Serbia meets EU ministers to fast-track EU membership

SERBIA made a case for a fast-track membership of the EU when its foreign minister met EU ministers for the first time since Kosovo declared its independence in February.

Serbia’s capital city Belgrade’s Foreign Minister Vuc Jeremic warned that its people were cooling towards the EU because of many countries’ recognition of Kosovo’s independence and that it could affect the outcome of general elections in May.

But Jeremic avoided meeting Kosovo’s Prime Minister Hashim Thaci, making his excuses that he had to leave to attend election preparations.

While he insisted Serbia would never accept the loss of Kosovo, Jeremic appealed for his country’s membership of the EU to be dealt with swiftly.

In a reference to Northern Ireland, he said there had been other instances of unresolved territorial issues enshrined in the constitutions of members or aspirants to the Union.

“And there has been no other institution that has demonstrated as effectively as the EU the capacity to solve them,” he said.

Foreign Minister Dermot Ahern agreed the EU had been a driver and had contributed to resolving tensions between Ireland and Britain over the North. “We have been successful under the umbrella of the EU,” he said.

Meanwhile, Turkey was issued with a thinly veiled threat that negotiations on its membership of the EU would be halted unless its Constitution is amended.

The EU has called repeatedly for the Constitution to be revised and Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rhen did again at the foreign ministers meeting.

Rhen warned that if it is not brought into line with EU standards and resulted in a political party being banned, the ramifications should not be under estimated.

A state prosecutor asked Turkey’s Constitutional Court on Friday to close the ruling AK Party because he said it was trying to destroy secularism and turn the country into an Islamic state.

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday condemned the bid to shut down his ruling party as an attack on democracy and political stability and vowed to resist it.

“In a normal European democracy, political issues are debated in parliament and decided in the ballot box, not in the court room,” said Rehn

Asked whether the lawsuit could affect Turkey’s EU bid, Rehn said: “It is difficult to see that this lawsuit respects the democratic principles of a normal European society.”