At its session held on 8 September 2005, the European Integrations Committee of the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia endorsed the Third Report of the Government of the Republic of Serbia on the Implementation of the Action Plan for the Realisation of European Partnership Priorities.

The Report of the Government of the Republic of Serbia was submitted by the Deputy Prime Minister, Miroljub Labus, who underlined that the current sitting of the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia was very important for preparing a report for a meeting to be held in Brussels on 5 October 2005, where the European Commission is to present a preliminary version on the annual report on Serbia’s readiness for talks on the conclusion of the Stabilisation and Association Agreement with the European Union.

Mr Labus expressed his expectations that talks on signing the Agreement would start on 10 October, according to the basic principle of “Agenda 2012”, meaning that Serbia should be ready for EU accession by 2012, which was Serbia’s strategic interest.

According to Mr Labus, October is a very important month for Serbia, as talks with the World Trade Organisation are also slated to commence on 7 October.

The deputy head of the EU Integration Office, Srdjan Majstorovic, underlined that the Office co-operated well with all ministries of the Government of the Republic of Serbia and the European Integrations Committee of the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia. He also stressed that full co-operation would be established when administration bodies began to co-operate on the horizontal plane as well, i.e. when cross-ministry co-operation on EU integration matters becomes a priority.

Committee members expressed most interest in whether a possible negative assessment of the degree of co-operation with the Hague Tribunal would delay the start of EU negotiations, as well as how important it was to adopt a new Constitution for Serbia. Mr Labus replied that the Government of the Republic of Serbia expected negotiations to start at the designated time, and that a new Constitution was certainly a condition for signing the Stabilisation and Association Agreement.