Group items tagged

Sweden has set itself ambitious goals for its six-month stint at the EU helm but the upcoming European elections and uncertainty about when the next EU commission will be appointed will make its presidency "quite difficult", the country's minister for European affairs has said.

Sweden is to take over the EU chair from the Czech Republic on 1 July until the end of the year. The period coincides with the end of the mandate of the current European Commission, due in October, and follows the European Parliament elections in June. "Two key players and very important partners of the presidency – the parliament and the commission – will not be fully operational until quite some time into the autumn, which of course complicates matters," Swedish EU minister Cecilia Malmstrom said at a debate organised by Brussels-based think-tank The Centre on Monday (16 March). To the institutional limbo, she said, should be added the economic crisis and the planned second referendum in Ireland on the Lisbon Treaty, set for October

A large majority of Serbs still want their country to join the EU (63.9%), although the figure has dropped compared to last October, when 71.5% voiced their support for EU accession, reveals the poll, which was released yesterday (9 April).  However, 71.3% of Serbian citizens consider it unacceptable that the possibility of EU membership is made conditional on Serbia's recognition of its former province's secession. 

Serbia's Kosovo Minister Slobodan Samardzic added that it would be interesting to see whether the EU would continue the stabilisation and association process now that Kosovo is an independent state.  "Should the EU happen to do that, and does it only with independent states, that would automatically mean that the EU was breaching Article 135 of our agreement on stabilisation and association with the EU, where Kosovo's position is clearly defined," the minister explained. 

Governments Kosovar Constitutional Commission: Kosovo's Constitution Press articles B92.net: Poll: Serbians want EU, but not without Kosovo B92.net: Tadić speaks against interference in elections BBC: Kosovo adopts a new constitution

After a re-run of the general election in Macedonia and the entry into force of Kosovo's new constitution on Sunday, EU foreign ministers will convene today (16 June) to review the situation in the neighbouring Western Balkans.

Ministers will likely welcome the peaceful re-run of parliamentary elections in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia on Sunday, just two weeks after ethnic violence marred the first elections on 1 June. 

While Kosovo is not on the foreign ministers' agenda, it is unlikely that they will be able to avoid the topic, after the fledgling state's constitution entered into force on Sunday.  The EU is also poised to take over policing and justice tasks from the United Nations after the UN's Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon last week put forward proposals to "reconfigure" the activities of the UN Mission UNMIK to allow the EU to deploy its contested EU-Lex police mission there (EurActiv 29/05/08).  "It is my intention to reconfigure the structure and profile of the international civil presence [...] enabling the European Union to assume an enhanced operational role," said the secretary general in letters to Kosovo and Serbian leaders.  But the handover, which is foreseen in Kosovo's constitution, remains strongly opposed by both Serbia and Russia, who insist that the EU mission is illegal because it has not been approved by the UN Security Council. 

The European Union has voiced deep concerns over the ethnic violence which marked election day in EU-hopeful Macedonia, leaving one person dead and eight wounded. "The European Commission is very concerned about the use of violence during the election in the country," the EU's executive body said following Sunday's polls (1 June), widely seen as a test of Macedonia's democratic credentials.

Meanwhile, current prime minister Nikola Gruevski hailed the landslide victory of his centre-right VMRO-DPMNE party, with preliminary results suggesting it secured over 48 percent of the vote. The score is likely to translate to more than 60 seats in the 120-strong parliament, giving the winning party enough power to stir the agenda.

On Sunday (20 January), Serbian citizens will go to the polls to choose their new president in an election likely to strongly influence the country's EU path.

Currently, polls put the Radical candidate at 21 percent against 19 percent for Mr Tadic, according to French news agency AFP. A second round between them is expected to take place on 3 February. The end result is set to have a significant impact on the country's future EU path. Current president Boris Tadic is in favour of his country's European integration and has pledged to get Serbia into the EU. But Mr Nikolic – although he has softened his rhetoric lately – says he will oppose Belgrade's EU membership so long as Serbia is being "conditioned and humiliated" by Brussels over Kosovo, he recently told AFP.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has said his party's victory in Sunday's European elections showed that French people wanted the EU to change and has said he would come up with initiatives in that respect "in the days to come." In a communique published Monday (8 June) on the French president's website, Mr Sarkozy said that his centre-right UMP party's victory showed French people's "recognition for the work accomplished during the French presidency of the European Union [in the second half of last year] and their support for the efforts undertaken by the government to bring to an end an unprecedented global crisis".

