BELGRADE – Minister for Kosovo and Metohija Goran Bogdanović assessed the European Commission (EC) Progress Report on Kosovo as ‘very painful’ for Priština, as it the said report is extremely critical and precisely pin-pointing the same problems that Belgrade had already been bringing to notice.

‘The positive aspect of the EC Report is reflected in its extremely critical tone and the considerable precision of its findings, and most importantly, it confirms the very problems Belgrade has been pointing out – that the Province is the realm of organized crime and corruption, that there are political pressuring on the courts of justice, along with lack of property and legal security, as well as the lack of freedom of expression,’ Minister Bogdanović told the Beta agency in his statement.

The Minister stressed that the EC report notes the total lack of legal frameworks, both to their operation or the amount of respect paid to them, and that there is no progress in the judicial and criminal processing of the instigators, commissioners or executioners of the mass violence perpetrated against the Serbs in March 2004, nor is there any progress in the search for the missing persons.

Minister Bogdanović warned that it is now ‘of the utmost importance to watch and not allow Priština to utilize their tried-and-tested routine of inversion and substitution of arguments, and put all or most of the blame for the negative EC Progress Report on the Serbian community or on the north of the Province’.

He recalled that Priština reaches for this routine whenever the international community addresses any criticism or a degree of objectiveness.

‘The progress report is very painful for Priština as it is clear to everyone that the assessments refer to institutions or and the situation on the ground which are controlled by the provisional Kosovo institutions, which,’ the Minister pointed out, ‘does not leave much space to blame either the Serbs or Belgrade.’

‘It is now clear even to the most determined skeptic, that such a progress report as issued by the EC repudiates all allegations that the status itself, imposed and forceful, would and could solve everything,’ Bogdanović specified.

Bogdanović said that Belgrade is not ‘happy’ with the fact that the same report urges the Kosovo Serbs to take part in the forthcoming local elections of November 15, but added that this act of urging will not influence any change in the official position of the Government of Serbia or the President that there are no conditions for this.

‘Conditions are not present for us to urge the Serbs to participate (in the elections) since the framework of the UNSCR1244 has not been respected,’ the Minister stated.

Minister Bogdanović expressed regret that the Report is not, by definition of its scope, addressing the issue of respect of rights of the Serbs and other non-Albanians, and the issue of return of the displaced persons.