De crisis in Oekraïne: een kijk op de zaak door Idesbald Goddeeris

'Wat Verhofstadt in Oekraïne doet is ofwel dom ofwel pervers'

Slavist en historicus Idesbald Goddeeris (KULeuven) heeft bedenkingen bij de politiek van de Europese Unie in Oekraïne. Bovendien zijn er ultra-fascisten onder de demonstranten. Een gesprek over olie op het vuur in een complex conflict.

Beluister het gesprek op radio 1

Croatia EU referendum: Voters back membership

Near complete results from Croatia's referendum on European Union membership suggest that a large majority of people want to join the EU in 2013.

With nearly 99% of the votes counted, 66% of voters backed the membership. About 33% were against.
But officials expressed disappointment at the low turnout of about 44%.
Croatia signed an EU accession treaty last year and should join in July 2013, once all 27 existing members of the union have ratified the deal.
It would come more than 20 years after Croatia broke away from Yugoslavia, which triggered a 1991-95 war to secure its independence.

'Historic decision'
On Sunday, voters in Croatia were asked "Do you support the Republic of Croatia's membership of the European Union?"
A simple majority was required for membership to be approved. There was no minimum threshold in order for the poll to be valid.

All the major political parties in Croatia favour joining the EU, despite the financial crisis engulfing the organisation.

"It is a historic decision... possibly a turning point in our history," Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic said after the vote.
EU supporters say membership is the best option for the country in the long term.
Opponents of the "yes" vote - non-parliamentary, nationalist and army veteran groups - earlier warned of a loss of sovereignty, just two decades after Croatia became an independent state.
"The turnout shows that Croatia has turned its back on the EU," said war veteran Zeljko Sacic, one of the leaders of the "no" campaign.
Croatia itself is currently suffering from high unemployment and other economic problems.
"Croatia will not lose its sovereignty or natural resources, nor will it be ruled by the EU," President Ivo Josipovic said in a written statement.
"Europe will not solve all our problems, but it's a great opportunity."
The EU described the result as good news for the Balkan region.
"The upcoming accession of Croatia sends a clear signal to the whole region of south-eastern Europe. It shows that through political courage and determined reforms, EU membership is within reach," the EU said in a statement.

National hero
Enthusiasm in Croatia for EU membership has waned from a high point several years ago, the BBC's Central Europe correspondent Nick Thorpe says.
However, not only do all the main parliamentary parties support the move, but most of the minority Serbs do too, he adds.
And in a surprise move, Croatia's wartime military commander Ante Gotovina - currently serving a long sentence abroad for war crimes against Serbs - earlier sent a message to his compatriots urging them to vote "yes" in the referendum.
Gotovina's flight from a war crimes indictment by The Hague - and Zagreb's perceived half-heartedness in tracking him and other war crimes suspects down - delayed Croatia's EU bid.
His conviction in 2011 sparked a surge of anti-European sentiment in Croatia, where he is viewed by many as a national hero.

source: BBC News

“...we are focused, we are determined and we will make a difference.”

