as the EU accepted the Serbian Government’s proposal of a “two-way track” approach for EU accession.

The Deputy Prime Minister reminded that in order to receive a positive assessment of the Feasibility Study it was necessary to renew trust between Brussels and Belgrade, which was jeopardized by the sugar and custom levies affairs. He underlined that since then trust has been re-established. This was confirmed by the agreement on custom levies, the increase of sugar quotas and the agreement on textile with the EU which will be formally signed on March 31.

Regarding cooperation with The Hague, Labus said that there has been a change of position both from Brussels and this side, and specified that Brussels no longer insists on full cooperation as the condition for completion of the Agreement. Rather a formula for progress in cooperation has now been adopted. The Serbian Government is conducting a new policy of voluntary surrender whereby the indictees receive guarantees from the state and the government, and then voluntarily go to the Hague Tribunal.

Labus said that this policy has produced good results and he expressed the hope that this will also be the case in the remaining two cases in the next two weeks.

As for plans for the year ahead, Labus, who is Serbia’s chief negotiator for the Agreement on Stabilisation and Association with the EU, said that talks should be organised soon after the country receives a positive feasibility study.

He announced that the government will change the internal organisation of the ministries and set up a division for European integration in each of the ministries.

He added that Serbia will have to change or adopt 44 laws so as to meet European standards and fulfill the EU’s requirements for accession.

Labus said that Serbia must complete its arrangements with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and he recalled that the WB has opened a new three-year arrangement worth $540 million but conditioning it on the implementation of poverty reduction strategy.

According to him, his office has set up a working group to coordinate the work of ministries and speed up the implementation of the poverty reduction policy. He recalled that this policy was adopted in 2003 but that little has been done so far to carry it out.

Labus said that some $650 million of the external debt will be written off in three to six months, when the three-year arrangement with the IMF is completed.

He stressed that financial consolidation, the employment policy, privatisation, and the restructuring of large public sector enterprises are tasks of the Serbian government in 2005.

Labus also recalled that work on changes to the Law on Privatisation has begun and that they will help resolve the issue of employees’ participation in the privatisation of socially-owned enterprises.