Hohe Wahlbeteiligung bei polnischen Wahlen: Kaczynski geschlagen [DE][en][fr]  Erschienen: Montag 22. Oktober 2007 Die EU könnte durchatmen: die Wahltagsbefragung der polnischen Parlamentswahlen vom 21. Oktober 2007 hat das Ende der zweijährigen Regierungszeit des Premierministers Jarosław Kaczyński angedeutet. Diese war fortwährend von Auseinandersetzungen mit anderen EU-Mitgliedstaaten gekennzeichnet.

Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek has signalled a government reshuffle just two weeks before it assumes the EU presidency as pressure grows from the opposition Social Democratic party to reach agreement over the Lisbon Treaty.

The prime minister's announcement came amid growing pressure from the opposition Social Democratic Party (CSSD) to agree upon a coalition programme in view of the imminent Czech Presidency of the EU, which starts on 1 January and will last six months. Topolanek's ruling Civic Democrats (ODS) have emerged weakened from recent regional elections, losing all 13 regions to the opposition CSSD (EurActiv 20/10/08). The CSSD and Communists now hold 97 votes in the 200-seat lower chamber, while Topolanek's ODS only has 96 seats. The remaining seven seats are held by independents.

The two parties that won the most seats in the Romanian Parliament during elections on 30 November yesterday (14 December) agreed upon a German-style "grand coalition" to govern the country until 2012. EurActiv Romania reports.

The agreement saw former adversaries the PDL (Democrat Liberals close to President Traian Basescu) and the PSD (Social Democrats, until now in opposition) sign a coalition agreement called "A Partnership for Romania".  As anticipated (EurActiv 10/12/08), the new prime minister will be PDL politician Teodor Stolojan, an economist and former World Bank expert. 

MEPs adopted a resolution on Thursday (12 March) calling on member states to set a date for opening accession talks with Macedonia this year. In a resolution adopted by MEPs with 478 votes in favour and 92 against, the European Parliament said it "regrets …that, three years after it [Macedonia] was granted the status of candidate for membership of the EU, accession negotiations have not yet started, which is an unsustainable situation having demotivating effects for the country, and risks destabilising the region."

Macedonia was granted the status of EU candidate in December 2005, but accession talks have not been opened ever since, mainly due to Greece. Athens has refused to recognise its neighbour's constitutional name - the Republic of Macedonia - since it declared independence from Yugoslavia in 1991.

EU enlargement commissioner Olli Rehn stressed that "free and fair" presidential and local elections later this month and in April would be a key condition for Macedonia to be allowed to start accession talks, after violent incidents marked last year's general elections. "I share [MEPs'] regret that, three years after the country achieved candidate status, accession negotiations have not yet started," Mr Rehn said in the parliament's plenary in Strasbourg on Wednesday.

EU citizens largely consider the European Parliament to play an increasingly important role within the Union, but the majority also admit that they are not well-informed about its role and functions, a special Eurobarometer reveals.

73% of the people interviewed admitted that they feel fairly or very badly informed about the Parliament's activities. Even among those citizens who said they have a good knowledge of the Parliament, only 41% described themselves as well-informed.  The lack of knowledge may also explain the relatively low turnout in the last elections. Participation rates have consistently dropped since the first elections in 1979.  MEPs and researchers agreed that the key to higher voter turnout is better informing the citizens. This, they said, required increased mobilisation, higher party activity and better media coverage (EurActiv 09/01/08).

