Details of state platform for Kosovo emerge in media

Source: Beta

BELGRADE -- Belgrade will seek "autonomy for all Serbian municipalities in Kosovo", reads a draft state platform for Kosovo that Beta news agency has seen.

In the document, the Serbian authorities demand a high level of territorial and political autonomy for the Serb municipalities, "modeled after Catalonia", and they also want autonomy to be guaranteed by the province’s highest legal bills and that the international community officials, who are taking part in the negotiations, stand behind it.
The municipalities of Gračanica, Štrpce - south of the Ibar River - and others should also be a part of the autonomous area, aside from the northern Kosovo municipalities. The platform also requests that smaller enclaves, such as villages, be given a status of municipalities and a special status.

The Serbian authorities stressed in the document that a starting point for the negotiations with Priština is that “pursuant to the international law, and further to its Constitution and the will of the people, the Republic of Serbia does not and will never recognize Kosovo’s unilaterally declared independence”.

The main principle of the negotiations will be that “nothing is agreed upon until everything is agreed upon,” reads the platform.

The autonomous Serbian municipalities should, according to the draft, have an exclusive competence in the field of education, healthcare, judiciary, internal affairs, sport, culture, media, environment protection, urban planning, agriculture, forestry, mining, energy, telecommunications, trade, economic and fiscal policies, finance etc.

It is also demanded in the platform that the Autonomous Community of Serbian Municipalities in Kosovo be guaranteed a possibility to have direct cooperation with the Belgrade authorities, including additional financing from the Serbian state budget.

The Autonomous Serbian Community will independently decide on the choice and use of symbols, reads the document. Other elements of the internal organization, the election of authorities will be decided through a political dialogue, it is written in the document.

Belgrade also demands that special ties between the Serbian Orthodox Church (SPC) and the Priština authorities be established, as well as international guarantees for issues of church assets and activities in Kosovo.

A political solution adopted in the negotiations envisages guarantees in the province’s highest legal bills for the return of displaced Serbs.

U.S. analyst Daniel Serwer published an article on his website on Wednesday dubbed "Fantasyland", noting that “anyone who thought that Serbia was softening its position on Kosovo and would yield to sweet reason has to be disappointed”. He added that the platform represents a “giant step backwards in Serbia’s position”.

Serbian President Tomislav Nikolić on Thursday started a series of meetings with leaders of opposition parties, to whom he will present the platform for Kosovo.