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Thursday, 15 August 2024
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RFE/RL Newsline, Vol. 4, No. 56, 00-03-20Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty: Newsline Directory - Previous Article - Next ArticleFrom: Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty <http://www.rferl.org>RFE/RL NEWSLINEVol. 4, No. 56, 20 March 2000CONTENTS[A] TRANSCAUCASUS AND CENTRAL ASIA
[B] SOUTHEASTERN EUROPE
[C] END NOTE
[A] TRANSCAUCASUS AND CENTRAL ASIA[01] ARMENIAN PRESIDENT CRITICIZES CABINET'S ECONOMIC POLICY...During 17 March meetings with the leaders of parties andfactions in the parliament, President Robert Kocharian criticized the cabinet's economic track record, in particular public-sector wage arrears, RFE/RL's Yerevan bureau reported. Also on 17 March, Yerevan Mayor Albert Bazeyan, who is a senior member of the Yerkrapah Union of veterans of the Karabakh war, tendered his resignation to Kocharian but was subsequently persuaded by other Yerkrapah members, including recently appointed Deputy Defense Minister General Manvel Grigorian, to withdraw it, according to Snark. Bazeyan told RFE/RL the following day that he had been upset by criticism of him aired by the independent television station A1+. LF [02] ...AS YERKRAPAH REAFFIRMS SUPPORT FOR PREMIEROn 16 March,Grigorian and other senior Yerkrapah members promoted by Kocharian several days earlier pledged their continued support for Prime Minister Aram Sargsian, RFE/RL's Yerevan bureau reported, quoting unidentified Yerkrapah members. Grigorian reportedly assured Sargsian that he and his fellow generals would never turn against Sargsian because of their personal loyalty to his murdered brother and predecessor Vazgen, who founded the Yerkrapah Union. On 18 March, Defense Minister Vagharshak Harutiunian denied that he had considered resigning to protest not having been informed by Kocharian in advance of the impending promotions. LF [03] ARMENIAN OFFICIAL SOUNDS ALARM OVER OUT-MIGRATIONIfeconomic and social conditions in Armenia do not improve over the next five to10 years, another 500,000-700,000 people are likely to leave the country, Noyan Tapan reported on 17 March, citing a recent report by the head of the Department for Refugees Affairs and Migration, Gagik Yeganian. The report put the number of people who left Armenia in 1999 at between 75,000-85,000 and in 1997-1998 between 30,000-40,000. As of 1 January 2000, the population of Armenia was 3,803,000. LF [04] RUSSIAN STATE DUMA ACCUSES GEORGIAN COUNTERPART OF ANTI-[B] SOUTHEASTERN EUROPE[05] MONTENEGRIN PRESIDENT WARNS OF CIVIL WAR...Milan Djukanovicsaid in an interview on 20 March that Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic is trying to "create a civil war from which he can completely distance himself," AP reported. Djukanovic, quoted in the Viennese daily "Der Standard," said Milosevic will "create internal conflicts." Djukanovic stressed the republic's plans to hold a referendum on independence if Belgrade does not embrace democracy and free market reforms. But he said his government is not "going to be overly hasty" in holding the vote because "Milosevic would use our nervousness as an alibi to intensify the crisis." The EU external relations commissioner, Gunnar Wiegand, said on 17 March in Brussels that the EU Commission will ask EU member states for additional financial aid for Montenegro at a foreign ministers' meeting on 20 March. He called the situation in the republic "very serious." PB [06] ...WHILE NATO, EU WATCHING TENSE SITUATION IN MONTENEGRONATO Secretary-General Lord Robertson said in Budapest on 17March that the alliance is watching the situation in Montenegro with "growing concern," dpa reported. Robertson, speaking at a two-day meeting of Balkan officials to discuss the Balkan Stability Pact, said he publicly calls on Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to "end the economic blockade of Montenegro." That embargo, he said, is "a provocation, which seeks to undermine the authority" of Montenegrin President Milo Djukanovic's government. Robertson's predecessor and the EU's foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, said the EU "will not tolerate the creation of any problem in Montenegro." Solana said his message is directed at Milosevic. The conference was attended by the premiers of Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, Macedonia, Romania, and one member of the Bosnian