Serbian Prime Minister Offers Germany Assistance in Implementing Odihr Recommendations

Ana Brnabic (Photo: Serbian Government/Slobodan Miljevic)

Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabic continued on March 2 a debate on X with Michael Roth, chairman of the Bundestag’s Committee on Foreign Affairs, offering the German parliament assistance in implementing the recommendations of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR).

“You may call me if you need support in implementing the ODIHR recommendations. As a country that has been cooperating almost daily with the ODIHR since 2019, we are always ready to help. It is not easy, but you can do it,” Brnabic wrote on X (formerly Twitter). She reacted strongly on March 1 to an appeal by the German Federal Foreign Office that Serbia meet all of the recommendations prescribed by the OSCE/ODIHR in the organization’s final report on Serbia’s parliamentary and local elections last December, and to a statement by Roth describing the polls as neither fair nor free.

The Serbian prime minister said that the German parliament had failed to implement a single recommendation by the OSCE/ODIHR for over 10 years, opening a heated debate with Roth on X. The German parliamentarian explained to her that an independent institution like the ODIHR had never confirmed huge election irregularities, organised the fixing of voter rolls or the transportation of phantom voters in Germany. Brnabic responded that he was commenting on the ODIHR report before he had actually read it, and that he was commenting on “arguments and allegations” voiced by the opposition, not facts.