The European Union will sign a Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA) with Serbia on April 29 after EU foreign ministers agreed to a deal whereby the signing will be conditional on Serbian full co-operation with the Hague war crimes tribunal.
International news agencies, quoting a spokesperson for the Slovenian presidency of the EU, said that the SAA would be signed at 1400 GMT. Serbian news
agencies reported that Serbian president Boris Tadic would go to Luxembourg to sign the deal.
It has become practice for the EU to sign such agreements with countries aspiring to EU membership, with signatory countries undertaking to carry out
political, economic, trade and human rights reforms in exchange for access to EU markets or financial or other assistance.
Negotiations between the EU and Serbia on an SAA started in November 2005 but were suspended in summer 2006 over the question of Serbian co-operation with the Hague tribunal. An agreement on an SAA was initialled in November 2007 but the Netherlands and Belgium thus far have blocked signing of the deal
because the two countries wanted a firm commitment from Serbia on co-operation with the International War Crimes Tribunal on the former Yugoslavia.
The agreement on the deal today was agreed to by the Netherlands and Belgium on condition that the trade and aid benefits of the deal would flow only after
the EU was able to see proof that Serbia was fully co-operation with the tribunal. Those in favour of the deal being signed wanted it to serve as positive
reinforcement for a pro-Western policy by Serbia, bearing in mind that Serbians are due to go to the polls in parliamentary and local elections on May 11.
According to a report by Belgrade-headquartered news agency Beta, divisions regarding the signing of the SAA existed not only in the EU, but continued to
do so within the Serbian government.
Even though the outgoing government initialled the agreement last November and gave authority for the agreement to be signed, ministers of the Democratic
Party of Serbia (DSS) and New Serbia (NS), led by DSS leader and prime minister Vojislav Koštunica, were "strongly opposed" to the signing, saying that it
effectively recognised the Kosovo Albanians' unilateral declaration of independence, Beta said.
There has been continuing controversy in Serbia about accepting an SAA agreement as an effective trade-off for accepting Kosovo independence. In Serbian
political circles, many have voiced rejection of the two issues being linked, even if only implicitly rather than such a link being spelt out.
Earlier in the day, the spokesperson for EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana, Cristina Gallach, told Serbian state television RTS that the EU "wants to
sign a Stabilisation and Association Agreement with Serbia today, but that it is unclear whether it would be possible because a decision has to be
unanimous".
"In any case, Serbia's citizens should know that the European Union wants close relations with Serbia," Gallach was quoted as saying.
According to Gallach, "this is an important message that should be sent out now", because the issue of the EU is "so strongly present in the pre-election process".
