UK ambassador: No dilemmas on Kosovo

UK ambassador to Serbia Stephen Wordsworth told daily Danas that the EU does not want new Kosovo status negotiations. He said that Serbia does not need a new “Kosovo conflict.” UK ambassador: No dilemmas on Kosovo “If Serbia, or some other country, asks us to move backwards, first of all, this would not happen, because no one in Kosovo would agree to it, nor would anyone try to convince them to agree to it,” he said. “Such actions would mean a continuation of confrontations between Belgrade and the 22 EU member-states that have recognized independence. Many people have told Serbian officials several times that insisting on new negotiations would not be a good idea,” Wordsworth said, adding that relations toward Kosovo and Serbia’s EU integration path are no longer on separate roads. “For the EU, as a whole, the existence of Kosovo is a reality, all 27 member-states agreed that Kosovo has a European perspective and in Brussels there is no one who would say that Kosovo will disappear tomorrow…No one can enter an organization and stay in confrontation with more than 80 percent of its members,” Wordsworth said. Asked what Serbia can expect in relation to the start of the ratification of the SAA and its EU candidate status application, he said that the UK was ready to talk about both issues last December. “We believed that the December report of Hague Chief Prosecutor Serge Brammertz was positive enough in relations to Serbia in order for the EU Council of Ministers to pass a decision on beginning the ratification of the SAA, and that the approval of the European Commission to send Belgrade its questionnaire was more of a technical question than a political one. However some of our partners in the EU believed that they needed more time to make this decision. Since Prosecutor Brammertz said that he does not want to use the term full cooperation in his report, because he believes that it is a political term, it will be up to the ministers, on June 14 in Luxembourg, to see whether Serbia is fully cooperating with the Tribunal in The Hague, or not,” he said. “Brammertz’s report is in New York now. And despite the frustrations because of the fact that Mladic and Hadzic have not been arrested, I think that the general impressions are positive and that there is a chance that a decision will be passed for the start of the ratification of the SAA. On the other side, the Serbian application for candidate status will probably be taken into consideration during the fall,” he said. He said that the fall is the most realistic timeframe for this to occur. “Individual member-states asked for added time for this question, because it is directly related to EU enlargement. For example, Holland is currently being run by a technical government and I suppose that they want to decide on this after their elections, when they will have a government of full capacity. Also, there are many European countries that have turned towards their own problems because of the economic crisis. However, just as the Sarajevo conference showed, the European perspective of the Western Balkans has stayed a main topic of the Union and is not being questioned,” Wordsworth said. Stephen Wordsworth (Tanjug archive)

UK ambassador: No dilemmas on Kosovo

“If Serbia, or some other country, asks us to move backwards, first of all, this would not happen, because no one in Kosovo would agree to it, nor would anyone try to convince them to agree to it,” he said.

“Such actions would mean a continuation of confrontations between Belgrade and the 22 EU member-states that have recognized independence. Many people have told Serbian officials several times that insisting on new negotiations would not be a good idea,” Wordsworth said, adding that relations toward Kosovo and Serbia’s EU integration path are no longer on separate roads.

“For the EU, as a whole, the existence of Kosovo is a reality, all 27 member-states agreed that Kosovo has a European perspective and in Brussels there is no one who would say that Kosovo will disappear tomorrow…No one can enter an organization and stay in confrontation with more than 80 percent of its members,” Wordsworth said.

Asked what Serbia can expect in relation to the start of the ratification of the SAA and its EU candidate status application, he said that the UK was ready to talk about both issues last December.

“We believed that the December report of Hague Chief Prosecutor Serge Brammertz was positive enough in relations to Serbia in order for the EU Council of Ministers to pass a decision on beginning the ratification of the SAA, and that the approval of the European Commission to send Belgrade its questionnaire was more of a technical question than a political one. However some of our partners in the EU believed that they needed more time to make this decision. Since Prosecutor Brammertz said that he does not want to use the term full cooperation in his report, because he believes that it is a political term, it will be up to the ministers, on June 14 in Luxembourg, to see whether Serbia is fully cooperating with the Tribunal in The Hague, or not,” he said.

“Brammertz’s report is in New York now. And despite the frustrations because of the fact that Mladić and Hadžić have not been arrested, I think that the general impressions are positive and that there is a chance that a decision will be passed for the start of the ratification of the SAA. On the other side, the Serbian application for candidate status will probably be taken into consideration during the fall,” he said.

He said that the fall is the most realistic timeframe for this to occur.

“Individual member-states asked for added time for this question, because it is directly related to EU enlargement. For example, Holland is currently being run by a technical government and I suppose that they want to decide on this after their elections, when they will have a government of full capacity. Also, there are many European countries that have turned towards their own problems because of the economic crisis. However, just as the Sarajevo conference showed, the European perspective of the Western Balkans has stayed a main topic of the Union and is not being questioned,” Wordsworth said.