presidency, who all declared in a statement that Montenegro should remain within the Yugoslav federation. PB [07] SERBS PROTEST YET ANOTHER BLOW AGAINST INDEPENDENT MEDIAThousands of Serbs rallied for the second day in the centralSerbian town of Kraljevo on 19 March to protest the closure of Kraljevo Radio-Television the previous day, Reuters reported. More than 10,000 people rallied on 18 March after authorities had dismantled the main transmitter of the opposition-run television and radio station. Ivan Rajovic, the news editor of the station, said the shutdown was probably punishment for the five days of protests by local army reservists against frequent call-ups. The Federal Telecommunications Ministry said the transmitter was taken away because the broadcaster did not have a valid license. The ministry has closed down four local radio and three television stations in the last 10 days. PB [08] SERBIAN OPPOSITION LEADER VOWS MAJOR PROTESTSZoran Djindjicsaid the opposition in Serbia is planning mass protests in the near future, Reuters reported. Djindjic made his remarks on Russian public television. He said the opposition will launch a civil campaign aimed at bringing new elections and economic changes. Djindjic pledged that the opposition will not indulge in violence in its campaign. Serbia's factional opposition is due to meet this week to decide on a united plan for protests. PB [09] YUGOSLAV COMMANDER ANNOUNCES ARMY TO BE REORGANIZEDYugoslavArmy General Staff Commander Colonel-General Nebojsa Pavkovic said on 18 March that the military's leadership is planning to reorganize the army, the news agency Beta reported. Pavkovic said the goal of the reorganization is the creation of a "small, flexible, mobile, and more modern army" capable of "meeting all challenges." Pavkovic made the remarks at a ceremony in Belgrade marking Military Education Day and the 150th anniversary of the founding of the first military academy in Serbia. PB [10] UN OFFICIAL IN KOSOVA SAYS ETHNIC RECONCILIATION'IMPOSSIBLE'Bernard Kouchner said in an interview published on 18 March that despite progress, reconciliation between Serbs and ethnic Albanians in Kosova is "absolutely impossible." Kouchner, who was speaking in an interview with the French newspaper "L'Humanite," said that such steps as the reopening of schools and the formation of a banking system were improvements that received little attention. But he said the hatred between Serbs and ethnic Albanians is "extremely strong..., it's true that today reconciliation is absolutely impossible." He added "who is crazy enough to think that in eight months we could have done what they haven't been able to do in Ireland for 30 years?" He said multiethnicism is possible but that "peaceful coexistence" must be first established. PB [11] YUGOSLAV ARMY GENERAL WARNS KOSOVAR ALBANIANS, NATOYugoslavArmy Staff Commander Nebojsa Pavkovic warned that further problems with ethnic Albanians in southern Serbia could jeopardize the safety of NATO troops in Kosova, AP reported. Pavkovic said in an interview with the Belgrade daily "Vecernje Novosti" that "KFOR must know that in the event of an escalation of aggression against Yugoslavia, [NATO has possible] hostages in Kosovo." Pavkovic said the military is not currently mobilizing troops in response to the activity of ethnic Albanian rebels in southern Serbia but that it "is monitoring the situation." In other news, Serbian police released seven Czech NATO peacekeepers on 18 March who were detained after they strayed across the Kosova border. PB [12] OSCE WARNS BOSNIA IT MUST HOLD ITS OWN POLLSThe head of theOSCE, Austrian Foreign Minister Benita Ferrero-Waldner, said in Sarajevo on 17 March that the Bosnian parliament must pass a law on holding its own elections or have the law decreed by the international community, Reuters reported. The divided Bosnian parliament has twice refused to discuss the bill, the passage of which is a prerequisite for membership in the Council of Europe. Elections in postwar Bosnia-Herzegovina have been funded and run by the OSCE since 1995. Robert Barry, the OSCE mission head in Bosnia, said the member states of the OSCE "are not eager to go on paying bills for the elections indefinitely." Ferrero-Waldner also urged citizens of Bosnia to vote for change in the 8 April local elections. The call echos the OSCE's controversial slogan for the ballot, "Vote for Change." PB [13] UN HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR REFUGEES WELCOMES CROATIAN, BOSNIANREFUGEE RETURNSSadako Ogata said on 17 March that she supports pledges by Croatia's new government to allow the return of Serbian refugees to their pre-war homes in Croatia, AP reported. Ogata spoke to reporters after a meeting with Croatian President Stipe Mesic in Zagreb. Ogata said the UNHCR will provide full support for Croatia's attempts to receive international financial aid to facilitate the returns. In Laktasi, Bosnia two days later, Ogata urged the Croatian and Bosnian governments to work together toward the return of refugees. She said only 25,000 Muslim and Croatian refugees have returned to their homes in the Bosnian Serb republic since the signing of the Dayton agreement five years ago. PB [14] ACCUSED WAR CRIMINAL TO FIGHT EXTRADITION TO THE HAGUETheattorney for Bosnian Croat Malden "Tuta" Naletilic said on 19 March that he will use "all means" to try to postpone his client's extradition to The Hague, AP reported. The attorney, Kresimir Krsnik, was responding to reports in Croatian newspapers that Naletilic will be transfered to The Hague in the coming days. A spokesman for the war crimes tribunal said the court has provided guarantees for Naletilic's health during the trip. The accused war criminal has severe heart problems and has undergone two operations in the last several months. PB [15] ALBANIA SEIZES RUSSIAN CARGO SHIPAlbanian coast guard shipsseized a Russian cargo ship on 17 March for violating the country's territorial waters, Reuters reported. Police said the vessel, with a crew of 15, was sailing from Montenegro in an area often used by tankers to smuggle fuel into Albania. The captain is being questioned. PB [16] ROMANIA'S DEMOCRATS OPT FOR STAYING IN RULING COALITIONTheDemocratic Party's National Coordination Council on 17 March voted by 414 to 94 to continue the party's participation in the ruling coalition, RFE/RL's Bucharest bureau reported. Observers note that the next coalition crisis is looming large following Democratic Party leader Petre Roman's rejection of a demand by the National Liberal Party that a package of laws on reforming the judiciary system be passed by a procedure called "assumption of government responsibility." Under this procedure, the parliament would be considered to have approved the package if a no-confidence vote is not moved against the cabinet. Roman said on Romanian television that the package is too important to be passed without debate in the legislature. MS [17] GAZPROM AGREES TO POSTPONE MOLDOVAN CURRENT DEBT PAYMENTGazprom has agreed to a Moldovan request to postpone thepayment of its $4 million debt for deliveries in 2000. Chisinau will pay for those supplies on 15 April. Gazprom has agreed to accept monthly, instead of semi-monthly, payments and to increase the volume of deliveries after 1 April 2000, Flux reported on 18 March. However, ITAR-TASS the same day reported that the current debt totals $11 million and the total debt $760 million, of which nearly $500 million is owed by the separatist Transdniester authorities. And the following day, the Russian news agency reported that Gazprom is now demanding that Tiraspol clear its debt by paying for the maintenance of the Russian contingent in the region and by using funds from the sale of ammunition that had belonged to the former 14th Army and was subsequently transferred to the separatists. MS [18] BULGARIAN, MACEDONIAN PREMIERS TRY TO DEFUSE TENSIONMacedonian Premier Ljubco Georgievski told journalists inBudapest after meeting with his Bulgarian counterpart, Ivan Kostov, that "there is no anti-Bulgarian campaign in Macedonia," BTA reported. Georgievski said that some "individual organizations" have protested the recent outlawing of an ethnic Macedonian party in Bulgaria ( see "RFE/RL Newsline," 3 and 10 March 2000), but he noted that the government "distances itself from such aggressive and extreme positions." Kostov said the planned visit by Bulgarian President Petar Stoyanov to Macedonia will be the best way to show that the "people in Bulgaria and Macedonia want our common interests to be put in the foreground, laying aside any artificially fanned confrontation." Both premiers were attending the Budapest conference on the Balkan Stability Pact. MS [C] END NOTE[19] EU ENLARGEMENT NEGOTIATIONS: A DIFFICULT PATH TO TREADBy Breffni O'RourkeSubstantive membership negotiations are due to begin next week between the EU's Executive Commission and the five second-wave Eastern