Vandaag is de EU-missie EULEX eindelijk van start gegaan. Eulex is de grootste civiele EU-missie ooit, met 1.900 agenten en juristen die de Kosovaarse politie, douane en rechtbanken zullen ondersteunen en controleren. De EU-missie neemt die taken over van de VN-missie Unmik, die Kosovo sinds het einde van de oorlog met Servië in 1999 bestuurt. De missie werd gevormd in februari 2008, toen de Servische provincie Kosovo eenzijdig de onafhankelijkheid uitriep en bijna alle EU-landen die erkenden. Als ingangsdatum voor Eulex werd toen juni 2008 vooropgesteld. Maar de officiële overdracht van het gezag van de VN (die zich neutraal opstelt tegenover Kosovo’s status) aan de EU (die de onafhankelijkheid steunt) werd in de VN-Veiligheidsraad maandenlang vertraagd door Rusland. Moskou steunt Servië in zijn verzet tegen de onafhankelijkheid van Kosovo. Pas twee weken geleden werd Rusland overgehaald mee te werken, zodat Eulex nu eindelijk aan het werk kan. Dat gebeurde pas nadat de EU akkoord was gegaan met een wat vaag ‘zespuntenplan’ van VN-secretaris-generaal Ban Ki-moon. Dat plan, waarin staat dat Eulex ‘onder de paraplu van de VN’ en ‘binnen een status-neutraal kader’ zal opereren, kwam tegemoet aan de Russisch-Servische wensen. Maar de Kosovo-Albanezen voelen zich door het plan verraden. Bijna alle EU-landen hebben Kosovo’s onafhankelijkheid erkend, maar nu is hun missie plots ‘status-neutraal’. In Pristina werden vorige week twee grote anti-Eulexmarsen gehouden, met telkens duizenden Kosovo-Albanese deelnemers. Tijdens een van die marsen werd op het grijze hoofdgebouw van Eulex een veelzeggend slogan geklad: ‘Eulex, made in Serbia’. De Albanezen vrezen ook dat het zespuntenplan betekent dat de VN-missie niet zal worden vervangen in het door Serviërs bewoonde noorden van Kosovo en dat het scenario van de splitsing van Kosovo daardoor dichterbij komt. De Servische Kosovaren op hun beurt geloven niet dat Eulex werkelijk neutraal is ten opzichte van Kosovo’s status. ‘We zullen niet gewelddadig zijn, we zullen niet met Eulex vechten, maar we zullen Eulex simpelweg negeren’, zei Marko Jaksic, parlementslid van het (illegale) Kosovo-Servische parlement. Volgens europarlementslid en Kosovo-kenner Joost Lagendijk is het zespuntenplan met opzet ‘ambigu en multi-interpretabel’ gemaakt, omdat dat ‘de enige manier was om iedereen zijn handtekening eronder te laten zetten’. Hij is er zeker van dat het wel goed zit met de interpretatie van Eulex van het zespuntenplan. ‘Ik heb met verscheidene diplomaten gesproken en ben ervan overtuigd geraakt dat ze in heel Kosovo aan het werk zullen gaan, ook in het noorden. Ze zullen een rigoureuze streep trekken tussen Unmik en Eulex.’

Yves de Kermabon, hoofd van EULEX is alvast overtuigd van succes op lange termijn:

“Our goals will not be achieved overnight. People will have to be patient. But I assure you, we are focused, we are determined and we will make a difference.”

bron: de Volkskrant, EULEX, EUobserver

Servië goed op weg

Sonja Licht, the president of the Belgrade Fund for Political Excellence wrote today a nice comment on the historical changes Serbia has undergone the past few months.

The European Union countries have signed a Stabilisation and Association Agreement with Serbia, an unambiguously pro-European coalition led by President Boris Tadić has won the election and put in place a forward-looking government, and the former Bosnian Serb nationalist leader Radovan Karadzić was extradited to the UN war-crimes tribunal in The Hague.

Yet, there are still many widespread prejudices about Serbia in the international media and public opinion. The two most well known are that the majority of Serbs continue to harbour essentially nationalist and anti-European views, and that the Serbian state's co-operation with the International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) is reluctant and incomplete.

The extradition of Karadzić is an appropriate backdrop against which to address both of these prejudices. Beliefs about irreducible nationalism of the Serbian people are rooted in the memories of the Balkan wars and often enhanced by mental inertia and outdated thinking on the part of some international observers and analysts. They overlook the fact that in two presidential elections, in 2004 and 2008, the democratic pro-European candidate Boris Tadić won against the ultra-nationalist candidate Tomislav Nikolić from the Serbian Radical Party. They also ignore the fact that the Serbian Radical Party has been continuously out of power since Slobodan Milosević was overthrown in October 2000.

When other parties, formerly belonging to the democratic pro-European political block, decided to join the Radicals during the parliamentary and local elections in May 2008, they all lost. By any conceivable measure, the politics of nationalism and isolation are a losing ticket in Serbia today. The real winner of these elections has been the pro-European coalition, led by Mr Tadic.

