At the sitting held on 28 December, the European Integrations Committee considered the Proposal of the National Assembly’s Answers to the European Commission’s Questionnaire sent for the purpose of preparing an Opinion on Serbia’s bid for European Union membership.

Following a discussion, the Committee endorsed the Proposed Answers to the EC Questionnaire relating to the National Assembly, by a majority of votes.

The Proposed Answers prepared by the Task Group of the National Assembly Support Service will be forwarded to the Serbian Government after which the Committee will again hold a sitting where the Deputy Prime Minister in charge of European Integration will present the final answers.

The Committee members objected to the answer concerning blank resignations, stating that it did not answer the question whether and when the blank resignations would be revised or abolished but merely states that the blank resignation institute has not been implemented since December 2008 and that the issue is not regulated by law. According to the Committee members, the question should be answered by the Government considering that it is the submitter of electoral laws. They also stressed that the Serbian Government’s 2011 Action Plan plans an amendment to the electoral legislation around the middle of next year.

Concerning it, it was pointed out that blank resignations cannot be abolished without amending the Serbian Constitution since they are a constitutional category.

The Committee members said that the Proposed Answers to the European Commission mostly repeat some constitutional and legal regulations, failing to evaluate the real situation. They also criticised the Assembly’s Rules of Procedure which had enabled the adoption of numerous laws under urgent procedure (37%). Therefore they accepted the suggestion to omit the fact from the Proposed Answers as the number includes various ratified agreements and treaties between Serbia and other countries.

The Committee accepted the proposal to include the fact that the National Assembly was not appointed an internal auditor into one of the answers, even though that had been planned.

The discussion gave voice to expectations that the answers to the Questionnaire would meet with a positive reaction from Brussels and that the European Commission would not have many additional questions.

The sitting was chaired by Laszlo Varga, Committee Chairman. In the debate he stressed that the questions in the Questionnaire were very technical which is why the answers were the way they were adding that no one intended to conceal the real state of the matter in Serbia. Many of them contain more than a little self-criticism, stressed the Committee Chairman adding that the Government would forward the completed Questionnaire to the European Commission by the end of January next year.