EU bids to bolster Milosevic’s opponents

Date: 07/10/1999

By Simon Taylor

EU FOREIGN ministers will unveil a package of measures designed to boost support for opponents of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic's regime when they meet Serbian opposition leaders next week.

The move comes at a crucial time for opposition groups as protests grow in Belgrade against Milosevic's rule.

When foreign ministers meet in Luxembourg next Monday (11 October), they will unveil a 'Contract for Serbia' setting out how the Union will help the country once it has held free elections, ousted Milosevic and adopted international standards on human rights and democratisation.

The incentives include reconstruction funds to help repair the damage caused by NATO's three-month long air campaign, an end to existing sanctions, and the possibility of closer economic and political relations with the Union.

The initiative is designed to demonstrate to the Serbian people the advantages of ousting Milosevic and ending the country's isolation. As a first display of the benefits of democratisation, EU foreign ministers will launch a plan to provide oil supplies to two towns run by opponents of Milosevic, including the southern city of Nis where 20,000 people recently attended an opposition rally.

The Serbian people are facing a severe shortage of fuel supplies this winter as a result of the NATO attacks, the Union's embargo on fuel supplies and the near-bankrupt state of Serbia's economy.

But EU governments are split over whether to lift other sanctions on Serbia such as the ban on flights to and from the country. France, Greece and Italy argue that this would send an important signal to the Serbian people but others, including the UK, say it would only benefit the ruling elite because the national carrier is owned and controlled by the government.

Doubts are also growing over the wisdom of insisting that Milosevic and other indicted war criminals be handed over for trial to the international tribunal in the Hague, with some diplomats warning that this could be seen as unreasonable by the Serbian people.

The EU has invited up to 30 Serbian political leaders from opposition parties to next week's meeting, including Vuk Draskovic, head of the nationalist Serbian Renewal Movement, who was injured last weekend in a road accident he claims was an assassination attempt. Politicians from the seven-party coalition Alliance for Change are also expected to attend.

Milosevic has launched a crackdown on the growing wave of street protests against the rule of his Serbian Socialist Party. But hopes that public protests could topple him in the same way that demonstrators faced down security forces in Romania and East Germany ten years ago have been undermined by the refusal of Draskovic's movement to give full support to demonstrations organised by the Alliance for Change.

EU Foreign Ministers will unveil a package of measures designed to boost support for opponents of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic's regime when they meet Serbian opposition leaders in Luxembourg, 11.10.99.