TNS: Eurobarometer Special Survey on the European Parliament

The Balkans country is engulfed in a bitter dispute over today’s election, which will determine whether it moves a step closer to EU membership, writes Tom Lynch.

ronically, perhaps the only consensus between Serbia’s political parties is that they all agree Kosovo should remain part of Serbia.Serbia is classified as a Potential Candidate Country by the EU, meaning that the EU recognises that Serbia will eventually join, once it is ready.On April 29, 2008, the EU signed the Stability and Association Agreement (SAA) with Serbia. The SAA is the first step on the road to EU membership, and also guarantees certain benefits - in the form of EU funding and trade liberalisation.In an added incentive, 16EUmember states have also offered visa-free travel for Serbian people.The agreement was pushed through, despite some members’ opposition, to counter the growing popularity of the nationalist Serbian Radical Party and New Serbia Party, and the overarching fear that Serbia might turn its back on the EU.The SAA will not come into force until Serbia arrests and hands over Ratko Mladiæ , former chief of staff of the Bosnian Serb army - who is wanted over the 1995 Srebrenica massacre - to the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague, so it does not represent much of a real breakthrough. This has long been a sticking point in the EU-Serbia negotiations.

Serbian voters will go to the polls on Sunday (11 May) for what is being billed as decisive elections for the country's EU future. The main parties in the running are the pro-Western centrists of president Boris Tadic's Democratic Party (DS); the nationalist Serbian Radical Party (SRS) currently led by eurosceptic Tomislav Nikolic, and outgoing prime minister Vojislav Kostunica's conservative Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS).

While this time the Democrats have excluded forming an alliance with the conservatives, a coalition between the conservatives and the radicals seems increasingly likely. The EU's fears This is just the political set-up the EU least favours. It has made no secret of its wish to see the pro-Western forces win Sunday's vote.

Just days before crucial parliamentary elections (11 May), the question of Serbia's future accession to the EU has become an issue of existential importance as the country's President Boris Tadic has received a death threat over his pro-EU stance.

A threatening letter was sent to Tadic following his signature of a Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA) with the EU, considered to be the first step towards membership of the bloc (EurActiv 30/04/08). It accused the president of being a "proven traitor to the Serb nation" and threatens him with a "bullet to the forehead," the Belgrade daily Blic reports. 

Opposition between the country's pro-European politicians and hardline nationalist parties is currently at its highest since the breakaway Kosovar province unilaterally declared its independence from Serbia on 17 February 2008 - with the backing of several EU countries. A recent poll conducted by the Strategic Marketing agency showed Serbia's nationalist Radical Party slightly ahead of Tadic's pro-European bloc (33.2% to 31.5%), with the nationalist coalition of Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica ranked third (13.8%). 

Prime Minister Vojislav Koštunica, DSS, says the first move for the new parliament and government will be to annul "the Tadić-Đelić SAA signature".

"This agreement has only one goal, to be interpreted as Serbia's signature to Kosovo's independence," Koštunica said. "Nothing will come out of this trick, because after the elections, the new government and parliament will annul the Tadić-Đelić signature," the leader of the DSS-NS coalition, running in the May 11 ballot, continued.

The Regional Cooperation Council (RCC), an initiative launched in February to promote regional cooperation in the Western Balkans, is hanging in the balance as the region hovers between resolving the conflicts it has inherited or a prolonged period of stagnation, according to RCC Secretary General Hido Biscevic. Other related news: MEP Van Orden: 'Not happy' about Kosovo outcome Poll: Serbs pro-EU, but not ready to give up Kosovo Croatia says it will do 'whatever it takes' to join EU in 2010 Montenegro's pro-European president re-elected EU to 'wait and see' on Serbia, Turkey accession Speaking at a conference organised by the Friedrich Ebert foundation, Biscevic stressed: "It's make or break time."  The new structure, which is a regionally-owned successor to the Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe, is taking shape at a difficult moment, he emphasised, pointing to indications that the Balkans are again becoming a playground for "strategic players". 

he Stability Pact, which was launched in 1999 at the EU's initiative, aimed to stabilise the region and enhance conflict prevention by bringing the participants' political strategies in line with one another and coordinating new initiatives in the region. When the Commission decided that the Stability Pact had achieved its objectives and could be phased out, the countries of the region decided to establish a successor to the Pact to continue promoting regional cooperation – the Regional Cooperation Council, based in Sarajevo.  The Stability Pact, which will finish its work in June 2008, handed over its mandate to the RCC on 27 February 2008 and the new structure is now becoming operational. But fresh difficulties in the region following Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence from Serbia mean that there is still a major role to play for the international community.