Assassination background part of EU negotiations

Assassination background part of EU negotiations

BELGRADE -- Investigation into the political background of the assassination Zoran Đinđić is an official part of the negotiations with the EU, says Tanja Miščević.

In an interview for the Belgrade-based daily Blic, Serbia's chief negotiator in the negotiations said this issue is part of Chapter 23 and will not be referred to as a special condition by the European Commission.

"Investigating the political background of the murder of the prime minister is an official part of the negotiations, because you cannot achieve the rule of law and stability of institutions if you have problems that are not solved, because then you actually have a problem with judicial reforms," explained Miščević.

"The assassination of a prime minister in any country represents a serious challenge to the system. But even if no one mentioned it and if parliamentarians of the European Parliament did not ask the European Commission to raise this issue as a special condition, we would need to do it for ourselves," she said.

When asked whether this means that solving the cases of murdered journalists was also officially part of Chapter 23, Miščević said it referred to "every unsolved murder."

"One of the issues that is being insisted on is a huge backlog of court cases, but also many particularly serious murders and political assassinations. It is an obligation of Serbia to work on that," she said.

Asked when negotiations on the judiciary would be launched, Miščević said "the Serbian plan is for this to happen as soon as possible, by the end of this year, that is, to open Chapter 23 in December, which contains judicial reforms, as well as Chapter 24...