Record number of amendments to resolution on Serbia

BRUSSELS - European Parliament rapporteur for Serbia David McAllister said on Wednesday a record number of amendments to his proposed resolution had been submitted, but that it would not pose a threat to Serbia's EU integration.

As many as 222 amendments have been filed, which is twice as much compared to the proposed resolutions on Montenegro and Macedonia put together, he said at an international conference on Serbia's progress heald at the Goethe Institute in Brussels, which was organised by the Hanns Seidel Foundation.

Croatian members of the European Parliament filed the most amendments, seeking to impose resolution of their country's disputes with Serbia as requirements for Serbia's progress in EU integration, but there are also amendments from Hungarian, Bulgarian and Romanian members, who want a better status for their national minorities in Serbia.

The most important thing is that no one is denying Serbia's progress in EU integration, nor demanding that the door of the EU be closed to the country, McAllister underscored, adding that the amendments were not meant to change the general tone of the resolution, but simply introduce a number of details.

Former EU commissioner Stefan Fuele commented that the principle of avoiding to set bilateral issues as requirements for EU integration had been ignored before, like when Greece blocked Macedonia's progress over a dispute about Macedonia's name, and when Slovenia halted Croatia's integration over the Gulf of Piran.

Unfortunately, it was perfectly easy to predict that Croatia would use its EU membership to pressure Serbia, he remarked.

Croatian Ambassador to Belgium Mario Nobilo claimed that Croatia's amendments were not about bilateral issues, but about...