EUROPEAN UNION: Summit Gives Decisive Backing to Yugoslavia

By Julio Godoy Reprint | | Print |

Julio Godoy

BIARRITZ, France, Oct 14 2000 (IPS) - The participation of Yugoslavia’s new president, Vojislav Kostunica, in the meeting of European Union (EU) heads of state and government consolidated the reconciliation of his country with the rest of the continent, made possible by the removal of Slobodan Milosevic.

The Palestinian-Israeli conflict also dominated the agenda of the two-day summit the EU held in the city of Biarritz, on the Atlantic coast of southwestern France.

But, in contrast with the encouraging results with respect to Serbia, which is part of the Yugoslavian federation along with Montenegro, the heads of state and government of the 15 EU nations limited themselves on the Middle East issue to an “urgent and clear” call for peace.

In his first trip abroad as Yugoslavia’s president, Kostunica expressed his desire for his country’s rapid reintegration with Europe, and accepted the invitation to take part in the summit on the Balkans the EU is organising for Nov 24.

The meeting is to be held in Zagreb, Croatia, with the participation of heads of state from all the countries that prior to 1992 formed the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, and EU representatives.

Prior to the conclusion of the summit Saturday, the leaders gathered in Biarritz approved an emergency aid package for Serbia totalling 200 million euros (some 170 million dollars).

This aid is to be made immediately available to Belgrade in order to ensure the supply of fuel to the Serb population during the upcoming northern hemisphere winter. The EU has earmarked another 2.3 billion euros (2.0 billion dollars) for Serbia over the next five years.

Kostunica hinted that his government would be willing to recognise the authority of the United Nations tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, installed at The Hague, which is investigating crimes against humanity committed during the Balkan wars of secession of the last 10 years.

But he indicated that co-operation with the international court is not a priority issue for his government.

The new Yugoslav leader stressed that rebuilding Serbia “will take years.” To that end, he emphasised that his country’s economy was destroyed not only by the 1999 bombings of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) and international sanctions against Serbia over the last decade, but also by the poor business management and by the Milosevic government’s authoritarianism.

He also pointed out that it is very difficult for the Serb population to forget the aggression suffered by their country last year, when NATO engaged in the bombing campaign to force the Milosevic government to withdraw troops from the province of Kosovo.

“We cannot forget the past, but we are obligated to look to the future,” he declared. Kostunica also stated he was willing to consider Milosevic’s eventual extradition to The Hague to for trial, adding that either way the former president “has no future” in his country’s politics.

On another front, the European heads of state and government unanimously appealed to “the leaders of the Israeli and Palestinian peoples” to suspend the violence and return to the negotiating table.

French president Jacques Chirac, spokesman for the EU as holder of the rotating presidency for the current semester, said the bloc is willing “to do everything possible – and even more – to contribute to renewing the dialogue” between Israel and the Palestinian National Authority.

“We put our intelligence, our experience and our heart at the service of the reconciliation” of Israelis and Palestinians, Chirac stated. The two sides have been caught up in a wave of violence since Sep 28 in the autonomous Palestinian territories as well as in Israel.

But the French leader did not specify how the EU could contribute to long-lasting peace in the Middle East.

Diplomatic analysts in Biarritz told IPS that the EU must define a Middle East policy that provides an alternative to the one put forward by the United States.

“Otherwise, the role of the EU in the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian territories will continue to be that of a privileged by impotent observer,” said one expert, who requested anonymity.

During the Biarritz summit, the EU leaders discussed and approved the text of the new European Charter on social and political rights, which should be confirmed at December’s meeting in the French city of Nice.

The heads of state also attempted to relaunch negotiations on EU institutional reforms. The weak points of the reforms are the deliberation of the votes for each EU member state, the 20-member limit of the European Commission (the EU’s executive body) and the elimination of veto rights.

No substantial headway was made on any of these three points at the summit. European institutional reform is considered indispensable for ensuring EU effectiveness in pursuing integration of the Eastern European nations, to begin in 2003.

Some 3,000 police officers, hundreds of elite security troops and secret agents had since Thursday patrolled the streets of Biarritz, a small French resort city located just kilometres from Spain’s Basque Country.

Security measures were so strict that the French Ministry of Interior denied credentials for several Basque journalists who were to cover the EU summit for the French and Spanish media.

In protest, some 40 French and Spanish Basque journalists dumped microphones and television cameras and other equipment in front of the regional prefecture.

The reporters also distributed copies of the Article 11 of the European Charter on social and political rights approved by the government leaders, which guarantees freedom of expression and of information.

The security apparatus was not able to prevent violent demonstrations by Basque separatists in the city of Bayonne, near Biarritz.

Some 2,000 protesters singing songs in support of the illegal Basque separatist group ETA clashed with police and threw stones and molotov cocktails at city buses and shops in Bayonne’s historic centre.

Three police were injured, some 40 demonstrators were taken into custody and hundreds of Spanish Basques were deported.