Paris, 20 June, 2006 – Serbian Foreign Affairs Minister Vuk Draskovic said on Tuesday that if Kosovo were granted independence, Serbia would backtrack on its application for European Union membership.

In a speech to the WEU Assembly, he warned that Euro-enthusiasm would scarcely be possible in his country if Serbs felt humiliated. He warned that retrogressive forces (supporters of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosovic) would probably take over power in Belgrade and for those forces, the European Union, the United States and NATO were enemies. The result would be dangerous turmoil throughout the entire region.

Independence for Kosovo, he said, violated both history and the law. Until the end of the first world war, Montenegro was an internationally recognised sovereign state. This had never been the case for Kosovo. The question was whether the status of Kosovo would be solved by “might of right or right of might”?

Mr Draskovic acknowledged that the capture of General Ratko Mladic, a pre-condition for negotiations on Serbia’s admission to the EU, was “Serbia’s moral and national obligation.” But he added that if he were the European Commission, he would judge the future of a country and 8 million of its citizens more important than one man running away from a wanted poster.

At a joint press conference with Mr Draskovic, Honorary Assembly President and co-Rapporteur of the Council of Europe Committee for Monitoring, Charles Goerens (Luxembourg, Liberal Group) said that during a recent visit to Belgrade, he had been struck by young Serbians’ refusal to be held hostage to Mladic’s capture. On the other hand, EU citizens were less than enthusiastic about further enlargement.

Responding to questions from the floor, Mr Draskovic said he did not know where Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic were, but the latter was not in Serbia. He admitted that his government had erred six years ago when it failed to dismantle former President Milosovic’s intelligence services. “We believed we could re-educate them, but you can’t pour new wine into old bottles,” he said. Mr Draskovic had appealed for help from the CIA and from European intelligence services in finding Mladic, while continuing to negotiate Serbia’s entry into the EU. He predicted that if that call were heeded, Ratko Mladic would surrender within a month.

Explaining the Serbian Government’s opposition to independence for Kosovo, Mr Draskovic said that the province was geographically part of Serbia, “not by the wish of Serbian hegemony, but by the wish of God.” A politically and economically isolated Kosovo would create no jobs for the 80% of Albanians who were now unemployed. “You cannot eat independence,” Mr Draskovic said.

Stating his government’s position clearly, he said that it was not Serbia’s aim to rule Kosovo, and that Albanians should be in  charge, on condition that – with international guarantees – they respected Serbs’ rights, pledging not to kill or expel them and not to destroy any more churches and monasteries. The Albanians should also pledge to respect Serbia’s borders with Albania and Macedonia, as Serbia had no intention of policing them. He added, however, that his government was prepared to compromise about those borders.

Mr Draskovic had harsh words for the double standards adopted by the international community. Both Serbs and Albanians were responsible for ethnic cleansing, but Albanians might be “rewarded for their crimes” with independence for Kosovo. He added that he understood Kosovans’ desire for independence, but did not understand their refusal to stop victimising Serbs while negotiations were in progress. It was like students saying that they would have a university diploma first, as a condition for starting their studies.

He denied allegations by Human Rights Watch of deliberate attacks against minorities in Serbia. He acknowledged that members of minorities were victims of violence by hooligans, but that had nothing to do with their ethnic origins.

Asked about the possible return of Serbs to Kosovo, Mr Draskovic said that even if there were links between an independent Kosovo and Serbia, the 220 000 Serbs expelled from Kosovo in 1999 would not return, for fear of new Albanian atrocities, and that the remaining Serbs would leave if a second Albanian state were created in the Balkans.