European candidate countries--Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia, Latvia, and Lithuania. The EU divides accession negotiations into 31 subject areas, which it calls chapters. The commission has proposed that for each of those five countries, the talks initially cover at least five chapters: small business, education, science, external relations, and common security policy. These are seen as the easiest of the chapters, largely because EU members and the eastern applicants already have much in common in those areas. Bulgaria has been offered negotiations in an additional area, cultural and audio-visual policy. Slovakia, Latvia, and Lithuania have been offered that area plus competitions policy and statistics. Over the coming months and even years, negotiations will be opened on all the chapters. However, the term "negotiations" is somewhat exaggerated in this context, since the process largely consists of the EU side explaining what the candidates have to do to meet EU norms in each of the given areas. As one Brussels-based Bulgarian diplomat, Vesselin Valkanov, told RFE/RL, "These are not classic negotiations, you are not sitting there bargaining in the true sense of the word. You are an applicant, and the rules of the club are as follows, so basically if you are aspiring to become a member of this particular club, you will have to accept the rules that are being laid out for you, and not only for you, but for those who are already members of the club." Commission officials have made clear that the EU will maintain a hard line and that there will be no softening of requirements for the less advanced second-wave countries. The EU's new chief negotiator on enlargement, Eneko Landaburu of Spain, says the thousands of pages of the EU body of rules must not only be adopted by candidates but also put into practice in reality. Landaburu says there can be no "handouts" to the future members. What counts, he says, is their state of preparedness, for their own sake and the sake of present EU members. Valkanov said that "on the bulk of the rules, or the so-called acquis communautaire, there won't be any bargaining, simply we must find ways to incorporate them in our legislation and to also effectively to implement them in our daily work in Bulgaria, and not argue whether we accept them or not." In specific cases where a candidate considers that applying the rules is especially difficult, it can ask for a transition period after accession to give it more time to reach compliance. Diplomats say that it is at this point that the only real bargaining enters the whole process: namely over the terms and length of transition periods. First-wave candidate Hungary, for instance, has asked for 35 such periods. For its part, the EU has made clear it does not favor many transition periods, and even when allowed such periods must be limited in time and scope. In theory, candidates can go a step further and ask for a "derogation," meaning a permanent exemption from EU rules in a particular area. However, one EU official said all the eastern candidates were told from the start that no derogations are expected. None of the first-wave countries (Poland, Hungary, Slovenia, Estonia, and the Czech Republic) have asked for derogations during their two years of negotiations, and the official said none are expected from second-wave candidates. Not all the candidates are happy about the EU's hard line, as some see undertones of political self-interest to it. Front-runners like Hungary hint that this approach by Brussels could be designed to slow entry. EU enlargement negotiator Landaburu denies that political pressure has any impact on the enlargement process. But it is clear that pressure exists in many forms. One example is provided by the foreign minister in Austria's controversial new rightist government, Benita Ferrero-Waldner. She says Austria wants a period of restriction on the movement of people and services from the east into the EU in order to protect Austrian jobs and companies. Germany also favors such a restrictive period. Senior EU figures, including Landaburu and Enlargement Commissioner Guenter Verheugen, are adamant that setting dates for the entry of new members is a pointless exercise at this stage. In short, it seems that the second-wave countries have a long haul ahead of them. 20-03-00 Reprinted with permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
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