This victory was particularly remarkable when you consider that less than three months after Kosovo declared independence from Serbia this coalition named the "List for European Serbia" received 10 percent more votes than the Serbian Radical Party. За европску Србију is a coalition of Demokratska stranka, G17 Plus (liberal-conservative), Srpski pokret obnove (liberal-conservative), Liga socijaldemokrata Vojvodine (centre-left) and Sandžačka demokratska partija. One has to keep in mind that Kosovo is understood by the majority of Serbs as the cradle of the Serbian nation and its history. There is no doubt that the formal separation of Kosovo from Serbia (it has been under international rule from June 1999) and the recognition of this new state by the US and the majority of the European Union member states remain a genuine trauma for the Serbian people. Yet they have made a principled choice to stick to the European path in the most difficult of circumstances. It was a significant test, and Serbia passed. On 11 May not only the parliament and the government of Serbia changed, but the entire political map of the country did. The Serbian Radical Party used to be the single strongest party in at least two-third of municipalities across the country. Now, it is the "List for European Serbia." Defeated at the ballot box, the Radicals are also broken following their post-election split and the decision of one of their most influential leaders to form a new pro-European party.

Serbian politics are being permanently realigned around the democratic and European vision of President Tadic. If one tries to understand how important this change might be for the future of the country and the entire Balkan region, one should also pay attention to the fact that 70 percent of the Serbian population steadily supports the perspective of joining the European Union, according to successive opinion polls.

It is important to stress that the protest meeting against the arrest and extradition of Karadzic did not gather more than 15,000 participants out of a population of more than 10 million. This was many fewer that international observers had been expecting and only a fraction of those who would have turned out a few years ago.

Why is it that the Serbian people have made such a strong choice in favour of Europe and democracy? Why is it that even those opposed to the extradition of war-crime indictees did not take to the streets after Karadzić was sent to The Hague?

The answer - according Sonja Licht - is that the majority of citizens have rejected the backward looking politics of nationalism and made a genuine commitment to a different kind of future based on European values. In doing so, they have proved to be more mature and politically responsible than a great part of their political class.

Press release 2897th meeting of the Council General Affairs and External Relations

Conclusies bijeenkomst Raad van Ministers van 15 september over Wit-Rusland, Oezbekistan en Georgië

The Council noted with satisfaction that, following the deployment by the EU of a civilian observer mission in Georgia, Russian troops had withdrawn from the zones adjacent to South Ossetia and Abkhazia. This was an additional step in the implementation of the agreements of 12 August and 8 September, which were concluded with the mediation of the European Union following the conflict last summer. The Council reaffirmed the willingness of the EU to take an active part in the international discussions on Georgia, which are set to commence on 15 October in Geneva under the auspices of the EU, the UN and the OSCE. These discussions must focus on all the remaining problems, in particular that concerning arrangements for security and stability in the region and the urgent question of displaced persons. The Council further noted with satisfaction that some progress had been made, compared with previous elections, during the recent electoral campaign in Belarus, even though the parliamentary elections held on 28 September failed to meet the democratic criteria of the OSCE. In this context, it hoped for gradual re-engagement with this country and decided to restore the contacts which it had restricted in November 2004. A meeting between the Council troika and the Belarusian Minister for Foreign Affairs took place in the margins of the meeting. Moreover, in order to encourage dialogue with the Belarusian authorities and the adoption of measures to strengthen democracy and respect for human rights, the Council decided that the travel restrictions currently imposed on certain leading figures would not apply for a period of six months which may be reviewed. At the end of that period, the Council will reconsider the situation in the light of the progress made by the Belarusian authorities. In the case of Uzbekistan, the Council welcomed the progress achieved in the last year with regard to respect for the rule of law and the protection of human rights, while remaining concerned about the situation in some domains. It called on the Uzbek authorities to fulfil all their obligations in this respect and is prepared to assist Uzbekistan in its reforming efforts. In this context, it decided not to renew the travel restrictions applying to certain individuals, which had been suspended in October 2007 and April 2008, but would be renewing the arms embargo for a period of 12 months.