BELGRADE: The European Commission will announce tomorrow that Serbia is ready to become a candidate for membership in the European Union, Serbian daily Politika reported on Wednesday. It added that the EC will acknowledge progress that Serbia has achieved in its agenda towards the EU membership, but it will not give the exact date for the beginning of negotiations for membership due to the slow development in resolution of the dispute over customs stamps and border crossings between Belgrade and Pristina. The stamps are an important issue in terms of freedom of movement and trade in the region. European commissioner for enlargement Stefan Fille will announce tomorrow the annual report of the European Commission on the candidacy and potential candidate states. The report will give the “green light” for membership only to Croatia, who is to become a member in 2013, although there are still certain conditions in terms of reforms that Croatia will have to meet. According to the statement of the Director-General of the European Union's Directorate General for Enlargement Stefano Sannino, Montenegro will also be given candidate status with an exact date for the beginning of the membership negotiations, said Belgrade based daily Blic. Bosnia and Herzegovina is the only state in the region that sill has not submitted an official EU candidacy bid and therefore the politicians in Bosnia are not as interested in the EC Report. This is partly due to the fact that Bosnia faces major problem with conducting reforms due to the inability of the representatives of the three ethnic groups to reach an agreement on the constitutional changes. As far as Serbia is concerned, however, the majority of EU member states insist on Serbia overcoming the conflict in the north of Kosovo, which would clear its path towards accession. There have been recent public speculations in Serbia related to the additional conditions that some member states, the most important of which are the UK and Germany, will put before Serbia before they agree to give the exact date for the beginning of negotiations. Serbian news site B92.net reported Tuesday that the German conditions include unconditional continuation of the negotiations between Belgrade and Pristina, agreement on regional representation of Kosovo, agreement on telecom and electricity as well as that Pristina overtakes the court in the majority Serbian northern town of Kosovska Mitrovica which would signal the readiness of Serbia to start the cancellation of its parallel institutions in the north of Kosovo. None of the member states have yet asked that Belgrade recognize the independence of Kosovo, which is partly due to the fact that five of the EU member states, one of which is Spain, are still refusing to recognize Kosovo. It is expected that the report of the EC emphasize that Serbia has achieved visible results in the necessary reforms including judiciary system, adoption of the new laws, fighting organized crime as well as corruption in the society. Special emphasis is however, given to the fact that Serbia has managed to arrest Ratko Mladić and Goran Hadžić, the last two remaining accused war criminals from Serbia. BM
