At the sitting held on 21 May, the European Integrations Committee considered the Government’s report on the implementation of the National program for integration of the Republic of Serbia into the European Union for period January-March 2009. The sitting was chaired by Laslo Varga, Committee Chairman.

Elaborating the Report, Deputy Prime Minister in charge of European integrations Bozidar Djelic repeated that the goal of said programme is the harmonization of Serbia’s legislation with European Union legislation by 2012. In this period, out of the planned 36, the Government formulated 23 bills, and the National Assembly adopted eight.

Deputy Prime Minister Djelic said that the European Commission report on visa liberalization for Western Balkan countries is favourable for Serbia, but does not contain recommendations for visa abolition; it only displays the level of fulfillment of the road map criteria.

He said that the Government is doing all in its power to have the visas for Serbian citizens travelling to the EU abolished as soon as possible, but that consultations between the European Commission representatives and Schengen zone member countries are still in progress, after which Serbia will be informed on what more it should do to achieve visa abolition.

Concerning this, Deputy Prime Minister Djelic said that the National Assembly has adopted all the key laws for visa abolition, and that the issue still being considered by the EU representatives is that of issuance of passports to Serbian citizens living in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo Albanians.

Djelic also expressed a belief that the report of the Hague Tribunal Chief Prosecutor will be enough to deblock the Transitional Trade Agreement between Serbia and the EU.

The Committee members repeated that, by adopting the laws at the National Assembly, Serbia had fulfilled the conditions for placement onto the “white Scengen list” and that the European Commission should acknowledge that fact and thus motivate the other countries in the region.

The Committee members requested that the Government draft an activity plan on the obligations stemming from European integrations so that the Assembly might draft an activity plan of its own. Also, the Committee members from LDP criticized the Government’s European integration policy pointing out that the policy is impairing the citizens’ support of the process and damaging the idea of European integration.

At the sitting, a magazine titled “Challenges of European Integration” was presented to the Committee members, published by the “Official Gazette of the Republic of Serbia” and prepared by the European Integration Office of the Government of Serbia in cooperation with the OSCE Mission to Serbia.