Dačić: Brussels Agreement is Belgrade’s greatest achievement since Resolution 1244 in 1999

“The Brussels Agreement is our greatest political achievement since Resolution 1244 in 1999. It is something tangible that we have gained for our people in Kosovo and Metohija. This is why Pristina is avoiding it. If it were irrelevant, they would have implemented it a million times already”, said Minister Dačić in his appearance on TV Prva on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the signing of the Brussels Agreement, whose key element is the Community of Serb Municipalities.

Serbia has, stressed Minister Dačić, been exposed to the hypocrisy of the international community throughout the last ten years. He added that it was therefore essential that Serbia made efforts to ensure that the Community of Serb Municipalities would start taking shape as envisaged in the Brussels Agreement.

In his words, the talks at the highest level scheduled for 2 May were going to be very difficult. “Pristina will try to avoid all of it”, said Minister Dačić, who was the Prime Minister of Serbia at the time when the Brussels Agreement was signed, on 19 April 2013.

Minister Dačić emphasised that the President of Serbia held a very clear position: the CSM had to be established before any talks could take place. Asked if Albin Kurti, representing Pristina, would fulfil the request to establish the CSM after 2 May, Minister Dačić stated that a painstaking process was ahead.

“There will be a million different problems. Kurti’s ultimate goal is not CSM, it is a Kosovo with no more Serbs in it. He would like it best if he could do it through some kind of a quick intervention, but everyone knows that Serbia won’t allow that”, said Minister Dačić, who had signed the Brussels Agreement together with Hashim Thaçi, representing Pristina, in the presence of Catherine Ashton, the then High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy.

Minister Dačić highlighted that he had been in Strasbourg the previous day, which marked the 20th anniversary of Serbia’s membership in the Council of Europe, but at the same time there were attempts to initiate a procedure of Kosovo’s admission to the Council of Europe.

He added that Germany was putting an enormous pressure to ensure that this procedure would start, and emphasised that the Council of Europe was the only remaining institution to which Kosovo could be admitted without Belgrade’s consent, as it needed a two-thirds majority of the total number of Member States.

The Council of Europe has never admitted as its member anything other than a sovereign state, highlighted Minister Dačić and stated that this would create a precedent.

When you bring up the territorial integrity of Serbia in answer to the German insistence and emphasis on the territorial integrity of Ukraine as the most important matter, your words fall on deaf ears, stated Minister Dačić. “They have their policy and will try to push it ahead, today, tomorrow or in a month, so we have to be ready and decide how we can keep participating in all of it. We cannot leave the Council of Europe, but all this shows that these institutions are losing their meaning”, said Minister Dačić.

Source/Photo: Tanjug