FM Dacic: For the First Time in History, A Non-Sovereign Entity Has Been Nominated for SE Membership

Ivica Dacic (BETAPHOTO/MILOS MISKOV)

Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic has stated that April 16 was a “day of shame” for the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe [PACE] due to the vote on accepting Kosovo into the organization.

“For the first time in history, a membership bid has been put in for something that is not a state and also does not respect the fundamentals of human rights and freedoms. To the contrary, for 11 years [Kosovo] has refused to form a Community of Serb Municipalities, which is [Kosovo’s] international obligation [and] has been implementing a policy of terror and ethnic cleansing against the [local] Serbian people,” the minister said in an official statement released by the Serbian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

On April 16, the PACE voted in favor of Kosovo joining the Council of Europe and called on the CoE Committee of Ministers to approve Kosovo’s bid.

“This decision, forced by the international powers that be, undermines the very foundations of the Council of Europe and international law,” Dacic stressed, adding that Serbia “will, with all its might, continue to fight the adoption of said decision at the May 16 [session of] the Committee of Ministers.”

“Then we’ll see how much the international community’s word is worth, since they promised President Aleksandar Vucic that Kosovo would not be admitted into the CoE until it formed a Community of Serb Municipalities. Unless that proves to be yet another lie,” Dacic concluded in the press release.