BELGRADE – Croatia’s insistence on amendments to the Serbian law on regional jurisdiction over war crimes is a bilateral demand as no consensus on making such a demand has been reached at EU level, Serbia’s chief EU negotiator Tanja Miscevic said Monday.Negotiation chapters 23 and 24 in Serbia’s EU accession talks will be opened on Monday, Miscevic said.
“After this, affairs in the negotiation process should by no means remain the same as before the opening of the two chapters, and that is a sign that we are making progress,” Miscevic told the Politika daily.
On the day of the opening of the chapters, Croatia wants Serbia to voice its position on the implementation of the jurisdiction law, Tanjug’s unofficial sources have said.
However, the sources said Serbia would be making no further statements on the jurisdiction of its war crimes court.
The EU has already rejected a Croatian demand that Serbia scrap its law on regional jurisdiction in war crimes trials, noting that such laws already existed in some EU member states.
As a compromise, the EU’s draft common position on Chapter 23, seen by Tanjug, expects Serbia to ensure thorough regional cooperation and good-neighbourly relations in dealing with war crimes, including avoidance of conflicts of jurisdiction.